Developing as Teachers

Even though we are only a few weeks into the semester, I have already learned a lot. I remember the first time I was introduced to literature circles, that I can remember, when I was in middle school. I never understood the point of literature circles. It seemed like a waste of time, becuase everyone completed a very specific task, and no one paid attention to their peers when they were talking about their work. We also never got to choose the books, they were always assigned to us. The activities were there, but we were never taught how to act in literature circles, so they were almost completely worthless. From our readings, it finally makes sense as to why they made us participate in literature circles. I hope that I will help students see the value of participating in literature circles, unlike some of my teachers.

In my Tuesday Experience classroom, I have seen a lot of math and science, and less language arts than expected. I have seen the students work of poetry. They were working on describing things. They looked at a plant, and tried to think of what it reminded them of. They then wrote a short poem to describe the object. It was really interesting becaue they had so many different ideas. There was a lot of freedom in the assignment, because they could write what they wanted in any form of poetry. They are now starting to work on preparing for the CMTs. It seems like the 5th grade teachers at Whiting Lane are not as focused on CMT prep as teachers in other schools. They are just now starting to review, when other classes were reviewing for a few weeks. The emphasis is definitely on inquiry based learning, and not always teaching to the test. I can only hope that I will be able to teach in a school that agrees with this idea, because I would get bored always teaching to the test. The students in this classroom are very interested in their learnig because they have such a huge role in what they learn.