You all really pushed me to think during our September 11th study group time.
Please attach your comments on Living the Professional Life, Teacher as Professional and/or your discoveries, ideas, thoughts on our September 11th class on this comment link so that we can keep all of our thoughts/comments together.
5 comments:
Again, these readings and my colleagues’ thoughts resonate well with my own thoughts about teaching. Jenny mentioned that she often takes students’ comments as criticism, and I’m the same sometimes. I recently asked my Block 2 students to write to me what they liked and disliked the most about independent reading; I truly did want to know what would help them most because what we were doing was not working. One student wrote (and I’m attempting to recreate exactly his words): “I like to read you to mean take a chil pill.” I took him outside and blessed him out good. I later shared this incident and similar frustrations with my mom, and she said what I was already thinking: “Maybe you need to take a look at yourself.” That day, after numerous warnings, this class finally settled down enough where I could teach—about 40 minutes into the period. Yes, they were quiet and working dutifully, but their eyes were vacant and no one would participate in any way. So, what had I accomplished? I felt that I had broken what should be the golden rule of teaching (and I’m paraphrasing Routman): “One must be kind to be an effective teacher.” When I think back on the teachers I had, I most remember their personalities, and I think because of their caring, I learned and thereby remember certain skills they taught me: 2nd grade, Ms. Smith: multiplication; 5th grade, Ms. Jennings, a love for reading, and Ms. Hutchinson, fractions; 10th grade, Ms. Shealy, Biology I, more than I can ever say about biology and life outside pure science; and several college professors whose names I don’t all remember but who shared themselves along with their content areas and were the most personable and approachable on campus. When I think back on my first year teaching, I was so nervous about doing things well and making my students “smarter” during the time I had them. Really, I think I would have done just as well or better focusing on being a positive, caring person in their lives and let the actual “English” content follow from there.
Several points Lindy made I affirm completely:
- What other profession allows its employees to constantly work in adverse conditions and expects superior results? In college, I worked for a state office. When and if I told my boss that I couldn’t get my job done because of (fill in the blank), she wasted no time removing that obstacle. Yet I consistently teach in less-than-ideal conditions—high class numbers, classes with highly diverse needs, little planning time, limits to use of needed resources like paper—and am expected to put out stellar results.
- Teachers leave the profession because of reasons beyond mentoring. I am surrounded by a supportive community at BCHS and I have been mentored, but that doesn’t mean the frustration is lessened. Every year the demands increase, the stakes are higher for teacher/student achievement, and sometimes I feel everyone (legislators to the media to the general public) except me is in charge of my classroom and dictating what I am “supposed” to be doing. This is also where the “teacher as political activist…communicator” comes in.
- I don’t think we can always abide by our students’ ideas about education. Yes, we need to know what they struggle with and how best to meet their needs, but, we know more some things than they do. We’ve conquered college, beat the street interviewing for jobs, lived on our own, married and started families, bought cars and houses, dealt insurance companies, etc., etc.,…academic and everyday life issues. Our students—at about 18 and younger—have not. It’s our job to prepare them for life as such, even if they think it’s boring or don’t see the value yet.
Living the Professional Life
After reading the Chapter, I was reminded of what I consider very important. It is not always what you teach the student that is important, but at times, teaching the student that it is fun to learn. And by being fun to learn, we must make school fun, for that is where they spend 8 hours a day “learning”. I am very fortunate at this time, teaching an elective, we have the ability to definitely try new things without a state mandated end of the course test (though this changes this year). I am also prompted to ask myself, how do I implement reading in my classes, and am I successful? While I do not “make the students read the chapter”, they certainly are encouraged to read it and must turn in their guided reading. I am not sure I am doing all that I can do to successfully implement reading in my class. Through this chapter and the class, I am rethinking my methods, and with some trial and error, will hopefully make new wheels and will drive us into success!
Teacher as Professional
As teachers, we must wear many hats. Often, we are more comfortable at wearing certain hats, while quite uncomfortable wearing others. The article prompted me to do some soul-searching to determine my personal strengths and weaknesses.
In response to Allen's article, I feel uplifted that I am not the only teacher who has felt lost! I am currently trying to find magical strategies to teach specific skills. I liked the way Allen expressed the idea that teachers should regard themselves as the wizards.
I've been wearing the "teacher as scholar" hat for quite a while. USC's program is littered with many of the theories and ideas we've been discussing. Therefore, it's refreshing to delve into the other "teacher as" roles, now that I have officially become a professional.
As a newbie, I am adjusting to the idea of being "mentor" "counseler" "communicator" etc. It is a lot to deal with...it puts the pressure on to be perfect. I haven't only had to have high expectations for my students, but I've had to have high expectations for myself. As a new teacher, that's been difficult. A lot of second-guessing...wondering day-by-day if I'm doing things right.
After reading over some of the other posts, it is both refreshing and unnnerving to see that many veteren teachers feel the same way.
Echoing Elizabeth, I agree that I have been met with an amazing support staff at BC. It really makes a difference to know that people care about you, and care about helping you.
I have always really taken to the teacher as political activist role simply because I have always been very passionate about finding problems with the world and fixing them. In our society government seems to be one way to do that and education the other. Since I don't like lawyers too much (worked for too many), I came into education. I really believe that the teacher as a political activist is one of the most important jobs we can have. All of the changes in legislation concerning education come from big whigs who believe that simply because they went to school that they understand education. Simply not true! We, the educators, are the ones who see what is going on in the schools and what needs to change the most. We have the best voice and opinion when it comes to education because it is what we know. We cannot sit back and allow others to take the reins from our hands. We have to stand up and fight for our rights and for the rights of our students.
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