Chapter 14: Succeeding in Your Teacher Education Program--and Beyond

There are two types of concerns when it comes to becoming a teacher for me. The first really has little to do with my ability and is out of my control however I can not help but worry about it. I fear that I will get a position in a school that will be forced to make teacher cuts in the following year or two and I will be out of a job. I know that it is not truly a reflection of the teacher, but having to reapply to another district after losing a position I think would reek of poor teaching skills. While most schools are probably aware that good teachers can lose their jobs, it seems more realistic that the hiring committee would have a predetermined opinion that the candidate was a poor teacher. My other concern is that I will be ineffective for some students. I am fairly confident that I can develop lessons and activities that will get allow all students to learn the material. However I fear that there will come a time when a child asks me a clarifying question and I will not be able to make the math "click" for them.

The area of concern I would fall into would be the Unconcerned and the Impact areas. I will focus on the Impact area because the Unconcerned worry really is out of my control so time would be wasted giving it too much weight. There was no Self or Task concerns in my thought. I am confident in my ability to talk to a class and teach them math. I am also ready to prepare lessons and activities. Being prepared will be the easy part of teaching, the hard part will come in when "the last two students", as named in the book, need help clarifying. Everyone sees math differently that it might be like trying to win an argument when you do not know what the other person is thinking. The stage of my concern is number four. I fear most that I will not be able to reach a student and let them see how the material is pertinent to their personal sphere.

Chapter 13: Improving Teachers and Schools, and School Reform

The most important and obvious addition to my resume will be a college degree. At long last will my professional resume be at a level that will open many more opportunities. I also wish to do my student teaching in a program that is known to be strong in math, so having that location on my resume can be a credit to my training. I feel those two aspects of the college experience are the only ones that will add credibility to my resume.
The additional certification that has grabbed my attention is the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification. Creating a portfolio of work that demonstrates to the trained eye that you are an effective teacher carries a lot of weight. I am not convinced that getting the certificate will mean that I am a better teacher. The major reason I would strive to achieve that certification would to survive. With all the economic turmoil that schools are being subjected to right now there is a constant worry for young teachers that they may lose their job. I feel that being Nationally certified would weigh heavily in my favor if the choice between my job and another teacher's job ever came up.

Chapter 7: Thinking about Teaching and Learning

The following list is composed of ideas that I would like to include in my philosophy of education from the material in chapter 7 of The Joy of Teaching, written by Gollnick, Hall, and Quinn (2008):

• The Socratic Method (p. 264) seems like a good idea to get children involved in the material. Asking multiple questions to build to an answer instead of just asking a question to get one answer is a method I think would work well. Questions and answers are a good way of assessing if the students are understanding the material.
• The first assumption of Hilda Taba I completely agree with. It says that "Thinking can be taught" (p. 267). I feel like students should be encouraged to think and be given tools and opportunities to further advance their abilities to think and construct ideas.
• An idea that will work well in math is the Confucius method. This is where the material is given in three ways, reflection, imitation, and experience (p.275). In math that would be introducing the new concept, doing some examples together as a class, and then letting the students experience the material on their own and see how they work through it.

References:
Gollnick, D., Hall, G., & Quinn, L. (2008). The Joy of Teaching: Making a Difference in Student Learning. Pearson Education Inc., 258-291.

Chapter 6: Social Context of Schools

I created a template for a classroom contract against low language towards other people. It is located at www.nctmjosh.wikispaces.com. The areas of the page are left blank because I believe that in order for the students to really own the rules they have to be the ones to come up with them. We will have a brainstorming session in class to establish the guidelines for the contract. Once we have agreed on a good set of rules, all of the students will sign the bottom of the contract. The scale of the paper is off; this activity would be done with a large piece of poster paper that can be hung on the wall.

Chapter 5: The History of Schools in the United States

The curriculum taught in schools has evolved over the last 300 years to meet the needs of society. At the end of the nineteenth century America was becoming industrialized; this created a lot of jobs that immigrant workers would come to the country to get. The school system was focused on preparing the children of the immigrants to be ready to work in assembly line type situations. The schools were trying to control people by controlling what they learned. This style continued until some educators decided that learning should be done by way of group work and activities instead of lectures. The thought was the children would learn to be a useful part of society and have higher moral character. During the cold war there was a strong focus on math and science, supported by government funding, the goal of the school system was to create future scientists that would keep America ahead of the Soviets. In the 1990's, in order to include all demographics in the curriculum, National Standards of what will be taught were introduced that make all sectors of society represented in the material covered in schools.

The curriculum of schools has never been a black and white subject; there have always been debates about the right things to focus on. When the colonists first came to America they attempted to force the Native Americans in the school system in order to teach them the ways of the Anglo Saxons. The American Indians, of course, fought against the forced change of life and were moved from their homes to lands farther west. After the Mexican-American war there were many Mexicans living in the United States that were promised citizenship, but the government made them attend schools before they would grant the citizenship. The problem was that they also made laws that made all instruction to be done in English and even made it forbidden to speak Spanish in schools. This forced the Mexicans to attend private or Catholic schools in order to receive bilingual instruction until the government finally created programs for English Language Learners.

How do I start thinking like a teacher?

The most important part of thinking like a teacher is to understand that the children come first. Thoughts cannot be based on what "I" want to do, they need to be what is best for the students. Everyone has their own reason to want to be a teacher and that naturally will influence what kind of teacher they will be; but in order to think like a good teacher the thoughts that influence their actions need to be based on the reasons the students are in school. It is not easy for me to always think of other people first, so I will struggle at times to do the right thing as a teacher. I think that being aware of your shortcomings and understanding what can be done to overcome them will go along way in thinking like a teacher. No one should want to be the teacher that already knows everything. I think in class we could practice more assignments that aren't focused on what we think but more on how will a child or class respond in a certain situation. Instead of responding about what we think about subjects in the chapters of "The Joy of Teaching" maybe we can try to see how the students would be affected by certain subjects. In general the biggest part of thinking like a teacher for me is to remember that there are more important minds in the class than my own.

•Which theories and historical influences should most impact the schools we'd like to have?

Of all the historical influences in the public school systems over the years I think the most important one to continue forward is the mindset after Sputnik I. America was determined to be smarter than the Soviets in Math and Science so the government provided funding for schools to have the materials and curriculum needed to create a better program. There is no need to specify the subjects to those two areas anymore, and we are not in a race against the Soviets anymore either, but the thought process is a good one. We want to be a smarter country so we need to educate our students. The rest of the world is slowly catching up and overtaking American in terms of engineering and education. To continue to be a world power we cannot let our schools fall further behind. The competitive edge has been removed from the American school system, we are now trying to get every child to be able to pass a standardized test. We need to get back into the mindset that made the United States great to begin with, we need to want to be the best and be willing to put in the time and money to achieve that in schools. Going forward in this class I would like to see how much money is spent on "regular" curriculum compared to how much is spent on programs connected to "no child left behind".