Resilience

With teaching comes stress, there is no doubt about it. However what is often questioned is how do we prepare teachers for the stresses related to the teaching profession. How do we prepare them so they do not reach the point where they want to quit with in the first three years?

In my opinion although stress will always be part of teaching, there are ways to help prepare teachers avoid or deal with stress in a healthy matter. I think the biggest thing that future teachers need to have before they start their career is more observation and experience in the classrooms. We cannot learn to teach simply by reading a book on teaching. We need to experience it. Student teaching is essential for getting a job, and in my opinion we need more of it. Have students observe in classrooms whenever they can. Have them go to a variety of different schools and simply observe the diverse teachers and students. No two students are alike. However seeing a diverse amount of students with different needs and attitudes may help you to deal with one's own students. You can read all about managing a classroom, but that does not mean that when it comes to applying it you will be able to. I think that is why teachers get so stressed. They are not prepared to deal with the students diverse needs and do not know how to apply what they have learned in the classroom.

I am not saying observation and student teaching is the only thing that will help avoid stress. In general teachers need to be better prepared. They should learn as much as they can about teaching, and from a variety of different angles. What I mean by that is that they should learn several different approaches to one lesson, so that if something does not work out they do not freak out and panic, they simply try something else. I think we also need to be taught how to be flexible, and when something is not working we need to take steps to fix it. I do not have the answers on how exactly we can teach this, but I do have a couple of ideas. For example we could try role playing exercises where we have a student pretend to not know something and have the teacher practice trying to get them to understand. Or think of some steps as a college class to do when your stressed. Such as take a breath, try repeating lesson to see if repetition helps, or change the lesson.

In general I believe teachers are better prepared and have more experience before they are teaching their own class they will be less stressed and better know how to handle it.

Humility

Is it o.k for a teacher to be wrong? I believe that almost everyone would answer yes to that question. Nobody is perfect and sometimes even when you think you are right, you are wrong. You would hope that the teacher is almost always right, but sometimes they are not. Therefore what important is how the teacher handles the humility after of being wrong.

I remember very clearly the last time I was wrong. I was in the car with my mom and my sister and a song came on. I had the song on my Ipod and knew it very well. At the end of the song my mom said "wasn't that nice, she was singing about her mother" and I responded that no she wasn't, "she was sing about her father." My sister jumped in and took my moms side. I was so confident that she was singing about her farther I almost started crying because they would not believe me even though I swore I was right. The lack of confidence they had in me even though I owned the song and heard many times was very upsetting. However later that day we looked up the music video and it had her mom in it. I was humiliated. I was so confident I was right that it was a punch to the stomach when I realized I was wrong. The important thing, however, was that I did realize I was wrong. Part of me wanted to storm of to my room and not even face my mother and sister who I am sure were gloating, but I didn't. I acknowledged they were right, and apologized. Luckily the did not rub it in my face to much after I said I was sorry and the mistake was soon forgotten by them. 

Looking back at the whole silly ordeal I wish I had been open to their opinions more about the song. However, I am not that upset that I stood by what I thought was right. I truly would have bet money that I was right. I think as a teacher if you are confident about something stick to it, but if challenged be willing, like I did, to look it up. If you are wrong act gracefully and admit to it.  It is hard as a teacher to balance confidence and genuine humility. It is o.k to be embarrassed, but make sure you are not to ashamed to admit you were wrong. I think if you handle it in the right way your students, like my sister and mother, won't give you to much crap about it. If you are confident, like I said go with it because many times you will be right. Be willing if challenged to look something up, because you never know if that small chance that you are wrong could occur. 

Eating lunch with your students

This past January I had the opportunity to observe in a fourth grade classroom for a month. I remember being extremely excited to get to know the teacher and her students.  I learned all of the students names right away, and after correcting many of there assignments and helping them in group activities I was quick to catch onto their academic strengths and weaknesses. However, although I got a small grasp of there personalities by observing them in the class room I really did not know that much about them. That all changed however at lunch time.

At the school I observed the teachers ate lunch with their students every single day in the lunch room as a class. I had never experienced this before and was very surprised by it. To be honest at first I was a little disappointed, I was looking forward to eating lunch with the other teachers to hear their insights and ideas, but after a month I can not imagine not eating with my students as a teacher. 

