Post 16: What I've Learned This Year

I really enjoyed reading the post "What I've Learned This Year" by Mr.McClung. I often think about what my first year of teaching will be like and to be honest, it is mixed with alot of excitement and a whole lot of intimidation! I hope that I can learn as much as Mr. McClung did in his first year. First off, he starts off by saying an important decision he made this year was to be positive. I agree- negativity will get you nowhere real fast. I like how he noted that we must let our audience drive us in our lessons rather than just doing whatever we want to do thinking that the students should just do it. You want to keep the students interested. We are there for them, to teach them, to try and understand them, and to be there for them. "NO LESSON IS EVER PERFECT. THE LESSON YOU TEACH AND THE ONE YOU PLAN ARE ALWAYS DIFFERENT." It is funny that he wrote this, because I sort of learned this yesterday in my Teaching Composition class. I had my first teaching demonstration that I worked really hard on and had my plan set in stone before we started, then as class began everything changed. My lesson took on a whole new perspective and at first I was disappointed, but then it all worked out for the better.
Communication is important not only in the workplace, but in your personal life as well. As much as I hate confrontation- it is always better to talk face to face rather than by email of note. Emails and notes can take on a different tone rather than expressing what you really meant for the person to read. It's best just to go talk and get it over with. You will feel much better too. Being Reasonable is something that will take me getting used to. I am a very impatient person, but I need to realize that sometimes it will take some students longer than others to get things. Listening to your students is the most important this McClung mentioned in my eyes. I have said before that students need to feel safe with you- they need to feel like they can talk to you about things. You are supposed to be a person they can look up to and look forward to learning from- not a person that is scary to them or in some cases mute to emotions.