Student Teaching Journal

1. I’ve gotten some of the strangest faces I’ve ever seen people make by telling them I want to teach middle school. I think middle schoolers are completely unique from students of any other age level, and I really feel that teachers have a huge impact with that age level.
2. After subbing in an elementary room for one day last year, I vowed I’d never teach elementary school. After observing in a few elementary music classrooms, though, I realized it wouldn’t be so bad since you only have the same kids for an hour at a time, at most!
3. I will be the sixth person on my dad’s side of the family to go into teaching.
4. It was incredibly difficult for me to decide on a teachable minor. The only subject I don’t love is social studies. I picked math, but I’m sure when I’m in the schools, I’ll wish I could teach everything else, too!
5. I’m afraid of a performance-based choral classroom. All choirs tend to work toward the goal of producing a good concert or doing well at festivals, and I’m afraid of how I will be able to still achieve that goal while teaching my students essential skills about music (sight singing, theory, etc.)
6. I am hoping and praying that in the next 4 (or hopefully 8 years,) Baraq Obama will be able to untangle this mess called public schools.
7. I will have active morning classes because if I’m sitting down within four hours of waking up, I fall asleep. As long as I’m moving around, though, I’m a morning person!
8. Unfortunately, it’s been brought to my attention through observations and field work that there will be some students I will not be able to reach. I think it will be hard for me to accept that.
9. I am prepared to be working 24 hours a day as a teacher. I’ve had a job working with children before where I worked eight hours during the day, wrote lesson plans for 4 hours each evening, and dreamed about work all night.
10. The teachers I remember most from any level of my schooling are not remembered for what they taught me in the classroom; They are remembered for the time they invested outside of the classroom in clubs and activities.
11. I think that a hundred years ago, people were probably just as upset as the education system as we are today. The world is constantly changing, and it is a struggle to keep such a huge network up to speed.
12. I think one method of teaching that is overlooked in methods classes and by many teachers is the method of using other human resources. No one can be a perfect teacher, and a teacher who is liked by most students will most likely not be liked by all students. I think bringing in other people from the community to reach students who the classroom teacher may not be able to reach is crucial to helping everyone learn. I plan to bring in male singers to my choir often to model the male voice, since I cannot do that myself.
13. We’re always warned to avoid being our students’ friends. I think that as long as the students still respect their teachers, it’s important to have a friendly relationship.
14. I think co-curricular projects should happen once per marking period in a school. They help students be able to transfer what they’re learning instead of having to switch off different parts of their brain as they go from class to class.
15. With the rise of child obesity, I think we need a reform in many schools’ rules and policies: Rules like “No water in the classroom,” “Stay seated at all times,” and the awful food choices at lunch are probably not helping this issue.
16. A required P.E. class is a touchy subject for me. I hated gym class so much, because I was so bad at it, that when I got a compression fracture in my back in 9th grade, I was happy that my back would be thrown out of whack for four years because that meant I wouldn’t have to take gym. I would have a different opinion on the subject if there were options. Students have choices between instrumental and vocal music, between auto shop and woodworking– Why not offer choices in the P.E. realm, too? I wouldn’t have been afraid of swimming, yoga, or cycling. It was the “You have to be perfectly physically fit and good at each and every sport in this class,” that scared me to death.
17. I don’t understand why more future teachers don’t substitute teach. I have learned a ton about my teaching style and comfort level in front of a class just from about 8 days of subbing.
18. I think learning names is in the Top 3 most important things for a teacher to do. I’m not sure what the other 2 are, but… learning names is right up there!
19. If I end up teaching math instead of music, I hope to always have music playing in the background– probably never music with words, though.
20. I hope to participate in everything I want my class to do. I don’t want to be a teacher who assigns students a project without having done it myself first.
21. I think the climate of a school is based around the principal’s attitude.
22. Sending students to the office scares me. When you’re having a problem with a student in the classroom, do you really want that student walking down the hall by him/herself? How do you know they really end up at the office?
23. I feel that grammar and penmanship should be reinforced all the way through school instead of dropped out of the curriculum somewhere between 5th and 9th grade.
24. I think keeping contact with parents on a regular basis is key, and now with email and other forms of Internet technology, that’s easier than ever!
25. I hope that all educators feel as strongly about their thoughts toward education as I feel about the above 24 thoughts of mine.

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