Journal #5
When looking back to clinical practice last
semester, I seemed to find more about my students’ needs as I could have ever
imagined. Especially as my first experience as a teacher inside the classroom,
I was very excited to learn more about my students. The most surprising ‘need’
I found out about my students was that they all seemed to want to learn the
content, and therefore they wanted me to make the content accessible to all of
them. This meant it seemed as though if I made it relevant and intriguing to
them they were on board. They also needed to feel apart of a community in the
classroom and in the entire school. In the classroom, they want to feel safe
and comfortable with their peers and me as the teacher.
My first reaction is that I do have some sort of
sense of what my students’ needs are. However, when I dig deeper and think
through what my students really need I feel lost and not confident in the
knowledge I have to know exactly what they need. A part of me feels as though
it is only because I am a beginning teacher and that through time and being
around students, the same community, and teaching for some time I will have a
better understanding of my students. The gap, I believe, is largest for me in relation
to my students is knowing each and every students’ different individual needs.
When I observe very experienced teachers, they all seem to be very aware of
each and every one of their students needs about learning and about their
personal lives.
In clinical practice, I believe the negative
response that struck me the hardest was when a teacher would talk about
students like they had given up on them or they were incapable of learning the
material. This was extremely discouraging as I feel no student should be
regarded as someone not important within my classroom. I am astonished that
every single teacher wouldn’t put as much effort as he or she can to help those
students succeed in one way or another. In the reading, “One Teacher’s Story,” I
found myself thinking about the community needs of my current students, in
particular. I feel I could be in the same situation as Ms. Warren was in.
Although I grew up and went to school in the same community as I know have
clinical practice in, I feel as though I do not know the specific community
needs of my students. In relation to my biases, I am not sure if this reason is
that I do not belong to the Hispanic race and therefore I have never ventured
in to learn a great deal about their culture and traditions. I may fall under
the same setup that Ms. Warren where “It is easier not to know.” At the moment,
I do not believe that I am purposely doing this, however, being unaware is
unacceptable. It is my responsibility as an educator to dig deeper into the
culture of my students and make sure the curriculum we are teaching in the
classroom is relevant to every student’s life and needs.
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