NAME:
Mr. M. E. Arroyo
SCHOOL:
Steinmetz Academic Centre
CLASS:
Early World History
SCHOOL PHONE:
773 534-3030
"Good teachers are those who know how little they know. Bad teachers are those
who think they know more than they don't know."
-- R. Verdi
"The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires
his listener with the wish to teach himself."
-- Edward Bulwer-Lytton
"A teacher cannot build a community of learners unless the voices and lives of
the students are an integral part of the curriculum." -- Peterson
"A man is not a man if he doesn't make the world a better place" -- Kingdom Of
Heaven
As far as myself, I am a product of Steinmetz Academic Centre with the
Class of 1994. I am proud of my graduation from Steinmetz Academic
Centre and use this statement as my opener on the first day of class. Since it
hasn't been that long since I was a student here at Steinmetz, I have the
unique perspective of seeing things from the student's perspective as well as
from a teacher perspective.
After Steinmetz, like many of you surely will, I went to Wilbur Wright
Junior College where I obtained my Associates Degree followed by Northeastern
Illinois University where I graduated in 2000 with a BA and double majored in
Secondary Education and History.
Since we were born, ideas and influences have shaped our lives into what
they are today. These ideas have numerous sources such as: family members,
religious figures, books, internet sites, magazines and television, and the
general society that we live in. Something else to keep in mind is that when
we were young (and sought help to gain an understanding from others) what
these people told us we assumed to always be true. In a sense, we are all
naive and some of us still retain that trait.
As a result, these influences and ideas that we assumed were true, mold
and shape how we process information. This forms the foundation of our belief
structure we hold for life. As new information is given to us, we as
individuals decide whether it is a reliable and fact based statement or
something that is trivial and not worth remembering by checking the new
information against our existing belief system. It is because of this, I refer
to the brain as being "a box".
Inside this "box", things are very comfortable and safe because they are
filled with the ideas from when we grew up. However, there is a much larger
world outside the "box" that we live in. Sometimes the world outside the "box"
is a swarm of chaotic thoughts and ideas just jumbled around with no sense of
direction. It is so vast, we can not put the right words attached to this and
so we summarize and say that it is "too big." Perhaps some of these thoughts
do deserve a closer look at to greater understand not only ourselves on a
deeper level but to understand differing people and ideas as well.
The purpose of this class is to develop Critical Thinking skills which
are a life necessity. People of all walks of life far too often blindly agree
and go along with the status quo/social beliefs without questioning why they
are doing it. By thinking critically about these kinds of issues, not only
will you be more informed and well rounded, you will also be able to be a more
productive member of society and become perhaps an influence yourself within
your community. The purpose of this class is not to promote you to the next
level whether it be college, trade school or entering the workforce, it is a
promotion in life skills.
The other major facet of this class is to get the understanding to
students that ALL subjects are intertwined with each other. To achieve this
goal, this class is taught in a pro-student, interesting and sometimes
humorous way.
To explain my philosophy on education, I use the analogy of a spoke
wheel. The center of the wheel (the hub) is History. The spokes that come out
of the hub are the other subjects that are taken: Math, Science, Music, Art,
Language, Literature and even Physical Ed. classes. My goal is to show
students that the subjects taken all have relevance to each other, which sadly
is sometimes forgotten within the educational system in general.
