Blog Post #9

After reading Mr. McClung's What I've Learned This Year, I found that he wrote about some very important rules to consider when teaching. Mr. McClung wrote these rules after his first few years of teaching in Noel, Missouri. It is great that Mr. McClung decided to blog about some of the things he learned because now we, as future teachers, are able to get some knowledge of what to expect.

One important rule that he wrote about is that it is not "all about the teacher". In his first few years of teaching he thought that it was all about him, the teacher. He saw teachers who were more worried about how they delivered the lesson than how their students comprehended it. "In order to be effective you have to be able to let your audience drive your instruction." Teachers have a tendency in wanting to make the perfect lesson. The lessons we make will turn out different than how we expected, and that is okay. We will learn how to make the situation a learning experience even if it does not go exactly the way we planned it to.

Another important rule Mr. McClung wrote about was our expectations of our students. Teachers seem to have high expectations for our students and sometimes if they do not meet the goal they are punished. Mr. McClung states that when a student does not meet the goal that has been set, do not punish them, instead help them to get back on track and maybe meet the goal next time.
"Our job as teachers is to simply pick them up after they fail, dust them off, and encourage them to try again."

A third rule he wrote about was "Do Not Be Afraid of Technology". As future teachers, we need to be aware and prepared of the technology that is available for us to use in our classroom. He explains that even though we may not master technology, at first, we still should keep working with it. Technology will help us and our students learn and grow, so we should start learning as much as we can about it!

The last few important points that Mr. McClung made was to listen to our students. Something so simple makes all the difference. It helps to get to know our students in order to build a good relationship with them. Also, if we are taking a interest in their life outside of school their parents will love that too. Students will grow closer to us and want to listen to us if we listen to them. Also, Mr. McClung wrote about never stop learning. This is one of the most important rules, in my opinion, because we can never learn to much. There is so much that I am going to learn in my next few years at South and I will not stop learning after graduation.