CREDO REVISITED
During my brief experience as a teacher, I have realised that teaching is so much more than simply teaching a curriculum to my students. The curriculum is only a quarter of the battle; we teachers must constantly be aware of our surroundings and the engagement level of our 30 or so, very unique, students. We student teachers are from a different era than these children; therefore, it can be challenging to understand and relate to their interests. As a teacher, I want to show the relevance in everything that I teach to the student’s everyday life. The Parsons and Beauchamp article states that a person learns better when material is relevant and meaningful. (2012) I have always wanted to teach in this manner and I am glad that there is research behind this teaching strategy that I believe in. I always personally find that the material is more engaging and I learn better when I can relate it to my life or if I can see that it is useful to me. I learn better this way and this is why I plan on using this way of teaching.
My love for children is the reason I want to become a teacher; I love, also organising and being creative. As a psychology student I have discovered that I am very observant. I enjoy knowing or figuring out why people act the way they do. My recent teaching experiences have shown me that each child’s actions teaches his or her teacher new ways to consider and manage their learning and their behaviour. We are continuously learning from our students.
The first years of a child’s learning are understood to be the most important years; I want to be a part of this crucial phase of learning. I want to help children grow into strong and competent individuals who can think for themselves. I like Rowley’s wisdom theory; the idea of starting with data then moving to information then to knowledge and then finally reaching wisdom (2007). This theory got me thinking because it is difficult to grasp the concept right away. My interpretation is that this is our brain’s way of processing data. We give our students data which they process and turn into information that is stored in their short term memory. If we want them to keep this information it must be moved to the long term memory. Knowledge is our grasp on the concept, once the students fully grasp the material and are able to use it to handle other information that is thrown at them then it has become wisdom. This is a great concept for teachers to understand because we need to know that it will take some time for the students to process the information that we are giving them. We should not simply teach them something once we should be constantly referring back to it.
Students should be able to have fun while in class but know when it is time to be serious. I want to push my students as well as encourage them to work hard to achieve their goals. I hope to both teach and learn from my students. I want to gain the respect of my students and teach them to the best of my ability. I want the children to leave the classroom with a smile on their faces because they have enjoyed what they have learned. Although we realize that not everything we teach can be interesting to children, I hope to discover methods to teach in intellectually stimulating ways. I want to keep children engaged and I believe that to keep them engaged, I must learn how to teach in different ways to suit different children’s needs. This is why we cannot forget the children who desperately need some quiet, reflective time. I believe that mindfulness could be very useful in the classroom, for these children. As I have said, students learn in different ways, paces and environments, so we must be aware of those students that need some time to themselves. Children, and people in general, learn at different paces; what is easy for one class can be incredibly challenging for the next. I feel that a teacher must be ready for anything and I am very excited to learn how to handle the challenging situations that are sure to come my way.
It is important that children are able to leave outside stresses at home. Children should feel safe in the classroom, free of judgment from others; I want to create a positive safe environment so that children feel free to share their concerns with me. As stated, in the article by Smith and Siegel (2004), scientists have to be emotionally neutral, they need straight facts to “know”. This is not the case when working with children, they need to know that we are all emotional beings just like them. We don’t want them to see us as robots, we want them to feel comfortable around us and not be afraid to share their feelings. We need to show them that we care about their thoughts and ideas.
I also enjoyed some of the conversation about thinking in the present. This is something that I hope to work on as a teacher, I tend to always be thinking about the future, but there is a place and time for everything. It is important to teach children to also think in the now and not dwell or stress about the future.