Sunday, March 24, 2013

Blog Post #9

Mr. McClung's What I Learned This Year- Volume 4

student deskFor four years now Mr. McClung has written an end of the year reflective blog post. In What I Learned This Year-Volume 4 he describes his fourth year of teaching and the challenges he had to overcome. Mr. McClung felt that he was becoming too concerned with his peers opinion of himself. He soon realized that he should only worry about his students. They are the ones he needs to take care of. I feel that every new teacher will struggle with this at some point. I can't believe Mr. McClung is just now struggling with this in his fourth year. I feel it is very difficult especially as a student teacher to get in front of the class to present a lesson and focus solely on the students and not the adults who are judging you. We are here for the kids, and we're doing them an injustice if they do not have our full attention. I read blog post sometimes and think to myself "this advice is going to be crucial for my future teaching career." Well this is one of those post! My purpose in life is to be the best educator I can be. I need to stay true to myself and my beliefs. Sure it will be difficult teaching in front of other educators, but I will be focused on the students, and that is where my attention should be.

In the second part of his post he writes about challenging yourself. Mr. McClung was teaching the same subject with same lesson plans and it was starting to become a routine. He was becoming comfortable with just continuing to re-use the same lesson plans. He was offered to teach a more challenging subject and gladly accepted! As an educator I know I will sometimes have to take the road less traveled. How will I continue to learn if I don't?

What I've Learned This Year 2009

This was Mr. McClung's first "What I've Learned" blog post that he wrote following his first year of teaching. After reading this post the first thing that stood out was the section about being flexible. He explains that lessons are never perfect, and that they will rarely, if ever, turn out the way we originally planned. He also talks about communicating, and being reasonable. Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are teaching children. Lastly but not least he tells us to not be afraid of technology and to continue learning. I agree with Mr. McClung's views and plan to embrace the changes I may be presented with in life and my career.

2 comments:

  1. Great post, very informative! Also as teachers we must learn to change up our lesson and be eager to lean new effective ways of teaching. Keep up the good work!

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