Blog 1

Even though I have yet to start my field work as I am waiting to find a schedule that works well for both me and my child's teacher, I have plenty of teaching experience to draw from. As a former homeschooler, as a mother of children that once went to a school requiring 3 hours of volunteer work per week, and as a former teacher in a private school. Over those many years, I've come to see classrooms run in many fashions. Some more like the 1950's model, some that embrace a more hippy-like attitude of child-led learning, and some very modern and tech friendly. However, I've found that no matter the way a teacher chooses to teach, he or she still pretty much prepares and divides their time in much the same way.

This brings me to what a teacher does all day. Yes they pass out assignments, grade papers, sing songs, read stories, and answer questions throughout the day, but what they do is so much more than keeping children on schedule and filling their little heads with facts. In fact, it is an intricate dance between presenting the lessons crafted on their off time, and bending and flexing the subject matter for the students until they see the light bulb of understanding switch on. Sometimes this requires turning the same information over and over again, presenting it in many different ways to accommodate the different learning styles in the classroom. For instance, one day you might have the students practice writing their spelling words, the next they can piece together letter tiles, and on another day, they may sing a song or recite a poem about the words. 

The biggest part of a successful, smooth running classroom is in the proper preparation by the teacher. Teaching is a job that requires you to not only print off worksheets and cut out shapes for a counting lesson, but it requires the teacher to consistently improve his or her craft. Teaching is a skill like painting or dancing; you must keep up with the techniques you find most effective in getting through to your children as well as learn new ones. Whether you are memorizing new songs for skip counting or putting together a lesson on programming a mobile app, you -- as an instructor -- put in many more hours than the ones spent in the classroom.