Blog Post #9

Mr. McClung
Mr. McClung writes his blog post "At the Teacher's Desk." Volume One states how he learned to read the crowd, be flexible, communicate, be reasonable, not be afraid of technology, listen to students, and never stop learning. As a educator, you should not focus on evaluations to be made by your superiors more than your class. He also stresses about communication because it is one of the hardest skills to develop. Learn how to communicate with your fellow teachers as well as your students.

Mr. McClung also explains being reasonable in a classroom is important. He uses goals to describe the classroom aspects. Remeber that you are working with children. Another idea that caught my eye was never stop learning. Educators work in a learning enviroment and they should absorb as much as they can.Adapt your methods, lesson plans, thinking, and style in any way that could possibly help your students.

As I was reading this, I found this to be extremely great advice especially for incoming educators.What our students have to say is important, so listening and getting to know our students better should be the number one top priority. He had some great valid points. I think it is a wonderful idea to keep a summary of reflections at the end of each school year. By doing this, it can show the teacher what he or she has accomplished and not accomplished over the school year. It is very important to learn from your mistakes instead of dwelling on what you could have done better.

The most recent post is Volume 4, it reflects on 2011-2012 school year. There are two underlining main themes that really stuck out to him this year. The first being that he became worried about what the other teachers thought of him, and the second was that he found himself becoming stuck in the same routine he had done in past years. He explains that teacher's should make the class interesting and interactive. It is important to help kids not resent school.He discovered that taking care of his students is what is important and that worrying about what others think of him has never resulted in anything positive.

I discovered after reading this that not only do teachers constantly learn, but they grow. As teachers, it should be our main goal to concertrate on our students. I want my students to enjoy coming to class and looking forward to learning. It is really important to never get stuck in the same routine. Learning should be a wonderful thing to stundents especially learning in many different creative ways. We must remeber our students futures are at stake. After reading volume one and four blog post I really began to have a new prespective all around.