Q- Reflect on your first semester as a teacher. Discuss your classroom experiences as well as your experiences in this course.
A- My first semester as a teacher has been, more than anything else, thrilling. There have been bouts of “palpable dread,” as I’ve called it in a poem I wrote one Monday morning at 5 a.m., but there is a magical quality to this vocation which peels away the dread and exposes joy. This is a job in which hard work pays off in satisfaction. Every day, the afternoon sunshine is a welcome treat at the end of a day that began with its fair share of worries, anxiousness, to-do’s, and what-if’s. The paradox of teaching – the way dread gives way to joy – makes it difficult to reflect in any coherent way on the first semester. Suffice it to say that I am thankful to be in Mississippi, thankful for my Principal and mentor teacher next door, thankful for those students who delight in the material just like I do, and thankful to be doing the vocation I always pictured myself doing.
That said, I still long for more. I want to be a better teacher. My experiences in the classroom this semester have been progressively more productive academia-wise, but still I have goals for them to successfully work together, coach each other, workshop each others’ writing. I am satisfied with the amount of content that I am covering (Wong & Wong would shudder at that word, “cover”), happy with the pace (it keeps the majority of them on their toes), and ecstatic that I have the freedom to choose what books I want to teach and create my own curriculum to go with it.
Thus, there is a lot to celebrate. I feel at home in my classroom now. On the other hand, the more I teach, the more I recognize my shortcomings. As far as academia goes, I NEED to meet my struggling students’ needs better. I need to prepare them for my tests better. Finally, I am doing assessment the right way after seeing too many kids fail my midterms and first term final exam. For this upcoming semester final, I am drafting it now, so that my lessons will naturally be geared towards the questions. I want what I model and lecture on to be in complete alignment with what I test them on. Also, I dream of the day when my proficient students will be able to help the strugglers during guided or group practice time. I just need to gain confidence in classroom management and energy to make that step. So far as discipline goes, my weaknesses are (a) going easy on students I favor, (b) putting off parent phone calls don’t I know by now that the only thing that will ease that restlessness is just picking up the phone?!) and (c) having days when I am softer than I should be (letting students get away with repeated minor infractions, like getting up out of their seats, without paragraph penalties).
My classroom experiences have inspired me more than drained me. The curiosity, drive, quality work and enthusiasm I can expect from so many of my students on a daily basis - L,L,I,C,P,J,S,C,P,T,S,C,T,A,M,L,C,C,J,D,A (all those are their initials) – keeps me smiling, hoping, and believing that my lesson plans and comments on their papers are paying off. Those have been the best classroom experiences so far. I want to find a way to keep challenging them – AND to begin to expect as much of those students who I sadly have lost expectations with.
My experiences in the MTC class this semester have been overwhelmingly positive. It has been a home base, a center where I have gathered resources and fuel to keep going. Particularly, in Ole Miss classes, I have learned to be persistent with classroom management, so as to safeguard against the “false sense of security trap” Ben warned us about. So this class has helped keep me on my guard, so to speak, and not let things slide into disarray (though, oh, some days I really do feel like letting things be and not being the Energy Expending Enforcer for once…”it’d just be for one day,” I try to coax myself...but all the while, I know it’s a no-good idea!). I learned that it is better to be a morning bird than a late owl, to maximize my actual working efficiency and minimize my unproductive agony (and, not to mention, give me a little mental and spiritual breathing space, to clear my head and heart for the day ahead.)
Coming back from Ole Miss weekends, I had learned how to use alternative consequences and apply them to my classroom for better classroom management. I also incorporated Ron Sellers’ advice, “personalize the school,” into my own philosophy of teaching, by letting the kids know that I see them (notes on tests, etc.). I learned about what kind of socioeconomic background the majority of my students come from, and that (as Ann clarified) has helped me tune my strategies for reaching – not my expectations of – my students. I especially enjoyed exploring Ruby Payne’s Framework, and using it to evaluate my own perception of my job and my students. Ann encouraged us to try adding something new each week – differentiation one week, pairing students another week. She also gave the soothing reassurance and reality check, “you’ll experience the ‘not ready for the test yet’ dilemma all year long.”
In short, my classroom experiences us at ole Miss have been all about fortifying me with enough inspiration and encouragement to keep pressing onward. This motivation was provided both through the application-intensive nature of the lecture during class-time, or precious hours with my mentor, Anna. Still being able to call myself a student in the midst of taking on a new identity as teacher has been balm for me. It has given me continuity and smoothness to who I am and navigating who I can be now that I am in this position.
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