Dale+Rothermel

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Hi. My name is Dale Rothermel. I am in my second semester at Chatham MAT elementary ed program. I just moved to Pittsburgh about 6 months ago from California, where I had been working as a naturalist at an outdoor school called Rancho Alegre, located in the mountains just outside Santa Barbara. I received my bachelor's degree in Outdoor Environmental Education from Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. I also worked as a naturalist intern at another outdoor school outside San Francisco called Walker Creek Ranch. .

I loved working in environmental education; it allowed to me to get paid (albeit not that much..) to do two things I enjoy the most: being outside in the wilderness and working with kids. The way outdoor school works, in a nutshell is:classes of 5th and 6th graders from the surrounding areas would come to our school and stay for four days and nights. We would take the kids out on hikes on our site, which was 250 acres surrounded by BLM land. We taught subjects such as: geology, animal adaptations, edible plants, photosynthesis, and astronomy. We also led a 9-mile hike up a mountain, brought kids rock-hopping, and showed them how to make earth art (inspired by Andy Goldsworthy). Team work and environmental sustainability were also an emphasis of the program. Think summer camp...but one that happens during the school year and meets the science and environmental studies state standards. Good times.

As I see myself headed towards work in a more "traditional" school setting, I would like to incorporate aspects of the outdoor ed model. I saw firsthand that kids respond very positively to experiential education. I would like to bring the idea of experiential education into the classroom, in terms of both environmental education as well as all other aspects of learning. As a teacher, I would like to take a child's natural curiosity for the world and use that to guide their education through hands-on activities. Rachel Carson put this idea well when she wrote: "If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in." I have always loved working with children, and I feel that teaching is an act of social justice, and a way to participate in building the type of world that I would like to see: one that values creativity and uniqueness, one that is invested in communities and is conscious of the interconnectedness of all living things. School should be a place of excitement and inquiry.

As an educator, I would like to help children learn how to learn, how to ask questions, and how to act on ones' beliefs. I would like to learn from my students and be able to change and grow with them. I think it's important to build community within the classroom, and foster respect for each other in a way that will hopefully be reflected in our society.

I recently finished reading Jonathan Kozol's //Amazing Grace//. This book was very sad as well as eye-opening. It is about the racial inequalities that exist in our country, with an emphasis on the effect this has on children. I would like to participate in providing a quality education for underprivileged children.

I also love to travel, and would like to someday live and teach abroad.

Here are some quotes that I feel help sum up my educational philosophy:

"I entered the classroom with the conviction that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer...education as the practice of freedom.... education that connects the will to know with the will to become. Learning is a place where paradise can be created."  — [|bell hooks]

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."  -- Albert Einstein

Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself. ** [|John Dewey] **

“If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow.” Rachel Carson

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. ** [|William Butler Yeats] **