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.

Authenticity

According to a web definition of authenticity, authenticity is the quality of being genuine or not corrupted from the original; Truthfulness of origins, attributions, commitments, sincerity, and intentions. Most people would argue that authenticity is a good quality to have, but is it a quality that we want displayed in our teachers? I know as I become a teacher certain things that I personally believe and was taught at a young age such as hard-work, dedication, kindness, respect and more will reflect in my teachings. The things I feel strongly about will probably be more evident than the things I don't care for as much, however as a teacher I know I can't always express the things I feel strongly about. I think there is a line that I believe that teachers should not cross when it comes to authenticity. I don't think it is wrong by any means to tell your students about your origins and where your from. I have had teachers who used to tell me home stories every once in a while and it made me feel more comfortable with them, especially at a young age when you don't think your teachers have lives outside of school. However I also recall having a teacher who was never afraid to give his opinion on his personal beliefs. I feel that when he did tell us what he believed in on certain issues we as students would often side with him because we thought that since he is the teacher he must have the right answer. We really did not get a chance to form our own opinions. As a teacher you can stay true to yourself and your opinions but also teach other opinions as well. For example when learning about evolution my teachers stayed neutral they did not tell us if we should believe in it or not, they just told us the facts and statistics behind us, and showed us arguments for and against it. Some of my teachers had a religious background and did not believe in evolution, but you could not tell at the time.  I guess what I am trying to say is as a teacher I do not object to telling your students a little bit about your origin. Connect to them on a personal level. When I felt more connected with my teachers I felt they were less fake and less like a textbook and more like a teacher. As a teacher be who you are, but don't let it influence what the students decide to believe in. Stay neutral show both sides of arguments. 

Compassion

I personally believe that compassion is an important characteristic in a teacher. Just last year the compassion of my English teacher completely changed how I viewed her and the entire course.

Sometimes in school, especially college where you have several different professors, teachers do not realize how much the students have going on. They don't factor into their grading that the student has several other classes with many other assignments to attend to than just their class. At least that is how I felt my freshman year. There was a few weeks in particular when I felt like all my teachers suddenly decided to have a big project due. Of-course it was just my luck that all the tests and due dates fell within the same time period but none the less I was extremely overwhelmed with my to do list of homework. Anyways to fast forward the story a bit I was extremely busy. I was doing so much work, I was up very late and I remember stressing about a meeting with a teacher I had to have in the morning to edit one of my papers.  I got there in the morning and I don't know what it was, it must have been how I looked or something because the teacher could just tell I was under a lot of stress. She was a teacher that did not allow papers to be turned in late, however she had compassion for what I was dealing with and allowed me another day. I don't feel by any means like oh this teacher is soft, I can get away with not doing things on time, but I think by actually asking me about my week, how much I was sleeping, etc she had sympathy and could see through my perspective. Not only did her compassion lift a weight of my shoulders even though it was just a one day extension it really made me respect her so much more. 

When my teacher gave me the respect and actually treated me as an individual who has so many things going on outside of her classroom rather than just another student, I felt so much respect for her. The rest of the year I wanted to do good in her class, show her that I appreciated her as a teacher. Just because she dealt with my stress one day, it wasn't like she was my shrink. She just showed me some compassion when I really needed it.

I do not think a teacher can constantly be like oh I feel bad for you so hear is what I am going to do to make it better, but I think that it is important to understand that we are all just kids who might need a little break sometimes. There will be a time when we might need the teacher for more than just teaching. I don't believe that good teachers just teach curriculum. I think they teach kindness, and compassion as well as a variety of other things like hard work. The teacher that showed me compassion really just helped me when I needed it. My friends and family still remember how stressed I was at that particular time, and it was only my teacher that seemed to be able to lift some of the weight off. 

Respect

Respect. How do you define something as big and as powerful as respect? Everyone knows what it is, but is there a single best definition in trying to describe it? To me respect can't be described in a single definition. Everyone has their own opinion, and their own definition of what respect is. To me, respect is basically courtesy. In giving someone respect, you are being polite to someone and are listening to them. You 're not being rude or mean to them if you don't agree with something they say. Your appreciative of what they are doing, and you show it. I think there are different levels of respect as well. For example a student respecting a teacher is a different level of respect than a teacher respecting a student. For example the student is a classroom must have respect for the teacher, and often times it is the teachers job to establish it. The students must know that the teacher is the high authority in the classroom. They ought to listen to him or her, and be courteous towards them. There is a type of respect that is expected in the classroom, for example the students call the teacher Mrs. or Mr. and don't talk back to them, and than there is also a level respect that the teacher needs to earn. I think a teacher can earn the respect of a student by first respecting the students. Even though the teacher is the authority in the classroom he or she needs to give out the same respect to her students as he or she wants to receive. The students opinions are just as important as the teachers, and it is a teachers job to show that they appreciate what the students think. I think respect is so important in a classroom. With out respect, no one will appreciate what someone else is doing, and no one will feel appreciated. If the students don't feel like the teacher gives them respect, than they are unlikely to return it. A class that does not respect a teacher is very unlikely to give the teacher courtesy, and is less likely to listen to them. I think there are several signs that a classroom has respect in it. One example is that the students are listening, and not talking when the teacher is talking. I know sometimes students only listen because of fear of punishment, but generally if a student respects their teacher than they will not talk when the teacher is talking. I feel that a classroom with respect often times has students raising hands and participating more, for they know that the teacher appreciates their opinions and participation. No one is put down for what they think. I think respect in a classroom environment should first be established first through rules, like don't touch your neighbors stuff, don't talk when others are talking, raise your hand, etc. However I also think the teacher must establish respect, by first giving it to her students. A teacher is some sense can demand respect, like making students listen to her and take notes, but that only goes so far. If a teacher tries to earn respect I feel that the students are more likely to give it to him or her.