Online Reflection #1: Goal Setting

As the semester neared its end last year, I finally faced reality. It hit me that in a year I would have a diploma, spent a year in a classroom coteaching, planning, and even leading class myself. Whoa. I couldn’t even keep my papers in an organized fashion in my binder. In fact, I was notorious for not being able to find my papers or notes. How was anyone going to trust me with little adults if I struggled to adult myself? What if I wasn’t cut out for this whole teaching thing?

Flash-forward to August 2018, planner in hands, color coordinated tabs and labels, and papers actually correctly placed in the right section: I am ready to conquer this whole teaching thing. Well, at least on paper. However, I realized that through the excitement and my new persona as an organized adult, I needed some professional goals. Getting organized was one thing for me, but it’s only a small piece of my future as an educator.

The first thing I have realized I really need to polish in the next year is my knowledge of young adult literature. My Mentor Teacher (MT) pushes units where students can choose their own novels; she credits a lot of how she teaches to Book Love by Penny Kittle. I will familiarize myself with this book this semester in my adolescent literature class. I’m sure this book will become a valuable resource this year for me. The students in my placement really enjoy reading what they want, and I have noticed they get genuinely excited about their novels. However, I really don’t know any of their novels. Turns out, Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars aren’t the hot reads anymore like when I was in high school. Taking adolescent lit will greatly improve my approach and knowledge of what students want to read today, but I need to do a lot more reading in general of these texts even if I don’t approach teaching in a full-on Kittle way like my MT.

In addition to being aware of what my students like, I need to get my hands on some of these books as my own. Literature Is For Life, a branch of McGraw Hill Education, states, “Children in classrooms without literature collections read 50% less than children in classrooms with such collections. (International Reading Association)” (https://www.mheducation.com/prek-12/explore/literacy-for-life.html).  I never realized how important a classroom library is for students on a statistical level. My bookshelf at home is pretty bare. My goal is to start building a library that my future students can utilize and that I can familiarize myself with. If I’m excited about my books, most likely, that excitement will transfer to them. I do wonder, however, what are the best practices for managing a classroom library? What impacts have my peers seen from their MT’s students utilizing their libraries?

Overall, I really hope that I grow in my confidence to teach. I know I am comfortable talking and helping high-school age students; I do it all the time as a manager at a movie theatre. I really need to become comfortable in the classroom setting though and transfer those skills to leading a classroom. My anxiety gets the best of me sometimes and I worry that my MT and my students are judging my every move. I need to let go of those fears this year. Confidence (not cockiness) goes a long way in gaining the respect of your students.

These are just a few of the goals I’ve established these last two weeks as I’ve started co-teaching with my MT. To my colleagues pondering their goals as I am for the academic year: we can do this!