Description: Dr. Raymond came in last wednesday and talked to us about working with our ELL students. He was extremely enthusiastic about his job and what he does within the classroom to help his students and I think his enthusiasm got us all excited about meeting our first real student.
Analysis: He was describing to us the backgrounds and stories that some of his students have and I could see how his students respected him and valued him as a teacher just from his descriptions. He also had a lot of good insight into his classroom rules and procedures as a veteran teacher. He definitely did not feel compelled to “go by the book,” which I really enjoyed. I believe that high school students are old enough and have been in school long enough to know what is expected of them and they should be treated more like adults than as children.
Reflection: I really identified with some of the techniques that he was talking about as far as treating his students as equals. As a first year teacher I think we can tend to get caught up in what we should be teaching and the rules that must be followed and forget that our students come first and should be our primary concern. It is important to consider how your group of students are going to learn best and try to teach to their needs. I still think that as a first year teacher I will have to have good classroom management skills but I don’t necessarily think that this means I have to give students lots of rules and procedures to follow. I think I will try to lead by example more than telling them what to do and treat them more like adults.
