In Molly Romano’s “Teacher reflections on ‘bumpy moments’ in teaching: a self- study,” I really enjoyed the rawness of the teacher’s story from her second year of teaching. It felt so real in that it offered such a realistic take on what new teachers experience. I specifically noted how many different aspects are involved when you do become a new teacher. As we are going through this program, I know I at least and some of my fellow cohort members feel like we are engaging in such a variety of tasks, work, and assignments. But, really that variety is just going to keep increasing. As a new teacher, the number of people you have to interact with, the different relationships you have to build will keep increasing, and you will be continuously changing up your teaching to fit new situations like this teacher had to. What I really appreciated was the teacher’s ability to ponder so much so quickly when a “bumpy moment” came up.

I found it really interesting to read that she chose her first activity in the new classroom to be an oral story. I have always loved this activity as a child and even now – whether that be sharing oral stories with my family or reading out loud. I think already in these five weeks we have gained a sufficient understanding of the value of oral stories and the underlying messages that children’s stories often have to offer. For example, in our Aboriginal Education class, oral stories come up in the Aboriginal People’s traditions time and time again, almost in every class discussion. So really when we incorporate oral stories into classrooms we are offering the students a story, usually some form of a message while incorporating Aboriginal pedagogy.

When I was reading the analysis of the “bumpy moments,” I was really surprised at how the teacher compared herself to a manager, I had never considered or heard of that comparison before. As I read on in this section, she explains the importance of management control for successful instruction. Honestly, this sort of scared me and it is something I hope we work more and more on as we progress through this year.

As an end thought, while I was reading, a somewhat random thought hit me: we are so fortunate to have access to articles like this one that offer so much detail into teaching practices that we will actually be making use of.