See Me After Class: Final Summer Reflection

The End of the Summer . . . The Next Chapter 

This is the final reflective blog on the reading of the book See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers written by Roxanna Elden.  This has been a three part reflective blog on the readings of the novel over the summer.

The final part of this book tackles some topics that to me stress me out.  Being observed and getting critiqued. Giving out tests and what goes wrong when giving out tests. Grading assignments and the stress involved with procrastinating on grades.  When things don't go as planned and you make a fool of yourself in front of your students. Helping new teachers, and finally what to do better next year. A lot of this stresses me out and honestly for a good reason: I don't understand almost any of the lingo here in these chapters. A lot of the concepts being discussed in these pages are things we haven't discussed yet in our Ag Ed Curriculum.

Yes These Topics Stress Me Out

I'm Excited to Learn About These Topics This Fall

Literally as I was reading these chapters I thought: I don't know this but I will.  This part of the book was perfect timing to be excited for the school year.  This book has now made me ask myself questions that I want to learn but also have questions that I would love to hear great answers too.  Much of this book has been teachers not just giving advice but showing times where they messed up but still are teaching.  One of the best quotes is in the section on observations where a superintendent told a teacher that he/she is unfit to teach the curriculum and then two years later was asking her/him to teach the advance level curriculum. This made me realize that you can never truly prepare for an observation - instead you need to teach your best every day.

I also am starting to realize that student teaching is a place where you can make a mistake or two. It a place to realize that not everything that happens in a classroom is under your control (there are an additional 28 brains in the room after all). In fact it reminds me of a TED Talk I saw.  It was by Tyler DeWitt and he was talking about how he was teaching a lesson on Microbial Viruses and then realized that non of the students understood it.  So he changed the way he explained it to see what the students would think.  He had to make this change because what was originally planned didn't work. This is a possibility that I am going to have to face while student teaching. I'm going to have to be flexible in my lessons and be able to sit there and say, "That isn't working is it? Lets try it this way." 

I think this realization also stems from some of the projects I worked on this summer. Sometimes an idea came I tried it and I realized that either I was doing excessive work or I was doing extra work for no reason.  This made me realize that I needed to change my approach tomorrow.  One of my projects consisted of running a simple test. Three weeks into the project I realized that another department was doing the exact same thing - I decided to then just collaborate with the other department.  Now the same test wasn't being run twice on the same product - creating efficiencies through working with other departments.  

Teaching is very similar: A lesson doesn't go the correct way. You ask what do you do? Either you come up with the idea or someone else gives you the idea:

I am excited for this year ahead. I'm excited to learn about all of these things I don't yet fully know. I'm excited to begin developing some program/curriculum ideas based upon two DSA's, 1 FAST Symposium, and countless hours working with Super Star Teachers and Professors for the past four years of college.

So here's to another chapter in my story.

To Be Continued . . .