My name is Brandon McDowell. I am a former 5th Grade Teacher at J.C. Parks Elementary School. I, for the better part of my life, was raised here in Charles County MD. In completing my college experience I received my Bachelor of Arts from the University of Maryland (2003) and my Master of Arts in Teaching from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland (2005). Since I was raised in the county, I have had a chance to work in many of the area schools either in a student teaching, substitute teaching, or camp counseling capacity.
Outside of school, I enjoy writing, keeping up-to-date on the latest cartoons, and watching the local sports teams. GO TERPS!!!!! My life motto is: Live life for today.
My classroom philosophies are as follows:
Teachers are in the classroom to act facilitators and provide students a platform with which to branch out and create their own constructs.
There are definitely right answers, but the number of right ways to come to those answers becomes greater and greater with every student I teach.
Students can learn almost anything if it is presented to them in a way that they understand.
If I (teacher) go a school day without laughing at myself or in general in the classroom, then I have failed as a teacher. It is important as an elementary school teacher to show that you are human and, even though you are much older, a real person. Those little things will make a student open up to you and with that openness/trust is the key to their minds.