Already, in the short time that I have been in college I have found that some people have a negative opinion of education majors. While in high school I would tell adults that I planned to major in education and they would always say how great that was. Now when I mention it to my fellow peers I am sometimes responded by remarks like, “Ohhh…” and “Well, okay..” , while the conversation awkwardly ends and negative thoughts run through their mind. College students seem to think that education majors are simply people that can’t do anything else so they decide to become teachers. I think that this stereotype came about because of the large number of people, mostly girls that decide to become teachers when they don’t know what else to do or don’t really want to do anything.
Personally this makes me kind of upset because I have always had a passion for teaching. I have wanted to be a teacher for most of my life and have always loved working with kids. I feel that to be an effective teacher you have to have at least some passion about it. People are basing what they think about teachers and education majors on a certain group of students, which is not fair. I have found myself almost becoming embarrassed to tell other students what my major is, fearing the way they might judge me. This is not something that I want to do; I want to be proud of my major and my passion. If these people would just think about it, there could not be any other major without education majors to teach students in the first place.
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Just as an aside, Courtney you're absolutely right that it happens. I often find myself looking down on education for not only being an undesirable major for me personally but also for the number of good-looking women that are education majors. Not because there is anything wrong with good-looking women, but that I have met a few girls here at A&M who are just looking to get married. But all that aside, I thought it was very emotionally persuasive, and it added a good personal experience. However, at the end of your argument you kind of flail out and don't end on a strong point. You should complete the thought at the end about how none of us would be here without education majors, about how important early education is and so forth. You can quantify the value of teachers better.
After reading this blog, I really had to sit back and ask myself if I believed it or not. I mean, I know how hard some of my friends work in their children lit classes, so I wasn't entirely convinced. But when I thought about it a little more, I realized that many people besides myself do actually think their majors are superior to those who are pursuing early childhood education. So yes, I think you had a very good argument that really made people look and see, A, how they feel about the subject and B, how they perceive other's reactions to the argument.
While it was persuasive from the personal side, I believe that if you added some kind of data into your argument that you could turn a few more people into see your side of the story... concrete evidence to support. Also, the end of the argument just seemed to stop, and it felt like just a finishing touch would have wrapped everything else up nicely.
On a personal note, my mother graduated with high honors from Texas A&M with a BS in Microbiology. She taught at the the Texas Department of Health for 6 years before she left her job to be a stay at home mom. Once my brother started kindergarten, she decided to go into teaching and has now worked as a Kindergarten Science teacher for 13 years and she LOVES it. She may have started out with a major and a job that no one thought twice to question, but in the end, it was about what she wanted to do.
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