I learned so much about there lives and there personalities. As fourth graders I did not really think about how much stress some of them could have. They really opened up over lunch. I learned about their families, their sports, their likes and dislikes. I laughed with them and talked with them. I made sure that I was still the teacher at the table however, and not just a buddy. They called Ms. R and listened when I talked. I think it is essential that you remain in charge for the relationship at lunch to work. However I think it is o.k to to open up with them and tell them a little about your life. In my opinion they respect you more when you do, because they relate to you on a more personal level. 

Why is eating lunch with your students beneficial? I believe not only do you learn about and develop closer relations with your students, but you can use the information that you learn about them and apply it to the classroom. For example I remember one boy who was extremely quite in the classroom and seemed to have an attitude that he was too cool for school. One day at lunch I heard him and his friends talk about rap music. I sat by them and they were a bit surprised that I joined the conversation. Needless to say I was telling the teacher about our conversation, and she agreed that the boy seemed very passionate about it, which was surprise. So in the next book project she gave students the option to do something with finding music on itunes that you could relate to the book. The boy was actually excited to make a CD and did a great job on it.

In my opinion eating lunch with your students can make you a better teacher. I learned so much about the students in a month and used that information while working with them. In return they learned about me. Our relationships strengthen when we found common ground at lunch to talk about, and I still kept my teacher status. I think that as a teacher you should really consider eating lunch with your students at least for a couple of weeks like I did. You will be surprised how much you learn about them and how you can incorporate that information to make your students get excited about learning and school activities. 

Efficacy

I believe that a teacher's efficacy is vital to their career. One's self-awareness and confidence is essential to how they are going to teach. If a teacher does not have confidence in themselves the student will not have confidence in the teacher. 

Even if you are scared or nervous as a teacher, I would recommend that you should try not to show it. The reason why I say that is because I have had teachers in the past who you could tell on the very first day how nervous they were. As students when the teacher was scared it showed us that we had the power to influence him or her. We could get away with more. If the teacher does not have persistency he or she will eventually just give up on a project or on their students. Things don't always work the first time. As a teacher you need to try again. Lead by example. Have a good work-ethic and be persistence. If you want your students to work hard and keep trying you need to as well. Teacher's must have confidence in what they are doing. I know as a student I easily pick up on the mood of my teacher and often my mood changes to match theirs. So if I see that a teacher is not really confident in what they are teaching I am going to be apprehensive about what I am learning and less likely to remember it or pay attention if I don't think it is all that important. 

It is clear that confidence is important however it is not as clear how to gain that confidence. I feel like a teacher can gain efficacy by coming prepared. Know what you want to teach and stay with it. If something is not working, even after a little persistence than stay open to new ideas. I know I will be very nervous for my first year of teaching. I am going to try to prepare for it by being well organized and flexible. Every class will be different. I need to be confident in myself to adapt to the class, but at the same time be persistent in what I have prepared. If I show confidence I think the students will be more likely to trust me. Efficacy is so important when it comes to teaching. 

Creativity

I believe that creativity is one of the most undervalued skills in the 21st centuries. Today we often stress the importance of reading, writing, and math, but we never express the importance of creativity and imagination. As children I believe we are born creative. We come up with all these crazy answers to questions we don't know. As you get older than inventive answer that a child makes up is not valued. In society we only want the right answer. 

I don't blame teachers for wanting direct answers. For one thing it is easier to grade and true and false question rather than one on creativity. However creativity in my opinion should be part of a teacher's curriculum. Art classes, dance, and music classes are just as important as reading and math in my opinion. A combination of both creative and traditional education classes can be used to do great things. For example think about J.K Rowling. If schools only stressed writing skills, but not creativity she would have never written Harry Potter. Creativity is essential to the 21st century. We are constantly evolving. Everyday new inventions are being made. One's creativity could find the cure for cancer. Another's creativity could find a way to feed the poor. Creativity can change lives.

