Blog Post #9

What I've Learned This Year (2008-2009) by Mr. McClung

First things first, Mr. McClung seems to be an awesome teacher. He seems like a teacher that I would love to have when I was in school. In this blog post, Mr. McClung has finished up his first year of teaching and hits on some of the major points that he has taken away from that first year. He tells us, the readers, that not only does a teacher just teach the material, but the teacher also learns as well. He gets into the "meat" of his post by telling us what all he has learned from this year. A few stuck out to me and will be very valuable when I begin my teaching career.
He says to make sure to learn to read the audience. A lot of times in education, the teacher is more worried about the delivery of the information, and impressing superiors; but, one important thing to remember is that the lesson needs to be student centered. This is a great point. It seems so simple, but can totally change the classroom. When students are the center of your lesson plan, and not the delivery of the information, you will have a great classroom that is willing to learn.
Another point that Mr. McClung brings up is to be flexible. He says there are many times that as a teacher his lesson plans were "perfect," but he needed to remember that the students he is working with are not always perfect. At the beginning of the school year, Mr. McClung said that he was trying to control things too much, but at the end of the year learned to kind of "go with the flow." He realized that he couldn't control everything and needed to adapt to a situation whether than try to push through it. This is the part of the post where I said in my head "well, duh!" This seems so simple, but definitely something that I need to remember throughout my teaching career. Not only do teachers teach the students, but the students help to teach the teachers. We, as teachers, must remember to listen to our students. Sometimes we may be the only ones that listen to them. In order to build a healthy student-teacher relationship, there must be a respect between the two. The best way to build that respect is by listening to what the student's say and vice-versa.

What I Learned This Year- Volume 4 (2011-2012) by Mr. McClung
The very first thing that struck me about Mr. McClung after reading this post is that he has definitely grown as a teacher from year one to year four. He only hit on two major points in this post, but they were great points that he made.
The first point that he brought up was he as a teacher was struggling to find his identity with his peers. It was something that he never thought of before as a teacher, and it really messed him up as a teacher. It took him most of the school year to realize that he needed to stop worrying about what his peers thought about him. School is about the students, not peers, and Mr. McClung forgot that over the course of the year. The major point he is hitting on though, is that he forgot the reason he got to where he was as a teacher by following one rule: are the kids having fun? Mr. McClung, I'm sure, is not the only teacher to fall into this trap. I'm sure it is something that I will face whenever I get a teaching job and I need to remember that the focus does not need to be on my peers, but on my students.
Another point that he brought up in this post is that we, as teachers, need to challenge ourselves. He said that he had been teaching the same subject for the last three years, and had started relying on old lesson plans. This was a problem for Mr. McClung because it took away his creativity because of the ease of access to an already created lesson plan. A new opportunity came up for him to teach a new subject and he took that opportunity. He said he knows that it will be hard work, but it is a challenge he is willing to accept. The way you grow as a person is by overcoming challenges and Mr. McClung realized that. This lesson is the greatest of them all, in my opinion, because in order to improve as a teacher you must learn how to constantly grow and overcome different challenges.