The Future Teacher

Prior to this class I had a several ideas of what I knew I would have to improve about my teaching self and other things I had a feeling that I would have to improve upon. With talking with friends, family and the hubby I already new many of the pit falls new teachers fall into and those that I would fall into.

For example, the inability to have silence in my classroom while a discussion is going on. Silence is only golden when sleeping or reading, which is how I was brought up. I also knew from a very young age that my speech needs to be slowed down, and yes for all of you reading I know I speak very fast. I’m working on it but fixing a habit I’ve been doing most of my life is difficult. I’ve also found more recently most of my friends just agree with most of what I’m saying over the phone. People I’m talking to you and I’m talking to fast please let me know so I can teach myself faster. Thanks!

I guess at this point I should go into my strengths I have as a new teacher, kind of an obvious transition don’t you think. I will have to say that one of my big strengths is my willingness to communicate with anyone. My students will most likely learn this very quickly in my classroom and hopefully will be inspired to communicate back. I’m not entirely counting on this to further discussions but it is a positive for me.

The Class

This class was my first class back to college in four years, and I can honestly say that I’m glad it was and disappointed at the same time. I really felt the class was very informative and helped me learn about what kind of teacher I want to be and who I currently am. However, since this was my very first education class I felt that I could have learned more if I knew more of the basics. I also have to say I’m not sure what the real goal was for this class. I don’t know what I expected to learn in this class but I do feel that I may have missed some important fundamentals along the way. My hubby did a good job of keeping me from worrying and telling me the important stuff is drilled in your head in every class so if I missed something here I’ll learn it in another class, or in practice.

The group project was a very interesting activity, and though I had a great partner, I really wish I could have done my own lesson for half the class instead of sharing. There were things I really wanted to try, I’m sure Jenn did too, but we compromised so that we could both have equal impute. I kind of felt that I did a lot of group ‘teaches’ in lower level classes and that a chance to do my own would have been more beneficial. Not having a lot of classes throughout the year could have a big impact on this activity as well, just maybe something to think about for future classes.

The Books

I was excited and disappointed with the book list when I first saw it back in August. I can honestly say I was very surprised with what was listed and excited to read many of the less traditional books. I really wished though there would have been at least one or two classic books. I felt like the lessons were so anti-classics that for a while I thought about trying to never teach them in my classroom, and I like the classics more then more modern texts.

I did want to quickly mention that the last section about talking about fan writing probably could have been taking out. I loved how the last group went through it but I really can’t see bringing the topic into my classroom.

The Blog

I felt that the blogging was a great way to start off the year. Especially since I had been out of school for a while and I felt like it got be back in the swing of this faster. I’m not a huge fan of doing the same thing week after week though and it began to feel more like a chore then a fun writing assignment. I have a feeling if I had ever written a journal of some kind I may be more inclined to continue a blog.

I defiantly like the idea of doing a writing assignment with my students, but I’m not sure how realistic having the online location. The design behind it is really great; to have your peers read your work and comment back, but if you don’t have access to a computer lab it may become tedious for your students to work on.

Last Comments

The big thing I’m going to take out of this class is reminding myself to trust my own instincts. I had a large problem trusting my own impressions this semester more then I normally do in life. I feel like I’ve thrown myself back into situation I know nothing about which is completely untrue and I just need to keep reminding myself of it.