Sunday, November 9, 2008

New Teachers

The lecture with the three teachers was very informative and helped me realize that I am going into the right profession. It really helped hear them say that it is all about the students and that they always knew they wanted to be teachers because that is exactly how I feel and sometimes I feel like I have just not given anything else a chance. Monday night gave me a new confidence in what I am doing here at the Luther.

Hearing their personal stories also helped me realize that there will be twists along the way and that not everything will go just as I had planned. A quote I recently came across "life is what happens when all your plans are failing" also seemed to make more sense after Monday night. In my mind this is what teaching is all about because like they said, not all your lesson plans will be a home run and not every student will be that Cinderella story of overcoming all of their problems but what you learn while those things are failing is the most important part. If you can fail but still learn a lesson and change for the better and do the right thing the next time then in all reality you didn't fail.

The last main thing I took away from hearing the teachers speak was that they have a way different view on things then the administrators did but it is key to work with your administration. A successful school has to have a staff that works well together. State your side of the problem, then cooperate to find a solution using ideas from everyone involved. The minute you thing you are better than one of your co-workers is the minute you lose ground with the students, because like stated on Monday the students aren't dumb they pick up on little things like miscommunication and frustration with fellow teachers.

1 comment:

Dana said...

I agree with Sam that hearing from these teachers reinforced what I am doing here at Luther and it's okay if all I've ever wanted to do is teach. I also agree that actually being able to make mistakes and accept that you make mistakes and can learn from them makes you a better, more educated teacher.