Center for Transformative Leadership in Education

Hello. My name is DaLena. I am working on a transformative leadership project with three of my fellow classmates. Our project is how make sure new students who hoping to become members of the College of Education be more aware of what they are getting into. This project focuses on my group members and I being mentors to those prospective people. I believe being mentoring in the College of Education will be good because there may be some us who think teaching is just about standing in front of students professing our knowledge then giving worksheets to see if they comprehend. However, it is so much more that. I really learned in EDUC 3200 and my other higher level ELEM classes that teaching invoves alot of politics.

So I got to thinking, and observing how classes are taught. Usually at the University level you have about 100 or so in the general classes, and then once you get into the core of your degree, the classes become smaller. This typically allows for better opportunities to interact with your peers who are going to be in the same subject area as yourself. One thing that I have noticed in the college, is that testing seems to have become more technologically advanced. Testing seems to take place on the computer than more so in the classroom. This is really irritating to myself, as I seem to test better when in the classroom than at home or the computer lab taking a test. The concentration is ten times better in the classroom than else where.

Recently, our class has started our projects on either a Professional Leadership Project or a Transformative Leadership Project.My 2 partners and I decided to do Transformative Leadership, and our goal is to add two more classes to the Education Curriculum that focuses on multiculturalism and teaches students about other cultures. The reason we chose to do this is because slowly our community is becoming more and more diverse within culture, and if we plan on being effective teachers, we must have background knowledge of other cultures.We plan on talking to Debbie Oneal, Vivian Covington, and Roxene Barrett in order to get our ideas across, and hopefully be able to start the process of implementing our idea.

Recently my education class at East Carolina University we have been discussing how people view the teacing profession. It really makes me mad that most people think that teaching is not a real profession and that we are just babysitters while our students children are at work. What I don't understand is how these "educated" people can say these things because without teachers they wouldn't be in the profession they are in today. When I tell people what my major is it seems like half the people support me but the other half say oh your just going to be a teacher. Some people even say that why did you pick an easy major when I am so smart and I could have done so much more. I totally disagree with people that think teaching is easy or dosen't take brains.