The Nine Goals of Postive Successful Teaching

There are nine basic goals and ideals that a successful and positive teacher should observe. These include things like being cultural diverse, to making it a point to have experiences with different situations to observing and studying their peers. I was always told in teaching it is not only acceptable but encouraged to beg, borrow and steal from other teachers. To more clearly define the nice actions or goals I mentioned earlier I'll break them down and give a few examples of what I believe them to mean as well as sharing some personal experience I have had with a few of them.

The first action is being able to get experience with all types of learners and their families, meaning a teacher should be prepared for whatever type of student comes into their classroom. This can mean culturally diverse students and families or students and families that are working through a financial situation, social issue or even a disability. The second action ties into this in that becoming critically active means that you as a teach have to be ready and willing to join into discussions or situations that are for the betterment of the community as a whole. It is imperative to remember that a teacher is not just someone seen in a classroom but rather they are community members and role models. A huge part of keeping this in mind is your willingness to participate with organizations that embrace people who are different then you. Community outreach, involvement and volunteering are not only things that should be taught to children but should be modeled by teachers to inspire students. As a teacher , you believe education is important so make sure to tack all aspects of your own education and training seriously. This means to maintain professionalism, promptness, respect and when appropriate be willing to accept that you may disagree with someone but you will still try to see the situation though their eyes. One way to continue this education and training for your improvement is to study your fellow teachers and observe what they do in particular situations. Going back to that beg, borrow and steal, there is nothing wrong with taking what works for one teacher and applying it to your own classroom. With this observation and studying you will also be networking with fellow teachers, educators, administrators and those involved in the fields of education this is where you meet help. Finding people to work with to create teams helps to reduce the stress not only on yourself but also on those you work with. It is better to come together for a goal then to each struggle on your own. This can also be seen through the employment of democratic principles in that it is perfectly OK to agree to disagree or to settle things with a vote. The key to democratic principles is maintain a fair and level voting that is unbiased. With all the things a you need to remember and try to accomplish as a teacher it is important to remember to take time for yourself. Find something that you enjoy that can be just for you, something as small as reading the newspaper to taking a vacation just something that allows you time to be recreated and return to the classroom in your full potential.

While I am still a teacher in training and can not truly claim that I have sufficient experience and knowledge in these areas, I do believe that I have a bit of experience with getting experience with all types of learners and their families. My younger brother is on the autism spectrum so I attend meetings and support groups for families and students with special needs. This really opens my eyes to what students are facing with the education system as well as what some teachers are trying to work through and find effective ways of helping these students overcome their setbacks. I really appreciate this shared knowledge and information because it allows for doors to be opened on personal experiences. I think that the more you know and understand the people you are trying to work with or teacher the more effective you will be and the more understanding you will be. I am also involved with a local church youth program whose goal is to provide tutoring help to students who come from broken or socially difficult families and home lives. We work with foster children, single parent children and children who come from homes where finances are a large struggle. I think for this experience I have learned how to appreciate how blessed I am but also how to gauge and understand what a child is dealing with personally and how that can manifest itself as behavior or in his/her grades. I know that I am a getter teacher and a better person for having had this opportunities.

Another experience I was grated was a cadet teaching position through my high school. This allowed me to enter a third grade classroom and a sixth grade classroom to observe both the students and the teacher but also to give me a bit of a taste of teaching. I was responsible for minor grading and small group instruction. I think I learned more about myself then what some of the students learned from my lessons but that is to be somewhat expected. I found that if I thought something would work and tried it, I was then able to see why it did or did not. Also, I found that for my small lessons and for classroom management situations I was referring to what my teachers had done and things that I had experienced as a student. It was also important for me to understand that some things about the class could not be changed because the leading teacher had already established it a certain way and it was not fair to ask that it be changed.

While I definitely have some experience with trying to strive for success with these goals there are also areas in which I need to improve. I know that I need to work more at being aware how much of a role model I am seen as. I have a habit of thinking that my days off are actually mine and as a teacher that is not always true. I may be going out and run into students and their families so I must always be ready to present myself as a community member and a role model that parents would want their children to be around and influenced by. Furthermore, what I post on my personal social networking site is a major factor. More so now then in the past because of the acceptability of it and because of the implications and judgments that can be drawn from it. One wrongly phrased comment, post or inappropriate picture can mean being seen as a positive influence and being seen as someone who is immature. It is my responsibility to make sure that I monitor what is being posted on my site, how much I am allowing to be visible to others, and what links are accessible from my site. Social networking has forever changed the game of media opinion.

I also need to work on being more critically active within the community and within situations. I am naturally a sympathetic person but I believe that there is much to learn from going through a hardship on ones own. This is what works for me personally but I need to come to the understanding that, it is not that way for all people and I need to be there and be willing to set up if needed. I need to be willing to speak up for those who have no say and be more accessible to those who are seeking information or assistance that I am qualified to give. If and when I do not have answers I need to have ready contacts and sources to further assist and I need to continuously be researching myself to keep up to date on situations and current issues that are effecting the community in which I live and work. This is not only for establishing myself as someone who is there to help but also as a role model that is there for people who need help and as an advocate for those who are unable to stand up for themselves or who just have not yet learned how.

Tutoring Reflection

I tutored a young girl named Rhia, name has been changed for privacy, she is a GED student in her last class before getting her GED. The class is the equivalent of a senior English course. Rhia approached me to help her with a particular assignment because she is not a confident reader and had no prior knowledge of textual annotation and little on textual analysis. The assignment was to choose a book the met specific given requirements, keep a chapter log on textual events, as well a personal reflections to the text. After reading the text the student was to complete a paper using one of the textual analysis lenses to evaluate it.

The book The Poisonwood Bible by Barbra Kingsolver was chosen. To complete the chapter log requirement we decided to do textual annotations. This method ended up working quite well for bother Rhia and I. It allowed her to remember key events as well as interesting facts. When she had a question she was able to just write it down to be discussed at a later time. This was particularly helpful in the case of vocabulary terms and symbolism.

Looking back I believe that the time line of the assignment could have been rearrange, giving longer time for particularly trying chapters or perhaps giving some type of overview of the vocabulary terms in the book and a general list of archetypes and symbolism. I believe that these ideas could have been implemented as earlier lessons, perhaps even before the assignment of the reading. I thought that the evaluation and use of the textual lenses was very interesting, especially seeing someone who was unfamiliar with them beginning to use them and view the text in a different way.

Over all I feel confident in that Rhia will be able to continue to use the ideas taught through this assignment. I believe she is a more confident reader and she is more willing to accept challenging texts because of the use of annotations and reflections. Personally, I think that there is no better way to read then the use of annotations, but that is my opinion. The one thing I would do different as a whole would be to choose a book that I was familiar with or had already read so that we were not going through the reading and analysis process together. I think that would have allowed for a more defined role of leadership and clarity on my part. I enjoyed this opportunity and will definitely take some things I learned into the classroom with me.