Blog Post #9

Mr. McClung reflects on teaching...

I just hate being a new born teacher!

I have just finished reading Mr. McClung’s reflection on his first year of teaching.  Nobody likes to be the “new kid” on the block and the first year of any job is always hard.  However, there is nothing like the first year of teaching!  You have to please yourself, maybe your family, your students, your student’s parents, your coworkers, and your bosses. 

Mr. McClung does a good job of blogging about all of his trials and errors from his first year of teaching and what he has learned.  He learned how to be flexible and reasonable, while keeping a positive attitude.  He also learned many communication skills like listening to your students and “reading the crowd”.  One of the most important things that he learned was to never be afraid to use technology in the classroom and never, never quit learning as a teacher!

I have already experience nine years of teaching and there is one thing I would add to the list:

Always be able to laugh at yourself!

The second year is double the fun!

I then had the pleasure of reading about his second year of teaching.  Of course, he started the year off teaching a new grade, in a larger school, and responsible for several new subjects!   He was basically back to square one! 

He did seem to be much more mature and he really dug in deeper on evaluating his second year of teaching.  He suggested finding another experienced teacher to help you and he labeled his “my school mom”.   He learned to check his ego at the door and not to be a control freak!  He also got his first taste of not always getting along with the administration!  Welcome to the real world!  As teachers just coming out of college we are given all of these wonderful, creative, inspiring ideas on how to be great teachers.  Then, when we go to apply them in our new classroom….we end up hitting a brick wall (called the principals and administration)!  Oh, well…He now knows that it’s not a good idea to sweat all the small stuff!  He has also learned to dole out more of the work to his students.  

Mr. McClung knows he still has a long way to go, but he realizes that his biggest goal from now on is to not become professionally stagnant.  Truly, that should be every teacher’s biggest goal!