Reflection
about my future.
I decided to
be a teacher because I want to educate students, to teach them not only about
my subject matter, but about being better human beings. As we can see in
Spranger (1948), an educator goes beyond teaching only a subject; it is a total
of various aspects regarding the transformation of a simple person into an integral
being with qualities and ways of thinking who can become a model to other
people, in this case, the students. That is why I decided to be a teacher, because
I want to be a model with which students can identify themselves, and if not,
they, at least, can take something good from me to apply to their own lives. Teaching
makes this society progress and why not making that progress happen with people
having better personal qualities and better education, because education
doesn´t mean knowing more about any topic, but being, at least, respectful to
the others and coherent with our words and acts.
Pitifully, as I want to “change the world” from my classroom, there are
some people (meaning little kids) who come to class with family and every-day
life issues. That is a thing that I wouldn´t enjoy from my practice as a
teacher, because little kids are not guilty for the mistakes a grown up
commits, but in many times they suffer the consequences. I want to help them
all, I want to listen to them, and I want to be consequent with what I said in
the previous paragraph: I want kids to see me transforming their lives, I want
them to remember me as their helper, their caretaker, their educator; their
hero. I want to raise my head one day when I have grown older and say “I have
done a good job. These kids are indeed the progress of this country and I am
proud to contribute to that.”
I know this is something unusual, but I will refer to the song “how many
tears,” played by the heavy metal band called Helloween, in their 1985 album called
Walls of Jericho, which says “In other worlds the children die lacking
food, ill from a fly. Oppressed by troops
to tame their land, it's all the same
again.” It is unfair that children feel the weight of those whose ambition goes
above the other´s human rights. If I do a good job from my classroom, this kind
of persons won´t grow up in the future. I know that thinking that way is
something idealistic, but isn´t “Plan Nacional de Bilingüismo” that way?
According
to what I said, I want learners who reflect, who construct knowledge into the
classroom; I don´t want to give them everything in their hands to let them
become easygoing. I want to give them the basics of what I´m teaching and then
they have to realize the rest, making in that case that they internalize the
information, and then, they will talk about it properly; they will indeed
learn. Thanks to that learning I, the same as the students, will become
transformative intellectuals, Giroux (2001). We all will be very critic, good
analyzers, and will rule our world called the classroom. My students and I will
face the world with our heads held high and any problem that try to trespass
against us, we will overcome finding solutions to all of them.
Finally,
I have found that I have some problems when standing in front of the class. One
of them is that known as authority. Of course I know that my role is not the
one of punishing my students or shouting at them, but I am the one who must
take control in the classroom, and I have seen that my students don´t see me as
a worthy of respect as the one who directs them.
Other
thing that I have to improve is the way I teach. I´m not saying that I will
cover all Gardner’s multiple intelligences in one class, but I have to start
thinking about being an integral teacher, thinking in all the student´s ways of
learning. That is maybe something exaggerated, but knowing the ways my students
learn, I will make that, what I said in the previous paragraphs, become
coherent. My role as a teacher, then, is to be a good model for my students,
helping them with any issues that struggle them; making them reflect upon
everything seen in class and making them know that, as I am not going to punish
them, I am the one who commands in the classroom and they have to respect me.
If I achieve those goals, I’m sure that my life and my future as a good teacher
will be certainly to envy by people.
PRINCIPLE 10: Foster relationship among the educative community (students, teachers, parents, administrative part and organizations) that surround the institution to support learning and well-being. Think of some ideas that are important to create engagement and the strengthening to work all of the as a team work.
With my partners,
we decided to make a scavenger hunt regarding teacher dispositions. We four
worked via Google docs to develop the activity, now that, due to problems
regarding time to we all gather, that was the best way we could work. We all
helped developing this scavenger hunt, taking some time to reflect, to make
abstracts of the ten principles given to us by the teacher, to build up the
questions implied in all the ten principles, and lastly to revise and organize
grammar mistakes.
