Hello all, my name is Johannes Wielenga and I have taught junior high and high school (gr 7-12) Social Studies and English Language Arts for 6 years. These subjects truly are my teaching passions so I have been very fortunate with my teaching assignments. I have always fused technology into my practice since day 1, but I have also always known that there are better, more effective ways to do so. I’ve found this journey of using tech in the classroom akin to self-learning the guitar with no understanding of where the true natural notes are located. Sure, sometimes what you throw at the wall will stick, but do you even know why? Can you do that again? Can you build on it to make it even better or different? It was questions like these that were keeping me up at night, realizing that when it came to the lesson plans and activities I was creating, I really couldn’t answer these questions in a way that could consistently stand up to pedagogical and theoretical dissection. This is why I am in the MET program – to restructure my personal pedagogy from the wisps of information that float around in a jumbled cloud above my head, to a pedagogy that is grounded in facts, sources, theories, and so on. Now when things go wrong with an assignment I created, at least I will have a better idea as to why! To string in my (poor) metaphor from earlier, I played guitar for 15 years without ever learning theory or even knowing where the notes were located. Sometimes I sounded pretty good (I got one heck of a strumming hand at this point at the very least) but a lot sounded like garbage. In the past year I started to actually buckle down and learn music and my guitar craft has grown more this year than the last 15 years combined. I say all this because I feel a similar thing is currently happening to my teaching craft. It’s damn exciting.
Here’s me enjoying my favorite pastime, digging my sled out of another stuck on the mountainside!
Hi Johannes,
Your exhuberance comes out in your introduction! I can see why your students would be motivated in your classes. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to working with you.
Hi Johannes. It is always great to reflect, ponder and correlate the commonalities which are present in our day-to-day activities. I personally feel that the process of learning and growing follows the same path and the understanding is transferable..
Hey Loveleen, thanks for the comment, I appreciate what you say about learning and growing; it’s like two parts of the same braid.
What a great metaphor for our journey ahead! Learning is lifelong with so many curiosities and adventures ahead, but teaching is also a non-stop growing process with constant reflection. Looking forward to working with you to pin down some of the floating ideas!
Thanks for stopping by, Elixa! Indeed, the non-stop growing process is one of the things that I cherish most about the profession!