Blog Assignment 9

"What I've Learned This Year" by Mr. McClung

I really appreciate this blog post by Mr. McClung. I think it really embodies what it means to be a teacher, not only because he is showing professionalism and dedication, but also because he is practicing what it means to be a teacher: he is continuously learning and sharing that knowledge with others.

Mr. McClung shares six lessons that he learned in his first year of teaching. The first is to learn how to read a crowd. This means learning how to make your classroom student based instead of becoming preoccupied and obsessed with your own assessment as a teacher. I definitely think this is something that is important. Even though I haven’t had very much experience, I have already caught myself doing this. It’s very easy to get caught up in making a creative and well planned lesson plan and forget that you are actually speaking to students and asking them to take in your words.

Next, Mr. McClung discusses the importance of being flexible. He says “no lesson is ever perfect. The lesson you teach and the one you plan are always different.” To me, flexibility is one of the most important aspects of being a teacher because nothing in life ever goes perfectly. Also, if we aren’t flexible as teachers, might we miss a valuable learning opportunity?

Mr. McClung also expresses his belief that communication is key. He discusses that communication is necessary in the workplace to build relationships with both teachers and students. I believe that being an effective communicator is the basis of being a good teacher. We don’t have to know every detail about quantum physics; what we must know, however, is how to effectively communicate with our students and learn with them. Also, we must help make our students effective communicators both verbally and written.

Being reasonable is the next lesson that Mr. McClung discusses. He believes that we as teachers can have the tendency to set our expectations too high and therefore set our students up for failure. He says “our job as teachers is to simply pick them up after they fail, dust them off, and encourage them to try again”. I definitely agree with this, but I also believe that it is imperative that we set high expectations for our students. If we set expectations that are just high enough, it will encourage students to work harder in the future. The art is to not set these expectations to where they are unattainable. I believe that all expectations can be met though.
Next, Mr. McClung discusses technology and encourages adults to not be afraid of computers and technology. As I have discussed in my other blog posts, I definitely believe in the power of technology in the classroom. However, I do think that without a good teacher and a valuable lesson plan, technology can be useless.

Listening to your students is another lesson that Mr. McClung learned in his first year of teaching. He believes that it is important to build relationships with your students. Having a good sense of rapport and trust with your students is something that I believe to be beneficial and important, but I think a line has to be drawn somewhere. We aren’t meant to be friends with our students. For me at least, I think it could be hard to listen closely to my students and not offer my personal beliefs and personal life experiences. Maybe it will just take practice and time to learn how to give advice without becoming too personal with my students.

The final lesson that Mr. McClung discusses is to never stop learning. He discusses the fact that we encourage our students to keep learning, so we should hold ourselves to that same standard. Our classrooms can change from year to year or from class period to class period, so we always must be learning and changing our way of thinking. In high school I had an AP American History teacher who really embodied this. If someone asked him a question that he didn’t know, he would respond with “I don’t know. I’ll research and get back to you”. I just thought this was such a good answer and he would expect us to answer him in the same manner if we couldn’t answer one of his questions.

I really appreciate Mr. McClung writing this post about the lessons he learned in his first year of teaching. I know that we are learning a lot about the profession while still in school, but I definitely believe that we will learn infinitely more once we get in our own classrooms and being teaching.