As the teacher
considered that this scavenger hunt was the best way of presenting the final
term exam, she told us to make a rubric to grade our peers in the final
discussion taken in the classroom, after a week they had to collect gather all
the information that answer the questions quoted after each principle.
The grading experience
was really pleasurable, because doing that with our own classmates made us feel
like their teacher. We all took notes in order to have more reliable criteria
to grade them, making the experience more interesting. At the end, we all
graded our peers and gave the rubrics to our teacher, so she could face those grades
with hers and take a last grade for her students. Doing this activity was very
enrichment and special for us, the builders of this great activity.
While doing the activity in the classroom, all my friends were saying things so important to build a great environment in the English classroom that I thought about hundreds of things of how to be a great teacher, and at the same time, I realized that I am just a poor boy trying to get to the surface of teaching. This class has helped me a lot to think, rethink, construct, deconstruct, blame me, congratulate me, and to face a lot of "bad" and good things that can happen in my head at the same time. Sometimes I thought about my future as a teacher, but everything in my head was wrong. Then, like an act of magic, my mind became enlighted and I wanted to change the world starting from my classroom. Fundamentos III, specially Liliana, my teacher, had thought me so many things about my future as teacher that I can't imagine receiving this course with a different teacher. Classes like this should never be forgoten.
While doing the activity in the classroom, all my friends were saying things so important to build a great environment in the English classroom that I thought about hundreds of things of how to be a great teacher, and at the same time, I realized that I am just a poor boy trying to get to the surface of teaching. This class has helped me a lot to think, rethink, construct, deconstruct, blame me, congratulate me, and to face a lot of "bad" and good things that can happen in my head at the same time. Sometimes I thought about my future as a teacher, but everything in my head was wrong. Then, like an act of magic, my mind became enlighted and I wanted to change the world starting from my classroom. Fundamentos III, specially Liliana, my teacher, had thought me so many things about my future as teacher that I can't imagine receiving this course with a different teacher. Classes like this should never be forgoten.
PRINCIPLED
DISPOSE TEACHER SCAVENGER HUNT
To create a
Principle disposed teacher, you need some important aspects that are considered
when teaching. One of the objectives of this scavenger hunt will be to help you
create your own discourse to face your future role as a teacher, and the other
one is that you reflect upon the intention of each principle in order to
define them accurately. Some of them can be part of the teacher’s personality;
other can be part of teacher’s beliefs, or can come from teacher’s preparation.
This scavenger
hunt is designed for people from the course Fundamentos III, in the English
Teaching Program at FUNLAM. For collecting data, you must gather elements that
represent the principles that correspond to dispositions. For collecting such
information, you must move around the university and take advantage of the
different tools you have around it, including the library, the computers’ lab,
and teachers. Written information is only one option; pictures, recordings, and
other strategies that you prefer are also suitable. The time of this scavenger
hunt will be established by the teacher in charge.
Notice that
each principle has a question for the students to reflect. At the end of this
activity, all students will have a discussion that helps for understanding and
clarifications about the topic. From this discussion will emerge the
information to evaluate the student’s job, as well as their self assessment in
terms of collaborative work, involvement and attitude to face the activity.
Steps to
develop the scavenger hunt:
PRINCIPLE 1:
Clear awareness about the tools and strategies: Look for elements that are
important to create opportunities for learning. Why are these important?
PRINCIPLE 2:
Comprehension about student’s learning styles and context. What might be an appropriate
environment for teaching and learning? Describe some elements to have into
consideration.
PRINCIPLE 3:
Adaptation to the different ways of teaching into the same topic. How do I
adapt my teaching to facilitate students learning? Ask one of your teachers for
characteristics that best adjust the situation.
PRINCIPLE 4:
Implementation of meaningful information in all the classes and foster critical
thinking. How would you represent the kind of teaching strategies that are
suitable to encourage students into real situations for an appropriate
communicative competence?
