those who can do, teach
I often get tired of the mantra that, “Those who can’t do, teach.” This statement undermines the profession that we pour our hearts and souls into; it’s a profession that is often thankless, tiring, heart breaking, maddening, frustrating, and overall stress inducing. However, we choose this path because of the love we have for learning and the joy we want to share with students. This is my story, anyway. Every delightful thing about working with students outweighs the negativity that can surround the job, and I know that I have found my calling. As such, I can’t just sit by comfortably in my teaching styles and approaches; I have to grow, adapt, and learn the same ways in which I encourage my students. I decided to pursue my Master of Arts in Education through Michigan State University for these reasons. I started the program during my fourth year of teaching. By then, I had taught in three buildings, two districts, and nine different subjects. I had faced so many challenges and bumps in my young career, and the time was right to take my own education seriously to be the best teacher I could be for my students. Selecting MSU was the best decision I could have made. With a fantastic reputation for education and a self-paced, online program, I quickly came to love my classes and my program. In particular, three classes have had a significant impact on me: Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners, Physical Bases of Coaching, and Writing Assessment and Instruction.
Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners (TE 846) was one of my first classes in the graduate program. Reading has always been one of my favorite activities and is something that always came easily to me. I have never struggled with putting letters together into words or words into sentences. I read in my spare time with every chance I can. It’s hard for me to put myself in the shoes of someone who does not understand reading as easily as I do, or who does not share my love of literature. Often, resistance to reading is linked with reading difficulties, and this class provided a range of possibilities that can cause kids to struggle and avoid reading. As the course progressed, I was able to implement activities and strategies into my daily lessons with ease. The text we used is Gambrell and Morrow’s Best Practices in Literacy Instruction (2015). I recommend this text to anyone who wants to help their struggling readers; I took away so many strategies to help my students, even those who don't struggle. There are so many factors that kids approach learning with, including race, language, socioeconomic status, learning disabilities, and more. TE 846 allowed me to explore reasons why kids struggle and gave me materials to use to help everyone reach and go beyond their abilities. The project with this class was a case study with a struggling reader. The term “struggling” is broad, and we could select a student to work with based on something that held that student back from reading at the level of their peers. I enjoyed this because I got to work one on one extensively with a student (an English Language Learner), and help her to grow her strengths in reading and writing. She specifically wanted to improve her writing and making her ideas more clear in writing assignments. We looked at how to take her ideas from broad about a text or concept to narrow and arguable. For example, we focused on her Of Mice and Men essay, and worked together to specify a thesis and how to find and use evidence to support that thesis (see student work below). Mostly, she knew what she wanted to say but didn't know how to communicate it in writing. Through this study, I learned so much about her: she was from China originally, had only recently graduated out of district ELL support, and left behind her father when she and her mother moved. This information was of great importance, as I could understand what she needed as a learner. She became very proud of the things she accomplished, which helped her approach reading with much more confidence. This class reminded me that it takes time and effort to reach the struggling readers, and that sometimes we have to go the extra mile to help them. When we go that extra mile, though, the results can be outstanding.
Physical Bases of Coaching (KIN 856) was the first course I took for my certification for Sports Leadership and Coaching. It had been, seemingly, an eternity since I had taken science courses, and I had to reframe ways that I learn to adapt to this new topic. This course combined anatomy and kinetics (human motion) to understand what movements need to happen for athletes to perform various athletic tasks, what muscles are involved, and potential dangers associated when things are not done correctly. Thinking back to high school, I can remember loving anatomy and struggling with physics. From the beginning, I was challenged. I poured over notes and PowerPoint slides to absorb the information and to apply it to various tasks correctly. I had to get out of my comfort zone as a learner, and there were a lot of times I felt insecure about my ability. One impact this class had on me was the reward of hard work and the joy of taking pride in tasks and assignments. As a teacher, I can implement this in my classroom by encouraging students to work through struggles and to be proud of what they can accomplish. As a soccer coach, I learned so much about what the body does to execute soccer moves correctly; additionally, I learned ways to strengthen surrounding muscles to prevent injury whenever possible. I found that I enjoyed this challenging material because I could implement things with my soccer players immediately. Additionally, this was a nice break from the literacy-based classes I was taken for my program requirements. This helped me think and learn in ways I wasn’t used to, and gave me more knowledge of how to help my athletes play competitively and safely. Additionally, I now have workouts, training sessions, recovery plans, and other material of my creation that I can employ before, during, and after the soccer season.
