Being Literate in Your Content Area & In Society

   As a teacher, it is important to know what you are teaching. It seems so obvious "know what your teaching" but you would be surprised how many teachers are not as educated in their study as much as they should be. In order to teach your content area to kids, you yourself must be well informed of the information. You must also be prepared to answer any and all questions a child would ask.    In order to be considered literate, you must have a knowledge or specific skill in certain areas. For example high school teachers only have one subject to be immersed in and devoted to, which could be looked as both lucky and unlucky. On one side they only have to know, one subject. However, since they only need to know one subject they must know it extremely well; especially because, they are dealing with an older group of students, who might have a variety of tough questions for them.

  On the elementary teacher side of being literate in their content area, is a whole other story. They must know a little bit of everything, for their age group. They too must know a significant amount of all of their subjects, but not as in detail as a high school teacher.

   Along with knowing your subject/subjects well, you also need to keep updated in your society. This could mean keep updated in the news, with technology or as simple as know your students a personal level. This will make a huge difference with your student and teacher relationship. I know the teachers I had that actually cared about getting to know me, were and are the ones I wanted to talk to if there was ever any problems that arose.

 In Conclusion, teachers should make themselves aware of all surrounding societies to benefit their classroom. A good teacher is on that will educate their students in the classroom, and then further educate themselves at home. A teacher’s job is never ending, there is always going to be more to learn.