Looking for Virtual Elementary Teachers to be Science & Social Studies Mentors

Calling all elementary teachers!  Do you love teaching science and social studies? I need you!

I would love to connect my graduate students with virtual mentors on how to teach science and social studies in PK-6 classrooms this fall semester.  It will be a great opportunity for teacher candidates to see the power of global collaboration, as well as an opportunity to learn with you and your students.  I envision Skype sessions, virtual science experiments and social studies projects happening together!  If interested, please let me know how I can best contact you.  I see higher education changing.  Please consider being a part of this exciting virtual mentoring program!

I can also be reached at mcurran@sjc.edu.

The Utter Joy of Curiosity

Children come to school curious about how the world works and over time we squelch that curiosity out of them by not fostering and further developing it.  I teach an elementary science and social studies methods course and I’m constantly trying to reconnect my graduate students back to their childhood and back to their innate curiosity.

Now that I’m a mother of a four year old, I’m even more aware of just how curious children are.  Every Friday the two of us plan our Friday Fun Day.  My son takes the lead and decides what we’ll do and this Friday was science experiment day.  Experiencing “dancing raisins” through his eyes was one of those moments I’ll cherish my entire life.

After reading Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School and Ready Freddy?! I am really questioning why elementary schools don’t focus more on social studies, science and curiosity in general?  There’s such a push for reading, writing and mathematics (not that I’m knocking those subjects, but social studies and science go hand in hand with curiosity).  How do we change this? Certainly by making sure preschool is not like school and we’re not trying so hard to make our children “kindergarten ready” because if that’s the focus, we miss this…

And I certainly don’t want to miss a second of it!