I have never thought of myself as a teacher. I have never been good with my peers in helping them understand a topic or subject. I have only understood ideas in my own way. If I even try to teach someone something, I will end up taking over and showing them how to do it or even just filling it out myself. I knew one day I would never teach anyone but my life has taken a one eighty on me and now I have been given the chance to explore the idea of teaching. With this field work class, I will be able to fully understand the elements involved with the profession. There are principles that I have covered in a packet that I was given that allowed me to begin my journey. I hope to conquer them and with confidence in myself, my peers and my instructor I will hope have the tool necessary to gather learners together and give them great knowledge I have acquired through my life experience.
EL Education has laid out some principles for new beginners and even for some experts in the field of teaching. These principles showed me areas in myself that I will definitely need to work on if I expect to teach students. For example, one of the design principles is empathy and caring. The description states that there must be mutual respect between the student and the instructor and that every student must fell physically and emotionally safe. This a huge area I need to improve on, although it is not mentioned in the description it allowed me to think about having empathy for a student and give deep concern and care for those who are struggling. I have a tendency to leave those who don’t understand behind because I believe that I need to keep moving get the job done.
John Dewy wrote many statements that I as a student agree with. For example, the biggest statement made that I sole agree on is “the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situation in which he finds himself” (Dewey 93). This I believe is the truest statement made throughout the entire packet due to my own personal experience. I have learned more through being thrown into a social atmosphere that I don’t fully understand than being in a room getting taught on a white board.
-Matthew Jingle
HR: Readings
I could understand and relate to what you are saying about focusing on the task instead of taking the time to help others. Something I realized is that if I stop and help someone it helps me understand more and I end getting better content for whatever I’m doing.
I appreciated your voicing your fears of teaching others. When ever I teach someone something I can relate because I feel like I can hijack it and just do it myself. I liked your tie in with the EL curriculum and Dewey work, good job!
In this post, you summed up my thoughts and maybe some others about this class. I never thought I would take a class that required me to teach at a high school or middle school.
I really enjoyed your first paragraph. It exemplifies essentially what Dewey understands of the learning process. Everybody learns differently and interprets information in different ways. It’s all about figuring out what works the best for you and enhances your individual learning experience. Thanks for sharing this with us!
Matthew,
I appreciate your reflections on the idea of taking on the role of teacher–certainly an intimidating thought, but take confidence in the knowledge that you will have plenty of time to observe the classroom environment, and will be focusing less on being the “one who knows”, and the more the one who is encouraging and participating in a learning inquiry with others. The value of using some core curriculum design principles both for Expeditionary Learning, and those foundational to Project-based Learning (PBL) from Dewey, the father of experiential learning, is that we want the experience of youth to be at the center, taking account of both the individual (psychological) and social aspects inherent in any classroom culture. As classroom leaders, getting things done is always a constraint, but it is not the most valuable or central aspect of this fieldwork in experiential learning. Time is always a potential opportunity and a constraint. Going with the flow of collaboration and failure will be equally important where time is concerned. You know this well in your life at VMI.
I encourage you to take care to orient your audience with the specific titles (rather than packets) of the texts you are reading for class, especially those who might come to read these blogs from the outside.
MAJ Hodde