It is not like I never taught other content areas. I had taught ESL, Spanish, a 6th grade self-contained classroom, social studies, and a couple of adjunct teacher preparation courses... It was just that for the last year I had been so absorbed in workshop teaching, that it took me a while to zoom back out and closely consider who I would be as a teacher educator. I knew what I loved about teaching middle schoolers, especially with reading and writing. I knew from a course that I taught last spring that there were certain components that I loved with my middle schoolers that were present with adults, such as interacting/discussing content. I knew that one main role as a teacher educator was to frequently model various teaching practices, and to allow pre-service teachers space to construct their own understandings of who they want to be as teachers.
Thus, though I knew certain aspects at the onset, I still was not quite sure about others. I worried about aspects that I would miss. Nonetheless, over the course of this fall term, I realized that there are more aspects that transfer over to my current position than I had originally anticipated. Here were some of my realizations:
- Pre-service teachers can still use support with writing. There is a place for writer's workshop. Winter term I am excited to scaffold a couple of research paper assignments by utilizing workshop philosophy. Inspired by Penny Kittle, I will guide students through examining mentors of product, and I will write with my students as a mentor of process.
- Along the same lines, students need support in other areas, such as content area reading. At the start of the course, I was thinking that reading books from my favorite education publishers focusing on k-12 education would be more of a special treat, an avenue to support k-12 teachers or to consider how I could have improved what I did as a teacher. However, I did not think they would be as highly relevant to my position in higher education. I thought I would really miss that excitement of reading and seeing ideas that would immediately apply to my practice. Yet, once again, to my delight I realized that many of the ideas did still apply. As I am finally getting a chance to read more professional development books for pleasure again, I am realizing that the texts serve to inform my practice, as well as providing ideas to share with students to supplement course texts.
- Just because my students are adults now, and not middle schoolers, doesn't mean that they have everything all figured out. Some still need support in balancing various aspects of life and to have effective time management. Others need support in dealing with stress. Teacher-student connections are still highly important. There is a need to get to know students and to understand their strengths and areas for growth.
As I look at my list of realizations, I think, Of course that would be the case. I am not sure why I did not think of these aspects from the onset. Nonetheless, I have been glad to notice there are more constants in education of different age levels than I had initially realized. I started the year excited for a new opportunity to stretch myself as an educators, to learn and to grow. Yet, I was also worried that I might miss my regular teaching position too much.
The initial disconnect that I felt between who I was and who I was becoming as an educator was evident in the lack of blogging throughout the fall. I thought about how for so long my blog had narrowed in on workshop teaching, that I was not sure if my new experiences were relevant to this specific blog. As I have noticed more connections, I am realizing that indeed they are.
I look forward to reading more professional development books, as well as blogging more regularly about my current experiences.
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