Learning Letter

Dear Sean,

This quarter has been long and challenging to say the least.  However, I am not deterred from becoming a teacher.  The course overall gave me many different tasks to help me become more focused on my goal to become a teacher.

Through the work we’ve completed in class – the book talks, the mini-lesson, and the unit plans – I feel like I have more understanding of what it takes to become a teacher.  I’ll never be the perfect educator; however, I’ll continue to put one foot in front of the other and give it my best every day.  From the book talks, I do get now that you can’t just pluck any young adult novel off the shelf and expect that it is going to be teachable or appropriate for your class.  A teacher has to be knowledgeable about what he or she believe is going to be the beset novel to introduce to their class.  There may be some red tape for teachers to get through before being able to introduce books such as Symptoms of Being Human or The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian to their students.  But, the research put into looking for a quality book for students to read can add to your own personal library.

The mini-lesson was helped me gain an understanding on how to use time wisely.  Most of my peers in this class have had some high school teaching experience because of their majors as secondary educators.  However, I do not have that same experience with professional instruction.  The mini-lesson demonstrated that teaching students even for 20 minutes is not as easy as it seems.  The preparation it takes in order to lead instruction takes a while. Being able to research various methods of teaching and the pedagogy to back it up is also time consuming.  The time it took me to research the appropriate methods of teaching helped me to realize an important lesson about time management outside of the classroom, too.  Teachers need to set aside a good amount of time to set up their lesson plans in order to effectively present material to students.

The three week literature unit plan was the most challenging project I had to work on in this class.  This project only covers three weeks.  I've learned about how to set up a class and back up my lesson objectives with corresponding Common Core State Standards.  Being able to introduce material isn't anything that a teacher can pull out of their heads the night before.  It takes hours upon hours of work and dedication to create a successful unit.

From the books we’ve discussed and the lessons they contained, I’d have to say that my favourite two books would have to be Cris Tovani’s I Read It, But I Don’t Get It and Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of The Oppressed.  The knowledge in these books were incredible.  Freire’s Pedagogy helped me mold my teaching philosophy.  As a future educator, I plan to keep Freire’s book as a pedestal to help remind me that students are more than just canisters to be filled.  To treat students as such is an insult to both the students and to my own philosophy as a teacher that students should be part of an open atmosphere that encourages students to ask questions and really look into what they’re being taught.   

Overall, I really enjoyed this class and I look forward to putting what I’ve learned here into my future as a teacher.