This month has
been an exciting one, filled with lots of learning, new things, and a look into
my future as a teacher! One of the learning experiences that I completed this
month was the wisdom from experience where we had to interview a K-2 teacher
and a 3-5 teacher. I enjoyed both experiences, but I had the opportunity to
interview my Kindergarten teacher. She now teaches 1st grade and it
was so great to sit down with her and ask her some things about social studies,
as well as catch up and ask her some advice about becoming a teacher in
general. It was nice to be able to go back to where I went to school and
remember why she was one of the great people that influenced me to become a
teacher. She told me that one thing to always keep in mind is to be flexible.
Sometimes, lessons won’t go the way we plan and we must change everything.
Sometimes, we realize that our class isn’t understanding what we are teaching
and we must differentiate and make accommodations. It’s all about being
flexible and not stressing when something doesn’t go exactly the way we
planned.
I
heard someone in our class mention at one point that they have a student in the
class that they will be student teaching in that has ADHD and struggles every
day. For my outside research, I found an article on Edutopia that listed many strategies that help in positively
impacting those students who struggle. Often, they are struggling on the
outside, because of what they are dealing with, but they also feel bad because
they can’t focus, so they are struggling emotionally and socially as well. This
was also one of my TTotW for week 4. I really wanted to find ways to help
students in my class that may struggle with ADHD because it is becoming so much
more common nowadays.
My
learning experiences for this month relate directly to the NCTCS Standard 2: Teachers
Establish a Respectful Environment for a Diverse Population of Students and
Standard 4: Teachers Facilitate Learning for Their Students. What I learned in
my teacher interview relates to standard 4. It’s important to facilitate learning
for our students. A part of that is accommodating instruction and changing
things if we see the need. The article I found on helping students with ADHD
relates to standard 2. A respectful environment where our students feel safe is
crucial in a well-functioning classroom. If we see a student that may have a
need in our classroom, it is our job, NOT to diagnose them, but to help them in
every way we can so that they can learn in the best way possible.
I’ve
mentioned a few times in this post about things that I want to use in my future
classroom. I want to keep the mindset that the teacher I interviewed has. I
want to remain flexible and be ready to make accommodations and differentiate
if the need be. I want my future classroom to be comfortable for all my
students and learning to take place in whatever way they need it to. For that
to take place, I need to stay flexible. Also, I want to take the strategies I
learned in the article to help the students I may have that have ADHD. Those
are great things to help those students with their learning and allow them to
feel important and smart!
