Mr. McClung has a blog where he writes about his years of teaching. At the end of every school year he makes a new blog post about what he has learned from teaching that year. In his blog post for the 2008-2009 school year, he is discussing what he has learned in his first year of teaching.
He starts of by saying that he himself was more concerned about his superiors than the fact that the students were the real audience. He said, " In order to be effective you have to be able to let your audience drive your instruction." I could not agree more! While there may be nerves about being a first time teacher and there are guidelines that teachers must follow at any school, it is important to realize that the students are the ones in the classroom listening to you their teacher. He also says to stay flexible. Things do not always go the way we plan them out to. Mr. McClung goes on to say that, as in any workplace, communication is the best way to work out issues. Be reasonable, is another point he made. He said that not every student is going to meet your expectations and that is okay. Don't be afraid of technology! He said that "technology is our friend and is essential to living in our microwave society of today." I love that he mentions technology and that he urges to not be afraid of it as teachers. We are to embrace it. Listening to your students, he states, is also important. As a teachers we may be the only person to listen to a child. They need attention! Lastly, he says to never stop learning. We are bound to change over time, whether it be thinking, learning, or style. I think that we build our own teaching style over time and I agree with him that we should constantly be learning new things to being into our classroom.
What I Learned This Year-Volume 4 (2011-2012)
In this post, that I selected, we jump to Mr. McClung's blog post about his fourth year of teaching. He said that he didn't learn as much this year as he did in the previous years, but that there were still things that stuck out to him.
He said two things stuck out to him. First, is that he struggled with defining himself as a teacher. He said he had become too concerned with how his peers viewed him as an educator. He says that it is important to stay true to who you are, you can't change who you are. I think that he is right. Your teaching style comes from your personality. His other point was to challenge yourself. He said that this was his third year at the same school teaching the same subjects. He said that if you are not careful you can become lazy in your teaching and slip into a routine. He felt as though that he was not a good teacher. I feel he was right on the money when he said that his goal as an educator is to do everything he can do to ensure that students enjoy class and not resent school as he did when he was a child. As a child I also resented school, especially those classes that were very routine. Challenge yourself to bring life to the classroom.
Leslie,
ReplyDeleteGood summary.