Post 9

Mr. McClung's Reflections

At the end of each school year, Joe McClung writes a blog post detailing what he learned during the year about himself as a teacher and how he can better his teaching skills. The first post I read was What I Learned This Year-Volume 4. In this post, Mr. McClung summarizes what he has learned after his 4th year of teaching. He gave two main points in his post, "You gotta dance with who you brought to the dance" and, "Challenge yourself." In "You gotta dance with who you brought to the dance", he writes about how he has fallen for the junior high issue of worrying about what his peers think of him. He goes on to say that after some thought, he realized that it does not matter what the other teachers think of him as long as the kids are having fun and learning along the way. In the second half of his post, "Challenge yourself", he talked about how he had become too comfortable with his teaching ways. He had always taught the same subjects each year, and he was using the same lesson plans each year. He found himself not being as effective of a teacher because of this. He has decided not to rely on his old lesson plans, and force himself to keep ideas new and fresh.

I think I will have a similar worry about what my peers think. When I begin teaching, I just hope I do not feel clueless. However, I am gaining more and more confidence in my teaching ability with every class I complete in college, so hopefully this will not be a problem. Like Mr. McClung says, as long as the kids are enjoying the lessons and learning from them, it does not matter what other teachers think. The second point he made is super important. Students can tell if a teacher does not care about what he or she is teaching. If the teacher is not enthusiastic about learning, how can the students be expected to be excited about the class? I believe that changing things up and challenging yourself can keep the teaching profession fresh and exciting. After all, this is our job! There is no need to be lazy.

The next blog post I read by Mr. McClung was, What I've Learned This Year. This post was he's very first reflection after his first year of teaching. First, he talked about reading the crowd, or making sure that students are comprehending a lesson. A teacher can always tell when the students and just sitting like lumps on a log, and not learning. He says he learned that not only is the delivery of a lesson important, but also student comprehension. It is so important for lessons to be student centered. The next thing he learned is to always be flexible with lessons. Any time you plan something for kids, you need to expect for it to not always go as planned, and that is okay. This will be something I will have to over come. I am a bit of a stickler when it comes to a set schedule. The very last point he makes, is to never stop learning. "It's never too late to change your way of thinking, learning, or style. We do everything short of beg students to learn on a daily basis, but sadly some of us refuse to learn and grow as professional educators." Mr. McClung is so very right! We should always be learning. The world is constantly changing, and we should be able to change with it when needed.