Letters to a New Teacher

First and foremost, thank you so much Dr. Benson, for everything you have done for us. I just wanted to let you know that you have given our cohort of future English and Language Arts so much valuable information and ideas for lesson plans/units that I wanted to let you know how appreciative and lucky we have been to have had you as our C & I instructor more than once. You are a great professor--keep up the great work.

With that being said, you have also outdone yourself again by choosing a great book for us to read. At first, I was thinking, "oh great, another think to add to the million other things to do at the end of this crazy semester," but after picking it up and reading it while laid up in bed in pain helped ease the other pain of anxiety and worries of when I take my first own my own teaching. I will definately continue reading this book in the future to prepare myself, but for now, I will just highlight certain aspects of the book that I found to be the most helpful, as the rest of this book discussion group has done.

Managing a Class of 35

This particular section really appealed to me as I had a class of 36 students in my intership last semester. Not to mention, this class of 36 was inclusion AND during the last block of the day. My students were always out of hand and loud, and would take approximately 7 minutes to quiet down. At first, I was really nervous about taking this class on. However, to sum up what Burke says, you need to make adjustments in order to address the students and effectively manage the classroom. And, in teaching this class, I had no control over them when I first took over. Shorty after, I found that discussing the classroom rules and strictly enforcing them for everyone made my life much simpler. Also, in order to let them know I was ready to teach and in control was my nonverbal cue of standing in front of the classroom with my arms crossed. This surprisingly was very effective and hushed the entire classroom within seconds.

Creating A Teaching Unit

In many cases, I understand that we will be busy, but Burke reminds us to still continue creativity in the classroom. I remember making many different units within all of the classes we have taken in the past 5 years, and I will continue to make my own units because I prefer to teach my students what I want them to get out of a text...it's not that I dislike units that come along with classroom sets of novels or anything like that, but I think those are boring and sometimes useless, especially the 20,000 page textbook that weighs 15 lbs. Students don't want to do worksheets created by a textbook company. And, not everything in those are completely essential. And, personally, I like to create something I will absolutely save and use again--and revise a few things after using it for the first time in a classroom.

Pressure

Many of us have posted on this issue, but I would have to agree with all of you when you chose to write about this section. I must admit, especially for many of us, that I am a procrastinator--I know personally that I work the best under pressure. In fact, my mother and I had a discussion the other day about this and she is the same way--she had procrastinated many of the papers she wrote in college, and it's just odd that we had a conversation about this. Anyway, another thing I must also point out is that I don't exactly always have the best luck, either--my car accident happening, and everything else to go along with it--Let's all just face it, we all have other entruding forces that can affect our teaching, and as Burke points out, it is evident in your classroom. No matter what, we have to learn a way to make that pressure masked while teaching. p.s. People, no matter what job we end up in (teaching or not) stress and anxiety will be there, too. We'll get through it. We got through our internship:)

Competing for Attention

I found this section to be the most helpful. After having the day from hell which included an assembly in the morning and class registration right before lunch, students are absolutely not paying attention to you. They don't care--they are disinterested, distracted, and would rather hear about their friend's fight with another girl at lunch. In fact, the whole school is talking about it. When I first did my intership, I kept thinking to myself--"Why is my host teacher so calm and doesn't mind that they aren't focused on her students learning what she had planned for today?" But after reading Burke's book, I see why... she thinks "it isn't THAT bad" because she has more experience and this was the least of her worries. She knew that there would be days like this and I didn't expect it to be this way. Now I know why. After teaching for more than a semester all the time, and all the time, rather, I will understand that competing for my students attention won't always happen, but should know and understand why and how to handle it.


Great book choice!

P.S. WE'RE GRADUATING...I can't believe the time has finally come!!