Lest you think that I am sitting on the couch eating bon bons during my first summer as a teacher, think again!
As you know, I am busily working on assignments for my certification classes.
Some of the not-so-fun assignments are called a “Critical Reviews.” They follow assigned chapter readings.
Oy, but these are a royal pain to complete.
Each review is comprised of four parts: summary, reflection, application, and response to another student.
As I said, they are a pain, but I know that by typing a summary for each chapter I read, I am solidifying my understanding of the material, which will, hopefully, help me when I take the Professional Ed test.
The reflection section is rather easy for me.
I’m rather long-winded.
I also write a blog.
*Shout-out to God for placing me in the blog world as preparation for my school assignments!*
Back to my post…
As I said…reflecting…something I actually enjoy doing…
I just proofread the reflection I wrote for my last critical review for one class (I have one more left for another class and then I won’t ever have to write another one…yay!).
I wanted to share it with you.
You might find it humorous. You might find it illuminating. You might find yourself not caring one iota. That’s okay. You won’t be hurting my feelings. 😉
Either way, I like it, and one day I know I will enjoy reading this post again and reminiscing.
Here ‘ya go!
I just finished my first year of teaching. A teacher’s first year presents a lot of challenges. The challenges I faced were magnified by the fact that I had five lesson preps across five different grades. I taught sixth grade as well as ninth through twelfth grades. In fact, my schedule was such that my sixth grade class followed my eleventh grade class. I had always believed that I was best suited to teach high school, thus I found it difficult to make the adjustment from teaching upper level students to just-entering middle school students. My little babies sat, shell-shocked, during their first few weeks in my classroom. At the time, I did not understand why my students and I were so frustrated with each other. Then, one day, it dawned on me that I was treating them as if they were in high school. All of a sudden, I realized that their attention spans were shorter. They could only handle one main task at a time, and they needed me to repeat the instructions many times. They also had a lot of nervous ticks. I had failed to acknowledge that this was the first year they had to change classrooms for each subject. Heck – they got lost finding their way to my classroom, and my school building only has one hallway! I experienced my “aha” moment when I read this chapter and realized that last summer, while I had been busy prepping my room and creating a discipline plan and classroom procedures, I had not spent any time studying my students. I had not looked at prior standardized test scores or report cards, and I certainly had not taken the time to learn about developmental characteristics. I believe that had I done so, I would have been a bit gentler on these students from the onset. Just so you won’t think that I was an ogre the entire year, I want to share that this reflection does have a happy ending. About two or three weeks into the school year, I realized what was happening with this class. I, quite honestly, had an “aha” moment right in front of my students. I admitted the error of my ways and promised that I would “take it down a notch.” My reward was watching them exhale in relief (and in unison, I might add). The rest of the year was delightful, and this turned out to be one of my favorite classes. I learned that I actually liked teaching sixth graders. Their impulsiveness and joy of learning fit in with my personality and inspired me to create innovative lesson plans that fit their ages. This was a hard lesson to learn, but I will be a better teacher in the future because of it.
Filed under: Teaching | Tagged: reflection, teaching | 4 Comments »
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