How I Want to Bloom as a Teacher

I am really excited about this course. During my placement last semester at Marble Elementary I was able to observe and assist in my 3^rd grade class during their language arts period. For example, my students recently just had a huge poetry unit where they were able to think creatively through many different types of poetry they published. I kept thinking about different lessons I could teach my students for this course!

Throughout my 301 placement I was in Lansing Schools. However, this year, I have been placed in East Lansing Schools. It amazes me how different the schools are with just a 15 minute drive from East Lansing to Lansing. I noticed how East Lansing has many more assisted technologies than Lansing had. For example, if I was to come up with a language arts lesson at Marble, I would be able to use a SMARTBOARD, or use an ELMO as part of my lesson; however at Lansing I did not see these technologies accessible to teachers at the school. Through my experience I believe that this is one of the major differences between urban and suburban school districts. Because of the greater funding that comes into the higher SES school, these schools get more resources which allow the school creativity through lesson planning.

However, lack of resources would not stop me from wanting to work in an urban district. These students want to learn just as much as students in suburban districts and they need the teachers’ motivation and belief in them to succeed. Throughout this course I want to learn how to motivate my students to enjoy reading, because I did not enjoy reading throughout grade school. No matter if the student struggles in reading or not, I hope that this class will teach me techniques and strategies to apply to my future teaching.

I am also aware that a teacher can incorporate literacy into so many other subjects. For example, during my social studies lesson that I taught last semester, I had my students do a write-up reflecting on what they just learned which provided me with an assessment of the social studies along with allowing me to see their writing skills. I noticed that many of my 3^rd graders still struggled with grammar and spelling. I hope this class will allow us to look deep into the GLCE’s to see what students are learning in terms of language arts in all the different grade levels.

I believe that as teachers we will never stop blooming. Currently, I am defiantly nervous to have my own classroom. I am really excited for the future, but I am also relieved that we get a full year of student teaching in before we take that next step into having our own classroom. With each class I take at MSU, I feel I have bloomed. From TE250 where we learned about diversity, then TE 301 where we learned about terminology and assessments, to finally our 401/402 classes where we can start to apply what we learn into the classroom. My biggest struggle right now is classroom management. I feel I am lacking the confidence to put my foot down when a child is talking out of turn and establish rules from the start. I have really been taking notes and observing how my CT structures her classroom to get ideas on what works and what does not work. I hope this class will give me new insights on classroom management and how to structure my classroom during literacy time (centers, peer groups, free write etc.)

All in all, I love that as teachers we can continue to gain new ideas and techniques through our lesson planning with peers our entire teaching career. We will bloom forever!