Reflection 3

A paradigm is basically one's view point. Paradigms shape how people view the world and react to different situations. I think that when we're born we have no paradigms; this is mainly because everything is new to us. But as we grow up and grow older, we begin to develop many paradigms. Anything can be a paradigm.
A paradigm shift occurs when something we once believed to be true no longer holds any substance with us or no longer makes any sense. Let's take an Amish girl for example. When the Amish reach a certain age, they're allowed to leave the community to 'see the world' and decide if they want to stay with the religion or not. An Amish girl seeing a female doctor or a female working period is going to feel awkward because women in the Amish community don't work. Once this Amish girl gets a hold of technology her world will truly be rocked because they don't have all those things like computers, cell phone, etc. in their community. This girl is either going to look through her original lens of being Amish and say "all these things are wrong and I can definitely live without them" or she's going to have a paradigm shift and possible leave the Amish community so she can pursue a life in the modern world.
I, personally, have had a paradigm shift in the gender area. Growing up, I used to watch Leave it to Beaver and Bewitched. The mothers on these shows were all housewives and stayed at home to take care of their children and husbands. Now my mother has been working all my life and I don't know any stay at home moms but for some reason I thought that all women should stay at home and behave as Mrs. Cleaver and Samantha. The fact that I didn't know anyone with that luxury really caused me to question that belief. By middle school I knew I had to change that paradigm in my life. I had to understand that in modern do society, women had careers; and not just secretarial jobs to keep them busy. I shifted my paradigm into believing that it was nothing wrong with women who had jobs and careers.
As a teacher, you're going to have many different students. Majority of your students won't have any of the same paradigms as you; they're going to come from many different backgrounds and have totally different experiences than you. If you're stuck seeing every child that acts out as a problem child who just needs to be beat than you're not going to have a very long career. You have to look at each student with fresh eyes and be able to understand the differences you'll see in your classroom so that you're able to teach everyone to the best of your ability.