The question that arises as I am quickly approaching student teaching in a middle school is, "do I know enough about my content area?" I feel like I have barely scraped the surface of the iceberg on all there is to know about English. The professional responsibilities are daunting in this chapter, but coupled with the non-instructional responsibilities I feel that I can excel on both sides of the spectrum. One thing that I learned in this chapter is the idea of a "locus of control" which happens when we reflect on our lessons. When we see that some things went wrong, will we always blame it on outside forces? Or will we take full responsibility and look at it with an "I can do it" attitude for the next time we teach it?
Another thing I found interesting about this chapter was the "three basic rules for becoming a competent teacher of young adolescents."
1. Why did you use that strategy? Are you using hands-on strategies to promote minds-on learning?
2. What is the environment like? A working learning environment?
3. Are students even learning?
These are three challenges I hope to learn how to meet in my classroom.
As I work at this class, I saw one comment the writers made about our own work ethic and what we expect of the students. If I want students to work hard, I need to work just as hard and to put in just as much time (and more) that the students will. That's a tough one!!
My teaching style leans toward the cognitive-experimentalism position. I do believe the teacher should be an authority, but I think it is more of a guide and facilitator rather than an absolute authority. Because I want to give my students many hands-on experiences, I want to let the students experience lessons so that they can personally learn the content and to solidify or change their theoretical positions on certain things.
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