Journal Sharing
"A student who is made aware of their self-talk and how it impacts their learning will have been given a powerful lifelong learning tool." --Super Teaching Page 83
Please share one of your Personal Super Teaching Journal entries with us.
Click on comments and cut and paste the entry
7 comments:
I felt I had an eye opening moment after reading Chapter 1:
I found myself feeling like my students... I just wanted the author to give me the answers to the questions/ problems teachers face in education. The problems seem too overwhelming at times and I don't want to put the effort into finding a solution because I don't think I can find one, especially on my own. I would rather have someone give me the secret! I guess I am more like my students as a learner than I am different! :)
I am going to journal on the article You Mean a Rabbit can be Taught to Fly. I liked the article. I think that this article should be read to all teachers before the beginning of the school year. It emphasized how every child learns and thinks differently. We try so hard to have students/children do things a specific way and when we do that we take away their creativity and that is something we have lost along the way. I am able to see everyday how children look at things differently through my 2 year old daughters eyes. I ask her to draw a circle. I draw it first and then she does. We work with stickers. I put them on in a row, hers are scattered and on top of one another. Granted she is 2, but she already has creativity and I love it! Many students are so worried about what others think, that they don’t do it their way. They listen to others and do it their way to be accepted and not laughed at. We have to continue to help students understand why they are in a specific class and why it is important to their life.
One important thing I learned this week is the importance of family. We were at my brother-in-law’s wedding on Saturday. It was a great experience. It was a time to remember family and not to take for granted each family member. We tend to be so busy in our day to day lives that we don’t take time to spend it with our family members. It was so nice to see everyone. Our entire family lives out of town and some traveled a great distance. I love the conversations. One of my husband’s cousins lives in Rhinelander. He was close to him while growing up. I just love to talk to his wife. I feel like I’ve known her forever. We don’t see each other often but when we do it seems like we see each other all the time. It’ great.
Shift Happens - awesome eye opening 6 minute video. I must show it to my Global Studies students. Be sure other teachers see it. This so fits with Chapter One in Jensen’s Super Teaching!
View at (http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift)
Personally, the end of summer/beginning of the school year is an interesting transition time for me. I'm sure this is true for most teachers. I feel so lucky to have a "break in the action" during which I can reflect and rest. Reflection is such a crucial element of the human experience and one that is often overlooked. During the summer, I tend to take better care of myself, get into a more natural rhythm/routine, exercise more, eat better, etc. It's easier to keep my priorities straight. It's also a great time to take classes, read, or take advantage of other professional growth activities.
The challenge comes when the reality of the busy school year hits. Each year I strive to maintain my inner calm, my good personal habits, for as long as I can into the school year. Inevitably, there are high-stress times of the year where I lose track of that. Usually, by the end of the year, I am exhausted. Although, I must admit, that I do a better job of maintaining balance each year.
So, I am excited about the new year and am enjoying the last days of staying up late and sleeping in (a little).
Wednesday Aug 15th : Interesting article “The Game is Changing”. After reading that article I realize that I am getting old. I remember when kids bringing pagers into the classroom was going to be the end of public education as we know it today. Man how times have changed. I really need to get into school and upgrade my AutoCad software. The computer tech at school is a nice guy, but organization is not one of his better qualities. If I rely on him to do it, it may get done by the end of the second quarter. I need to call Autodesk and find out the exact procedure for upgrading this software or things will go terribly wrong. In a moment of weakness I volunteered to be a mentor for one of the new teachers that is starting at our school this year. He is fresh out of school and is all full of ambition. I get tired just watching him. He was at the county fair with some of his FFA kids doing whatever FFA kids do at a county fair. I remember the days of starting my teaching career, not having any kids, not having any money. What better did I have to do but dedicate every spare moment to my class. Now I have kids and still no money. Go figure. I hope he has a good year. I still feel excited about starting a new school year. I wish the school year had already started. The longer I stay away the harder it is to want to go back. I always think what it would be like if we were doing year round school. Six weeks of school, three weeks off. I think I would like that better. It would be nice to have three weeks off in late September, early October. Added note to this journal entry. Lightning and computers is a bad mix. After completing my journal entry, I saved everything that I had completed turned the computer off and went to bed. A big storm came through and zapped my computer. Killed it deader than a doornail. Went to turn it on and got the dreaded blue screen. I didn’t care about having to buy a new computer but I had to do an exorcism in order to retrieve all my valuable information of the dead cpu. Thus I am a little late with postings.
As I got farther through this book, I really got thinking about changing the way I do things in my classroom. One thing I think will challenge me is to keep that motivation up once I get caught up in the busy, hectic life of the school year. We seem to have the best of intentions when preparing, but once reality sets in, I know that personally I start to lose the focus on my goals due to limited time and things that randomly pop up unexpectedly. My focus shift into “I have to get this all done!!” I think that the best way to keep myself motivated (just like how I want to keep my students motivated) is going to be organization and creativity.
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