Blog Post #9

What I've Learned This Year By: Mr. McClung
For my blog post #9, I chose to do Mr. McClung's "What I've Learned This Year 2008-2009" "What I've Learned This Year 2010-2011." In his first blog post from 2008- 2009, he summarizes on his first year of teaching. While doing so he also gave some good pointers to teachers who are coming in. First, you must "know how to read the crowd." He states that "teachers become so concerned with the delivery of the content that they are missing the most important aspect of teaching, and that is checking for student comprehension." I agree with McClung fully. Teachers of today teach according to these CRTs or EQTs. To me, I don't think students really get the comprehension when taught that way. His next pointers are "be flexible, communicate, be reasonable, don't be afraid of technology, listen to your students, and never stop learning." All McClung's pointers are very helpful for first time teachers. It should be about the student, listen to your students, and also never stop learning. You are never to old to learn and everyone wants someone to listen to them.
The second part 2010-2011, was about the third year of his teaching career. After accepting many new jobs, McClung states that this end of the year reflection was easier. The best quote that he said was "I guess the moral of this lesson is that you cannot allow others to stifle your own excitement and joy that you experience in teaching or any other facet of life for that matter." I totally agree with that. Many people go to school to become a teacher but people start talking about the money or how bad the kids of today is so they find another major. I think that if you are passionate and want it to be a career and not a job, then keep that major. His pointers in this post was first "know who your boss is, don't think everybody will be as excited about change as you are, don't be afraid to be an outsider, don't touch the keyboard, and don't get comfortable." I think that McClung is a good inspiration to future teachers. Every future teacher should follow these pointers.