PRINCIPLE 5:
Comfortable and positive social interaction environment. Look for relevant
information that shows how to provide social interaction into the classroom.
How can social interaction enhance the learning process?
PRINCIPLE 6:
Effective communication to foster interaction in the classroom. What are the
characteristics of effective communication? What are some strategies to work
strongly in the interaction of students?
PRINCIPLE 7:
Good planning taking into account the knowledge about the classroom context.
What are some elements to take into account to connect planning with curriculum
and community? How to get students become aware of the importance of the social
transformation?
PRINCIPLE 8:
Formal and informal assessment to support students’ growth. Look for some clues
that will be useful when assessing students. What are the criteria of an
appropriate assessment?
PRINCIPLE 9:
Reflection upon the daily practice impact in order to grow professionally. To
what extent does the role of the teacher participate in the affective schemata
of students? How does the teacher take part of the affective schemata in
the students in a positive way?
PRINCIPLE 10: Foster relationship among the educative community (students, teachers, parents, administrative part and organizations) that surround the institution to support learning and well-being. Think of some ideas that are important to create engagement and the strengthening to work all of the as a team work.
As Fundamentos
III helps constructing a better reflective perspective of our practice as
teachers, we students were ask to interview our classmates about their
experience teaching in their practicum or as a job. We were free to ask
anything we wanted, so I decided to reflect my experience teaching in a high
school in the questions that I made to my partner. The friend that I asked
those questions was Alejandro (I won’t write his last name because I didn’t ask
him about letting me write his name here) and he, with no problem, answered the
questions. For me, these questions helped me know that I am not the only one
that has suffered good and bad moments at school, and as a reflection, I decided
to think more about my students and not about me, now that in my practicum I,
sometimes, have thought about my own “sanity” by letting my students make
anything they wanted to do in class if that made me feel good in class, even if
I that related to not having to give class to the students. As a teacher I am
helping to build this society’s basis and I can’t allow that those basis grow
weaker. Is my task to make strong students in order to have a better place where
to live.
The questions are:
1. What do you do to prepare your classes at school, taking into account
that sometimes those classes don´t cover enough time to cover the whole
planning? If at the end of the term you haven´t covered the whole program, do
you evaluate, in the final test, even the topics that weren´t covered in the
term, or do you evaluate only what you taught, taking into account that the
final evaluations are standardized?
2. What
made you become a teacher? What did you feel when you took that decision?
3. How long have you been teaching? Who do you like to teach to: kids,
teenagers or adults?
4. What do you do when the class goes out of control, to engage again your
students to the class?
5. Do
you like your students to be reflective in class or do you give them everything
“masticado”? according to your answer, how do you evaluate them?
ANSWERS:
1. Well, time ago, I faced such
situation and what I do is to work on the topics that are more important or
relevant and of course I evaluate those that were worked. it is impossible to
evaluate the ones that were not covered. it is important to organize properly
the time and the activities in order to avoid that situation. a good planning
is the key for a suitable class developement.
2. I decided to be a teacher because it
is a within feeling of passion that I have. I am dealing now with the teachers
dispositions to be able to identify how it came out. what is clear is that I
love to be a teacher and I will keep on doing it for long. on the other hand,
when I made the decision I felt amazing, I felt that it was what I loved and
what I love now.
3. my experience in teching is not long,
i have been teaching officially 10 months ago in a language institute, before
this; i had been teaching on private classes. the population is not relevant
for me because I love the fact of teaching to everyone, though i´d prefer to
work with adults rather than kids. but either population as well is perfect for
me.
4. when my classes are out of control I
inmediatelly stop explainning and I stay quetly in front of the class and cross
my arms, students inmediatelly look at me and stop the noise. after that, I ask
the students what is happenning?
5. I like reflective students but also
students that construct knowledge, I evaluate in the way I teach. I for example
I have to teach grammar because the conditions ask me for that, so I evaluate
grammar. on the other hand, if a teach in other ways, I evaluate like that. it
is a matter of been coherent.
