What I've Learned This Year

Mr. McClung's Blog

I enjoyed reading Mr. McClung's Blog about his first year of teaching. I can recall feeling so overwhelmed at times during my first year of teaching. I was single, planning a wedding, and had no children. I had all the ideals about my classroom that had been instilled in me from my instructors in college. I was going to have "the perfect classroom". My first year of teaching went okay, but not really the perfect scenario that I had imagined in my mind. I honestly never thought I would end up teaching in a middle school environment. Since I had student taught in Kindergarten and 2nd grade, I wasn't really prepared for it either. I survived 3 years before I took time off to stay at home with my own children. Honestly, being a mother has probably changed my teaching style more than any single factor involved in education.

I use to hate when someone would say to me, "your not a mother, you just don't understand!" But now that I am a mother, I hate to say it, but they were right. I don't think that you can't be a good teacher unless you have children, but it sure does change your prospective in the classroom. When I went back to teaching after 11 years of being a stay at home mother, I was a different person. I try to communicate with my parents as much as possible. As frustrating as parents can be at times, I remember that most just want the best for their children. I also remember that they are human and not perfect, just like our children. Some parents like that hard copy of the newsletter that I send home each week, while others like that email in their box that reminds them of their child's test. Is it a little more effort on my part to do both, sure, but it meets the needs of my classroom and that is what teaching is all about.

Mr. McClung sounds like he has learned many of the same lessons that I had to learn as a first year teacher. We all just have to dust off after the mistakes and move on. Try to do better the next go round. Make notes of what works and what doesn't. Try something new and different the next year, or just improve on what you did the previous year. Technology takes care of so much of that for us. I can post on blogs, forums, and internet chat rooms and immediately find out what worked and what didn't from other experienced teachers. I didn't have that benefit 16 years ago in my first year of teaching. Mr. McClung is using technology to his advantage. The more that we can share with each other, the better teachers all of us will be.