Blog Post 9

What I've Learned This Year
by Mr. McClung

Mr. McClung wrote this blog post shortly after his first year of teaching an elementary school class.  He wrote about what he learned in a positive way in hopes to help future first time educators in their new experience as a teacher.  Below I have broken down his main topics.

How to Read the Crowd

Mr. McClung is absolutely right!  I have not started student teaching yet, but already I am concerned with how I will be graded.  This is not something that I probably would not have thought about until after I began teaching.  Right now, we are all concerned with our grades and how well we can do.  We need to begin thinking about how well we can get our students to do.  Otherwise we will never do as good of a job as a teacher as we try to do as students.  Our main focus should be on the student’s comprehension of the material, not it we got it all in on our lesson plan.  I loved how he said “in order to be effective you have to be able to let your audience drive your instruction.”

Be Flexible

There is no way to control every situation.  I know this may be my biggest struggle as a teacher.  I always insist on everything going according to plan, but Mr. McClung is right again.  There is no way to create a prefect lesson plan and have it taught exactly the way you pictured.  I have already begun to learn this with my first grade classrooms.  Some of the teachers have me jump in and finish the lesson even though I did not prepare for it earlier.  This has helped me to understand what Mr. McClung is talking about.  There is no way to completely expect what the students may say or do or even ask.

Communicate

I know communication is another thing that I will need to continuously work on.  Just reading this section made me very uncomfortable.  That is not a good thing.  I understand what Mr. McClung is saying about in the workplace and with students, but I am not the most assertive person.  I am, however, going to have to learn to be.  I honestly know that I have come a long way over the years, but there is so much communication in the teaching field.  The more interaction I have with others, the better at it I will become.

Be Responsible

It sounds so simple to “be reasonable” when in reality Mr. McClung points out yet another important obstacle for teachers to be aware of.  I agree with him that we need to remember that we are dealing with children and we do not need to set our own expectations to high.  I do this now.  I have actually always done this, to myself.  I have extremely high expectations for myself and often I set myself up for failure.  I need to become more aware of what is actually expected and not try to over exaggerate what needs to be done.  You can’t expect for everyone to get everything, every time, flawlessly.  This includes us.  What is most important is to not let your students feel that they will not be able to get what you are teaching.  I have seen teachers who have given up on students because they did not meet that teacher’s expectation.  Mr. McClung points out that we must not do this.  Instead, we are to pick them up, brush them off, and encourage them to try again.

Don’t be Afraid of Technology

This lesson is exactly as it is titled.  Dr. Strange tries to tell us this all of the time by assigning our different blog posts and projects.  We will never know what we can do for our students, until we give it a try.  I have enjoyed getting over a lot of my own fears in this class.  I was one of the people who thought technology would be the end of me.  Yet here I am, still breathing. 

Listen to Your Students

Listening to students goes beyond checking for a correct answer.  It also goes beyond knowing their favorite color and food.  Teachers do not always know what is going on in the life of their students.  We should know as much as possible.  We need to really listen to our students.  Mr. McClung is right; we may be the only ones who do.  I know everyone has known someone who had a hard time outside of school.  Sometimes a little extra attention to a small conversation can make a world of difference in the student’s eyes.

Lastly….Never Stop Learning

Although this was the shortest of the lessons, it speaks out in great volume.  I agree with Mr. McClung that people tend to not want to learn even though they constantly expect others to.  I know everyone has their moments of down time, and that is not what I am talking about.  I have my moments where I am not ready to pick back up my books, school or leisure, but I get past those later on and get something accomplished.  I find it very discouraging when other teachers and students feel comfortable with just doing the bare minimum and think that they have accomplished something.  There will always be new information out there and as educators we need to know what is going on.  This means, never stop learning!