Still not sure but here’s what I’m thinking…

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As many of you know, I have been leaning towards delving into student teachers’ and (maybe) practicing teachers’ alcohol use and its relationship with stress as a decompression mechanism.  My curiosity has stemmed from general observations and interactions I have had with individuals who work with children at different capacities (some credentialed teachers, some student teaching and also pursuing their MAs at SJSU and at different universities, some who work for pre-schools, high schools, summer day camps, etc.).  From general observations and our lit review draft, there is a relationship between stress, occupational satisfaction, autonomy, level of peer support and alcohol consumption.  Something that has been holding me back from this topic is the fact that this avenue of alcohol use and teachers is not thoroughly explored by current literature (at least that I haven’t come across yet).  So formulating how and what exactly to explore is challenging for me in this field. 

Other avenues I have been recently contemplating to explore are:

-The relationship between students’ physical fitness, self-awareness, and academic resilience.  This summer I am working for a youth fitness camp where our goal is to promote healthy lifestyles and healthy self-esteem.  After our first educational psychology class, I wondered if explicitly incorporating more positive self-perception and physical healthy could also improve a student’s academic resilience (as far as working harder to meet goals and grappling with challenges).

-The third topic I have also been contemplating is “What happens when students’ culture is thoroughly incorporated into the history curriculum?” This idea stemmed from me initially wanting to be a single subject history teacher.  I chose history because I often felt that minorities’ culture and perspective was severely omitted in textbooks and curriculum.  I always felt (like many people do) that because this was happening in public schools students find that history is “boring” or “irrelevant” to them.  After having such a great experience with SJSU’s history department, I think that students should be taught in a way to help them see that they are part of history; that the students themselves are living it. (I haven’t done much research on this)