In the blog post,What I Learned this year: 09-10, Joe McClung a teacher from Arkansas does a summary post every school year saying all the lessons he had learned from the previous year. I chose the second year be cause I felt that in the post he would be more comfortable in his surroundings. Mr. McClung's second year of teaching because he had some issues with the administration that year, and may mom is an assistant principal and she sometimes has to intervene and talk to a teacher about how they could change somethings and better the learning experience for the students. He tells us that we should not let the problems outside the classroom affect the classroom because the students will be the only ones hurt. I think it is very important for teachers to treat the classroom like an entirely different world! I love how he says to check your ego at the door. this tells us to not be afraid to be or look weird and ridiculous every now and then as long as its for the student's education.
Mr. McClung's most recent post is shorter than his others and almost seems to contain less enthusiasm than some of his previous posts. This post details the problems that can come with worrying about what peers think. Teachers all have a need to be liked by our peers and colleagues, but in this post he talks about not letting that need affect one's teaching negatively. The most important part of being a teacher is always the quality of the teaching. This seems like common sense, but some teachers seem to have forgotten this. In the last part of the post he talks about "challenging yourself." Mr. McClung talks about how he became reliant on old lesson plans and methods of teaching, so when he was offered the chance to teach a new subject, he took it. This is a very good disposition to have and one that can be quite difficult to obtain. Often we become stagnant in our work because it's the easy way out, and this is a dangerous mindset.
Thoughtful. Interesting.
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