January 19th, 2014

The first two class sessions went way too fast.  Time has been my nemesis for all of my teaching career but even more so now that I am teaching teachers! Where does the time go?  I have so many things to tell everyone and never enough time to do so. I am a perfect example of someone who does not always get to everything I want to get to.  I wanted to get to asking students what they feel should be on their blogs, but we ran out of time.  I was happy with the responses on the Padlet wall as I gavve those questions to Mr. Reinert and Dr. Kohnen so they could offer a comprehensive look at what they needed to tell all of these individuals as they prepare for practicums and student teaching and Lord knows there is a lot of information to digest.  I am just astounded by all of the things these young people have to do in order to become teachers.  FBI background checks were unheard of in 1991!! Seriously??  And does this really protect students?  I doubt it.  We still have school shootings and we still have some perverts get into school systems. But I guess we need to do what we can to screen potential future teachers. But what's to say someone might just crack with all the pressures of teaching?  I also wanted to be done with Deep Maps by now, but alas, we may get to that on Wednesday, after Dr. Kohnen talks about the practicum placements and student teaching.  But we shall get to it. So, my reflection for teaching is this: How do we know how much time to allot for what we want to do in our classrooms? Do we ever get accusotmed to that?  Is it bad if we rush things or feel we must absolutely get to everything when we might actually be having a great conversation or students are asking very good questions? Do we have to be slaves to our timeline? No, emphatically, no.  If we do, we are going to die a little inside as teachers.  And will some teachers start teaching to the test so his or her students can score well?  I hope not. I don't want robots in the classroom. I want humans.