If I had to choose, I would say that Writing Instruction and Assessment (TE 848) was my favorite class at MSU. Writing is a passion of mine, and I love teaching writing courses; similar to reading, writing was never something that I struggled with. My repertoire of writing classes includes Composition, Journalism, and Creative Writing. TE 848 offered ways to help students care about writing projects by getting us to think outside the box of the five-paragraph essay. Like reading, students become resistant when they do not enjoy writing or do not fully comprehend what to do. TE 848 challenged me to think of new ways to get students writing that they would enjoy, and that they could have choice in and control of. Particularly, I learned a lot about how to turn writing tasks into authentic writing opportunities. Students do much better on work that is not done just for the teacher’s eyes or for a letter grade; when there are opportunities to reach wide audiences with writing and choice given in format, topic, etc., students become autonomous in ways that prescribed assignments may not accomplish. For many teachers, this can be unfamiliar and uncomfortable; writing has changed so much over the decades as technology has spread and writing takes different formats, such as text messages, Tweets, hash tags, etc. Language changes as a result of this technological advancement, too; “Google” is now a verb, and spelling has been altered to stay within that (original) 140-character limit. If we don’t adapt our teaching to the times, students will be resistant to writing. In TE 848, I was able to explore activities that were in the students’ “language;” they were encouraged to break traditional rules of writing and to expand their horizons about what “counts” as writing. For my composition class, I developed a research project from a paper to a digital medium presentation in which students had to write research proposals, annotated bibliographies, and create presentations online or digitally (Prezi, Google slides, etc.). Students devoured this activity as they were allowed to choose what they wanted to research and how they wanted to present their findings. I will be forever grateful for all that I took away from this class. Additionally, I have become aware of more ways to assess student writing in a way that's not always with just a pen to the paper. Just as I was trying to help students develop assignments that were meaningful to them, I needed to assess student writing in ways that served the writing and the writer. This challenged me to try new things and strategies, and I know that I have grown from this challenge.
I believe that it takes a lot of “doing” to be a teacher. In my undergrad I got frustrated with one classmate in particular who was on a football scholarship and seemed to major in education as an easy route, or to be able to be a coach in the future (this is my assessment of him, anyway). It was especially difficult for me when he was assigned to be in a group project with me, and it was clear that his motivation was minimal and that my grade could very well suffer because of it. Education is one of the most difficult professions there is, if you ask me. Teaching is not a job for everyone, and I am proud to be an educator. I knew it was important that I did not stop my own education, that I needed to keep learning for myself and for my students. Choosing an MAED program through MSU has been a right choice, and I’m sad to see it come to an end. However, I’m looking forward to new opportunities this degree offers to me. These three classes and my entire program have shaped me into the educator that I am becoming. I can’t say that I’ve “become,” because I know I have a whole lot more growing to do. I think the mantra should be that, “Those who can do, and help others do, teach.”
