Blog Post #9

Mr. McClung had written a blog post once and with the feedback of his peers he continued to write blog posts. With this being his 4th year, he realized he didn't learn as much as he though he did. There were two themes that stuck out to him and that's how he being his 4th blog post. One of the themes was "You Got to Dance with Who You Brought to the Dance". Mr. McClung was struggling with how he defines himself as a teacher. He knew where his reputation stood with his students but he was more concerned with his peers. His main goal was to teach and make sure his students were having fun learning. He had a problem with worrying about if his peers approved of the way he handle business. When I read that sentence I thought "Is he doing his job as a teacher?"  "Are his students learning?" and "How are his teaching skills?". I wanted to know why Mr. McClung was so concerned about what his peers thought about him. He made a statement saying "Worrying about perception of adults has never done anything positive for me, but making sure that my kids are taken care of and enjoying class has done wonders for me". As long as he sticks to that, he should never go down the wrong road.

 His second theme was "Challenge Yourself". This was his third year teaching at the same school and the same subject which is Social Studies and History. He started feeling he was getting too comfortable in his old lesson plans and not teaching well. Then a change came for him when he started teaching pre-AP Civics and American Government. The lesson that he learned was "If you start getting too comfortable as a teacher, you start to get lazy and ultimately your lesson and your students will not enjoy your class". When he was a kid he didn't enjoy going to class and he didn't want that for his students. He wanted his students to enjoy class and not resent school like he did. I agree with Mr. McClung about wanting his students to enjoy his class because if they are not enjoying class then they are not learning, which defeats the purpose of being a teacher.

 Another one of his blog post was from 2009-2010 about what he learned. It was his first year teaching Jr. High and his first time teaching Social Studies and history. He had to learn three different subjects in one year and was very challenging. He had to adapt to his learning style form teaching 6th and 8th grade level. He realized that in Jr. High, students are more independent and do not see the world through rose colored glasses like middle school students. He had to adapt his style to the needs of independent students.

 His next section was "The Path Least Traveled". Mr. McClung had to be a little more relaxed with his lesson plans. Teaching Social Studies meant a lot of discussing current events and debate topics. He realized that his students haven't been taught to think for themselves which became frustrating. He wanted his students to be independent thinkers and to only lean on his when they were stuck. Mr. McClung wrote a section about finding your school mom. He said it's always good to find that one person you can count on to help you, who knows the ins and outs about the school. I think that is a helpful tip because when becoming first year teachers, we have to know how the school operates and what we are getting into. He knows teaching is not an easy job. He wanted to try something new like instead of passing out papers to every student, they had to come grab it from a stack which saved time in the class. All in all Mr. McClung realized that his flaws accompany his strengths. He is still at a working progress but he is confident in his abilities and that's what he wanted.