Some people feel being a teacher is a copout job. Don’t get me wrong; I’m fairly sure these people do realize that having a teacher for themselves or their children is a necessity. There is a joke that goes “Those who cannot do, teach, and those who cannot teach, teach gym.” while this was very humorous during the movie, I feel as if people still have this feeling. But, what they do not realize is that becoming an educator is a never-ending process filled with constantly learning new methods and techniques to serve and shape the minds of students. At ISU the COE is renown throughout the country, and has dedicated themselves to educating future teachers on moral and intellectual virtues. These virtues can be found on the surveys we took on livetext and in the article Realizing the Democratic Ideal. I fell as if I need to work on perfecting all of these virtues however; the virtues I need to strictly focus on are having a disposition and ability to collaborate ethically and effectively with others, knowledge and appreciation of the diversity amongst learners, and a wide understanding of what affects learning and of appropriate teaching strategies.
I feel as if I need to learn to work well with others because this is a skill that will be beneficial for the rest of my life. Working in groups is something that I have always struggled with. This is a problem because as a teacher it is imperative due to the fact that if I am having trouble reaching a student I am going to have to stop being so prideful and ask for help. As well, we learned when teachers collaborate on lesson plans it helps since each teacher is going to bring something new to the table. A way I plan to develop this virtue is by working with other future educators in my classes, not only on in class assignments, but also developing lessons plans with them. Also, working with current teachers during clinical observation hours. I feel as if working with current teachers and watching how they interact with their co-workers will give me a large insight on to they best methods on working together ethically and effectively.
Learning is something every child does. Yet, not every child learns in the same ways. I feel this is the corner stone to all teaching since if you cannot effectively reach the multitude of learners then you are not going to be giving your students the education their deserve. Not to mention, you would not be working to your highest potential as an educator. As we have learned about in class, Gardner suggests there are eight different intelligences, and in order to learn more about them all as well as what to do for children who need an IEP. I am in Education Psychology and C&I 212 currently and throughout those classes we are learning how to be effective educators to all students. However, just sitting in class and reading a textbook can only give so much information. Currently I am an aquatics instructor and I plan to develop this virtue during work as well as in observation hours. We are taught that everyone possess all eight intelligences, they may just not be developed. Through self-education and classes taken here at ISU I plan to not only be able to recognize what intelligence students are, but know how to give them assignments that will exploit their natural talents.
There are many things that affect learning. Everyone can think back on a day in school when our mind just wasn’t there. Understanding what affects learning is going to be a large challenge for me. I feel this because each student is going to be different, as said above. With that said, it can be easily inferred that different situations are going to affect each student differently. Observation hours are a good technique to learn how the difference amongst students, however, it is not enough. I plan to do observation hours at different schools in different districts, that way I am able to see how resources, amongst other things such as teacher and student attitudes, and socioeconomic status affect learning. We as educators are responsible for making sure that all of our students are learning something, they may not want to learn every day but it is our job to expose them to material and activities that will benefit them for the rest of the educational career.
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