Physical Bases of Coaching (KIN 856) was the first course I took for my certification for Sports Leadership and Coaching. It had been, seemingly, an eternity since I had taken science courses, and I had to reframe ways that I learn to adapt to this new topic. This course combined anatomy and kinetics (human motion) to understand what movements need to happen for athletes to perform various athletic tasks, what muscles are involved, and potential dangers associated when things are not done correctly. Thinking back to high school, I can remember loving anatomy and struggling with physics. From the beginning, I was challenged. I poured over notes and PowerPoint slides to absorb the information and to apply it to various tasks correctly. I had to get out of my comfort zone as a learner, and there were a lot of times I felt insecure about my ability. One impact this class had on me was the reward of hard work and the joy of taking pride in tasks and assignments. As a teacher, I can implement this in my classroom by encouraging students to work through struggles and to be proud of what they can accomplish. As a soccer coach, I learned so much about what the body does to execute soccer moves correctly; additionally, I learned ways to strengthen surrounding muscles to prevent injury whenever possible. I found that I enjoyed this challenging material because I could implement things with my soccer players immediately. Additionally, this was a nice break from the literacy-based classes I was taken for my program requirements. This helped me think and learn in ways I wasn’t used to, and gave me more knowledge of how to help my athletes play competitively and safely. Additionally, I now have workouts, training sessions, recovery plans, and other material of my creation that I can employ before, during, and after the soccer season.
If I had to choose, I would say that Writing Instruction and Assessment (TE 848) was my favorite class at MSU. Writing is a passion of mine, and I love teaching writing courses; similar to reading, writing was never something that I struggled with. My repertoire of writing classes includes Composition, Journalism, and Creative Writing. TE 848 offered ways to help students care about writing projects by getting us to think outside the box of the five-paragraph essay. Like reading, students become resistant when they do not enjoy writing or do not fully comprehend what to do. TE 848 challenged me to think of new ways to get students writing that they would enjoy, and that they could have choice in and control of. Particularly, I learned a lot about how to turn writing tasks into authentic writing opportunities. Students do much better on work that is not done just for the teacher’s eyes or for a letter grade; when there are opportunities to reach wide audiences with writing and choice given in format, topic, etc., students become autonomous in ways that prescribed assignments may not accomplish. For many teachers, this can be unfamiliar and uncomfortable; writing has changed so much over the decades as technology has spread and writing takes different formats, such as text messages, Tweets, hash tags, etc. Language changes as a result of this technological advancement, too; “Google” is now a verb, and spelling has been altered to stay within that (original) 140-character limit. If we don’t adapt our teaching to the times, students will be resistant to writing. In TE 848, I was able to explore activities that were in the students’ “language;” they were encouraged to break traditional rules of writing and to expand their horizons about what “counts” as writing. For my composition class, I developed a research project from a paper to a digital medium presentation in which students had to write research proposals, annotated bibliographies, and create presentations online or digitally (Prezi, Google slides, etc.). Students devoured this activity as they were allowed to choose what they wanted to research and how they wanted to present their findings. I will be forever grateful for all that I took away from this class. Additionally, I have become aware of more ways to assess student writing in a way that's not always with just a pen to the paper. Just as I was trying to help students develop assignments that were meaningful to them, I needed to assess student writing in ways that served the writing and the writer. This challenged me to try new things and strategies, and I know that I have grown from this challenge.
I believe that it takes a lot of “doing” to be a teacher. In my undergrad I got frustrated with one classmate in particular who was on a football scholarship and seemed to major in education as an easy route, or to be able to be a coach in the future (this is my assessment of him, anyway). It was especially difficult for me when he was assigned to be in a group project with me, and it was clear that his motivation was minimal and that my grade could very well suffer because of it. Education is one of the most difficult professions there is, if you ask me. Teaching is not a job for everyone, and I am proud to be an educator. I knew it was important that I did not stop my own education, that I needed to keep learning for myself and for my students. Choosing an MAED program through MSU has been a right choice, and I’m sad to see it come to an end. However, I’m looking forward to new opportunities this degree offers to me. These three classes and my entire program have shaped me into the educator that I am becoming. I can’t say that I’ve “become,” because I know I have a whole lot more growing to do. I think the mantra should be that, “Those who can do, and help others do, teach.”
Te 846
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kin 856
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te 848
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