I think as teacher's we really need to encourage creativity. One way to do so is that you could teach your students the importance of it. Show them examples on how one's creativity changed the world, how this silly idea of someone's made a huge difference. Make sure they know that their creativity, idea's, and imagination are valued.  Make assignments in which there is no right answer and students are allowed to be creative and do whatever they want to. 

Role Playing

I personally believe that role playing is a legitimate way to learn important information. Like every other teaching method it does have both positives and negatives. 

I think that having the students participate in a role playing activity rather than just listening to a lecture definitely has advantages. I personally feel like students will more likely remember the information they learned during a role playing activity than a lecture. One reason is because when doing something like a debate which involves role playing it makes the students pay more attention and are more alert so they can counter-argue there opponents points. They often come prepared with facts, because generally I feel like they get really into the debate and want to win the argument. Also if done correctly I think students can have fun with role playing activities, and will take in more from the activity than just sitting bored in your desk. However, there are as well negatives to role playing.

One of the biggest concerns I have about role playing, is that students tend to get way to in to it. I like when they have passion and there is nothing wrong with wanting to win the debate if that is what you are having, but I feel like sometimes they will tend to agree with whatever point you give them. They get so caught up with defending there assigned point of view they tend to support it outside of the debate as well. It's harder to listen and really consider another persons opinion when all you think about how are you going to argue it. Plus there are some students who are not comfortable with role play and would rather just sit and listen. In role playing I feel like it is sometimes hard to tell what the main point is, and to get all the notes, there could be missing information. However in a lecture, the teacher can point out what he or she really wants you to learn, and make sure no vital points are missing. There are some things you can do in a lecture, that you can't in role play, and vice versa.

We just did a role playing activity in class the other day, where we were assigned either for or against No Child Left Behind. I think that it was very important that we got previous information about No Child Left Behind, because we had time to learn about it and do some research either supporting or against it. I believe that because we got previous information our debate was a lot more successful. I think is a great idea if teachers are looking into an activity like ours to give the students a little background information. If you give them some time to prepare the results of the activity are going to be a lot better. 

During our activity I really took note of the emotions of all the students involved. They were both positive and negative. Some student were actually having fun, they really got into the debate and channelized their characters. However other student were just plane frustrated and angry. They were mad when the did not get a chance to speak, they were upset when opposing teams shot down there ideas. Sometimes when the students get really into it, they tend to be sensitive and take a attack of there role very personally. 

Lastly, I was asked to reflect upon our role playing activity and answer whether or not I believe that we tend to pay more attention to high student achieving parents and more influential people in our schools, and my answer would have to be yes. I do not agree with it, but that is exactly why they are called influential people, because they have to power to influence or schools. I do not necessarily believe that it is far, but often times we think that a high achieving student is a reflecting of a high achieving parent so we tend to be more open to listen to the parents. However there are some schools, where the little guy's opinion does matter, but I think most of the times the once with high influence are the only opinions heard and therefore listened to. 

Passion

   I think if a teacher if passionate about what they are teaching, their energy and enthusiasm is going to rub off on the students and make them more excited to learn. For example just last semester I had to take a class on insects in the environment for a science credit. I was dreading having to take this class, the last thing I wanted to be learning about was insects. However when I got there, even though it took me a while, I started to really enjoy the class. The reason why I believe I actually liked the class what because the teach was so passionate about what he was teaching. They way he spoke about insects made them seem like the most important, exciting, and interesting thing out there. He was generally wanted to be there teaching us, and it made me want to be there as well. His attitude in the classroom and the way he made what we were learning seem very important really got all the students interested in insects. On the other hand I have also had negative experiences when a teacher was not passionate about the subject they were teaching. For example up until my senior year in high school I thought I was going to be a math teacher. I was one of the very few people who thought math was cool, and I really liked it. However my math teacher was less enthused about the subject. She was a good teacher, and could explain the concepts very well however there was no passion. She did not really emphasize that what we where learning was important or interesting. The class very dull. She made math boring for me. After that class I no longer wanted to be a math teacher. She did not really look like she enjoyed he job and what she was teaching so it kind of crushed my hopes for being a math teacher. I did not want to have that job anymore. Passion is so very important in teaching. If you can get students to be excited about what they are learning and have your positive attitude rub off on them you all are going to learn a lot more and have a lot more fun.