Blog Post # 9

I chose Mr. McClung’s first edition of “What I’ve Learned This Year” because I thought it would be most beneficial to me as a new teacher. This, of course, is in addition to the required and latest version.

What I’ve Learned This Year (08-09)

In this post, Mr. McClung reflects on his first year teaching. I found this to be an incredibly nifty post. He starts out by discussing the way he lost touch with his class as he taught as lesson. His post describes him being so worried about his assessment from superiors that he forgot lessons should be student centered. He urges us to be flexible because no lesson plan is perfect, and also reasonable because as teachers we can hold very high expectations of our students. He stresses that our job is about picking our students back up after they fail and encouraging them to try again.

Another piece of advice was communication. He discusses communication regarding the workplace, as well as students. They best way to handle conflict at work is to simply talk things out. With fellow teachers, administration, and students it is imperative that we communicate. This is how we build rapport, develop strong, lasting relationships, and earn the respect and trust of our students. He also advocates technology as a friend. He even says we need it to be able to live in “our microwave society of today.”

He ends his post by encouraging us to never stop learning.

I loved this post. This is extremely beneficial to me because I have not went through my first year of teaching yet. It gave me a good idea of some problems that I am likely to encounter. I agree with everything he has to say. All of his advice is very pragmatic, and something that I will surely look back on.



What I Learned This Year - Volume 4

In this post, Mr. McClung addresses only two themes. The first, “You Gotta Dance With Who You Came To Dance With”, describes becoming overly concerned with the way that his fellow teachers perceived him. He tells us that after much reflection he came to realize that the way his peers view him is not that important. He tells us that throughout his career he has always followed one rule (or question); are the kids having fun? This couldn’t be more true. It is the children that we are here for. While it is important that we are pleasing our superiors and meeting all requirements set forth, the kids should always be our main focus.

The next theme he discusses is “Challenge Yourself”. Mr. McClung talks about how he had gotten comfortable in the school and subject he taught, which made the amount of creativity put into his lessons decline. He admits that he began to depend on old lessons and was not teaching well. He states that if we get too comfortable as teachers, we become lazy and our lesson plans become awful, which in turn makes our students suffer.

I am always looking for something new to try. I am the type of person that loves to be challenged and stay busy. I can truly understand what it is that Mr. McClung is saying here. I have had so many teachers that used lesson plans from an incredibly long time ago. Even though we have to cover the same standards year after year, we do not have to do it the same way over and over. Lessons should be subverted as needed to fit the needs of our students. I also really appreciated how honest he was with his flaws and failures as a teacher. Very enlightening.

I enjoyed reading these posts so much that I read the other two versions, and even followed and saved his blog to my Symbaloo. I was very excited for him when he announced, through an update, that he has been offered and accepted a position as an assistant principal. I’m sure only good things will come from his career advancement.