I think that being a lifelong learner is a pretty important characteristic for education majors and educators in general. An educator by definition has to be pretty passionate about learning (because were obviously not doing it for the money)and it is important for a social studies major like myself because my content area is a constantly evolving and changing field. For example, the recent Egyptian revolution and the ensuing unrest in many other Arabic countries have to potential to change the political landscape of an entire region.
Not only is it important in our core areas, but it is also important because pedagogy is also constantly changing. For someone that has been involved in schools for essentially two decades, I have seen emphasis on many different things I call "testing fads". I can remember when I was really encouraged to be able to free write, which then developed to AR and Running Records to measure my reading and comprehension ability. When I was in high school I would help test students using dibels and currently my PDSs preach standardized testing and AYP.
Furthermore, I think it is really important for teachers to hold education important; not only their students education but every one's education including their own. If someone is passionate about learning and their own learning then by default they will place emphasis on others learning that material. Personally, I am really not looking forward to graduating because I will no longer have easy access to the world of academia, especially my history and political science classes. Lifelong learning
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The trait of being a lifelong learner is a very important aspect to retain as an educator in our modern world. Social Studies teachers must maintain an ever changing mind frame due to the ever changing world around us. Current events and new discoveries impact society constantly, thus calling for teachers to understand these events so they can disperse the information to the public. The other aspect of testing is also important because it seems every so many years a new testing method comes out. Many teachers try and teach to the test rather than teach a wide range of curriculum. I believe that the only way to meet the needs of a test is to improve the overall understanding of a subject. In social studies all aspects of the topic tie together in some way. For instance geography can be tied to historical events which can now be related to why people act a certain way which is sociology. By improving the overall aspect of this subject test scores will only improve.
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