Welcome back to my final blog post. To keep everyone updated, Margaret and I are creating a formal lesson plan on how to teach second or third graders about the important topic of immigration in America, through the book All the Way to America by Dan Yaccarino. We hope that this will help educators teach this important topic, as we are excited to teach it one day in our own elementary classroom. 

Throughout our research process, we have learned many things that we did not even know ourselves. In one of our sources, by Thomas Clinton, he found that teachers political views shape how they teach immigration as a whole. To some, this may be quite obvious, and as I have gotten older, I have noticed it more and more, but as a future elementary school teacher, I plan to be as open minded as I can. All opinions should always be heard, but I believe immigration needs to be taught as its own topic, not based on an educator’s bias opinions. While reading through other sources, we have found that immigration is a very important topic that students are very engaged in, and that is solely why we chose to do this for our final project. 

Margaret and I have not faced many challenges with creating our project, in general, but in the future it may be a sensitive topic for some students. Another main thing we must take into consideration is what immigration will be like in years from now when we will be teaching this to our own students. Overall, we understand that this is a necessary topic, and it is truly how America came to be. Without immigration, no one would be here. Margaret and I have also learned that teaching is not the easiest job, as some people think it is. There will be ups and downs, students that have a hard time with different topics than others, but in the end, you, as the educator, must help them through it, as you are their role model.