Blog #9

At The Teacher's Desk: What I learned this year 2010-2011

Here Mr. McClung is leaving his third year as a teacher and going into his fourth. McClung keeps a blog going of what he has learned every year as a teacher and posts it for all to see. In his third year he wore many hats as a head coach, a coach for cross country, and a computer applications teacher.

In his second paragraph he mentions to remember who you really work for. Not talking about your principal or administration but your students. Your job is to keep them happy and excited not to find acceptment from others. As he was going to begin his fourth year he was becoming afraid of being too comfortable in his work. In order to steer clear of this he picked up new tasks to keep him busy and make him learn new things. As an educator we must remember while teaching new tasks whether difficult or hard we must not get so frustrated with the student that we begin to take over their opportunity at learning. What I mean with this is not to not to touch the keyboard as McClung says. If we do the task for the student they'll never learn how to do it on their own.

Mr. McClung's World 2012-2012

As McClung left his fourth year he brought up a similar topic from last year. Pleasing others that aren't your students. Last year he said he didn't mind being the outsider that he would rather hang out with his students than the other teachers even at lunch time. It seems like McClung forgot about how important it is that it's not important what the other adults think of you. He eventually got over this worry but it took his most of the school year. Secondly, his other topic was one that he covered in his last blog as well. He previously said not to get too comfortable but this past year he found himself using old lesson plans and his kids weren't getting excited anymore. He was given the opportunity to teach a new grade and subject next year so he's really excited about the new change he must take on. He's taking this opportunity to snap out of his funk and challenge himself to be a better teacher.

Mr. McClung comes across as a genuine teacher. I know he means well and he teaches with best intentions. I feel as though he forgets what he says at the end of the year and then the next year he struggles with his forgetfulness.Many have commented on the his 2010-2011 blog I posted. They gave some of their ideas like the less is more approach and being so tech-savvy in a school that's not can make them become the oustider and not in a good way. Also, someone mentioned that all year long we train students for a test at the end of the year that doesn't benefit the students but benefit adults that use the test scores. That's not fair. Our job as professionalists should be to teach students to help them later in life and morally our standards set by the government are just off. It's pretty ridiculous. McClung's ideas were right, we should pay the most attention to our students and not the other teachers; especially if they're the type that slacks or are debbie downers. I don't think routines keep students learning I think it makes everyone comfortable. If your lesson plan calls for a routine for a couple of weeks then sure that's fine but after that switch things up. It'll keep things new, fun, and students will have to stay up-to-date on what's going on and what's due in class.