Another component of our Celebration of Learning project was interviewing our co-operating teacher from our onsite classroom. My teacher is truly inspiring and just a wonderful person to be around. I am so grateful for the experience of being able to student teach in her classroom and learn directly from her!
"Sometimes you feel like it is working and you got it...and sometimes you just need to let it go?"
how do you think students learn?
"My biggest belief is that it is a challenge for students to learn from people that they don't like, trust, or care about. It's possible for some, but for the hard to reach students, they build that connection. One of the things that I try to do is Engage their multiple intelligences. I try to figure out how they learn best. Of course you can’t always engage in that particular learning style all the time but if you have an idea of what your majority of the class is, if you can figure that piece out then you can better identify and reach them but they really learn best when you learn who they are. So getting to know them, understanding where they come from, their history, making connections with them, that helps them too."
what do you teach students?
"Currently, reading. But I like to infuse real life or personal skills, things that they may not necessarily get somewhere else. Things that will help them in life. Not really history lessons but current events, things that are relevant. Also, explaining why something is important."
how do you feel about teaching?
"I like it because I think the biggest joy is when they get it. When you see that lightbulb and when they say "ohh". It makes it worth it. Sometimes you don't see that and sometimes you may not know that they have gotten it. But just exposing them to things that they do not regularly see or know. Making those memories so that they can say "we know this or we learned this or Mrs. Payton taught me this."
how do you keep going when something is challenging?
"I think that what we as teachers have to do is just enjoy. We have to be reflective and think about what didn't work, maybe why it didn't work, and what else can we try to make it work. Then seek out resources to help so that you are not reinventing the wheel. Then you are actually coming up with a plan to make it better. Sometimes that's easy and sometimes it is not, so it just takes a little bit of work. Having a partner or someone that you can bounce ideas off of, someone who has a little bit more experience or similar issues and just getting that advice."
what is going well in school?
"Well, our data is moving for our reading. They are doing a lot better on their activities. So far we are at 70.4% and we started at 47%. I think what allowed us to do that was our small groups. I broke the work down to make them think a little bit more and refer back to the text."
What keeps you interested in teaching?
"Actually, I was in administration for a short time and I think that I am going to go back to it because I enjoy engaging with students, that's great, but I like helping teachers. Helping you, mentoring, or showing you things, I like that a lot so hopefully I can go back into that."