Blog Assignment #9

     The first blog post I chose to read was What I've learned this year (2008-2009). Mr. McClung discusses about how much he has learned over his first year of teaching. He states that he did not just grow as a teacher but as a person as well. A few points he talks about that I found interesting were "how to read the crowd" and "listen to your students". These two topics really stood out to me. "How to read the crowd" originally grabbed my attention because it was so honest. He speaks about how at the beginning of the year he was more focused on impressing his co-workers and superiors than his students' learning. People pleasing is a trap that everyone falls in. The awesome thing about McClung though, is that he saw his faults and learned from them. To make the extra effort to change for the better shows character, and he has a lot of it.
     The second topic I liked, "listen to your students", because it touches on something I feel like people tend to forget sometimes. The world can sweep you off your feet, we get busy, we get selfish, we become blind to the people around us that are in need of a boost. In this particular case, McClung shares a response from a student when asked why they knew their teacher cared. The response was, because he "listens to what I say". Think about this for a moment. Imagine yourself as a little kid again, and how it would feel if you felt ignored or looked over time after time. But then there was that one special teacher that took the time to see who you really were and made you believe you were worth listening to. That's what we must do as teachers. We are robbing ourselves and hurting our students if our only goal as teachers are to teach math problems and science experiments.

     The second post I chose was What I've learned this year (2009-2010). I picked out two points that I enjoyed in this blog just as in the first one. "Find your school mom" is the first section that I loved reading. It's not easy to admit you need help sometimes but McClung does a great job of doing so. He says that every time he is at a new school he finds a "school mom", a teacher who has worked at that school for years and knows the ropes. At first I found this funny, I pictured an older woman shaking her finger at a young hot shot teacher trying to straighten him out. But as I read on I realized what a great idea McClung had. All of our lives we have had someone telling us what to do, how to do it, and sometimes even doing it for us. So it's not surprising that we start to sink after jumping into the deep end without our water wings on. Finding a "school mom" to help mentor you and guide you through those first few years is an amazing blessing to have.
     The second topic McClung spoke on that caught my eye was "scope and sequence". This stood out to me right away simply because of its title. I had no clue what scope and sequence was until I read this blog. But it turns out I did know what it was, I just knew it by "assessments and evaluations" instead. McClung talks about how much he realized this past year that his classroom management needed some work. He goes on to say that he caught himself lecturing on what he thought was interesting instead of being focused on what his students needed to know and what was important to them. A big thing he mentions in this section is keeping track of his assessments. Assessments can be monotonous, but if you keep your eye on the light at the end of the tunnel they will pay off in the end for you and your students.