Looking Back the Question Changes From What to How Reflection of Goals by Ashley Mellor
As I reflect upon my goal statement when I was entering into the MAED program, many of the things I still want to learn are the same, despite all that I have learned along the way. I initially wrote my goal statement before I had a teaching position in April 2009. This was a month after finishing my teaching internship and I did not know where my future would take me. After getting hired at the last minute for the 2009-2010 school year I decided to take a year off from the program I had yet to start. I felt that it would be important to focus on the first hand learning of having my own 1st grade classroom. I thought that after I had a year of teaching on my own under my belt I would be able to focus on getting the most out of my courses. As I look back at all that I thought I knew going into that year, I realized how much I had yet to learned. I revised my essay in November of 2010 when I was going to reapply to the program, and after a year and a half of teaching 1st grade. As I reflected upon the original goal statement a lot of my thoughts had stayed the same as did many of my goals. Although, I knew then more then ever that I did not know all I needed to know about teaching and I still had so much I wanted to learn.
In my second year of teaching my school began a new inclusion format for CI (cognitively impaired) students and I was no longer just responsible for the reading and writing needs of first graders, but also first graders with a wide range is disabilities from CI (cognitive impaired), AI (autistically impaired), EI (emotionally impaired), defiant behaviors, OHI (otherwise health impaired), and the other first graders in my room. Now more than ever, I realized I needed learn more about working with a wider range of students in my room. No longer was simple classroom management, and simple differentiation of learning enough. Now, I desperately needed to know so much more. I needed to know crisis intervention, characteristics of these students and how to meet their needs, and I needed to know how to balance this all in a classroom of 26 little eyes looking at me for help. This became my new challenge. It was no longer getting a job, it was no longer simply learning to teach reading, it was learning how to be a psychologist, expert in AI CI EI, a social worker, an advocate for parents, communicate with parents, knowledgeable in special education (a field I did not study), and an effective teacher all around.
My goals had changed from trying to improve my knowledge to find a job, to wanting to know about subject matter, to needing to know how to wear many different hats other than just the teacher’s hat. When I initially wrote my goal statement I wanted to learn more about teaching students in an inclusive classroom. This did not change. However, I wanted to know what to teach them, the content. After my experiences I learned that it is not the content I need to learn to teach, but that I needed to learn how to teach these students in general. I needed to learn how to meet their needs that were vastly different from students I have taught before and vastly different from each other. I needed to know how to work with these students so that all students including them benefit from their time spent in my classroom. I no longer felt that I needed to know what to teach them, I needed to know how to best teach all students.
Looking back at my original essay, I felt that I needed to learn more about teaching math and science. Now, as I look back I realize I need to learn more about teaching reading and writing. Mostly, however I realize that it is not the content in particular that I want to learn about, but I want to know more about how to differentiate things to all types of learners that I will encounter in my teaching career. In my goal statement I felt that it was important to take online courses because I wasn’t sure what location my job quest would take me, but now I realize that taking online courses allowed me to be flexible with my learning so that I could still meet the demanding needs of my job. In my goal statement I wrote, “I think that there are always new things to learn that will help improve teaching styles, techniques, and content. Although for the rest of my teaching career I anticipate that I will continue to learn each day from myself and my students, I believe that a graduate degree is another way that I can continue my education and to learn how to be not a good teacher, but a great teacher”. I still believe in this statement. I have learned a great deal over the past year about myself as a teacher and how to teach from myself and my students, however, I have learned so much through my courses. I know that there is so much I still want to learn.
As I reflect there is one constant in my thinking then and now. I know that education and learning will never end. I know that just because my courses are almost complete, my learning is not. I still am searching for more information and more knowledge to continue to take myself from a good teacher, to a great teacher. I still want to learn more because I know that the more I know, the more my students can benefit. Now as I near the end of my master's program I know that I am not done learning. There are so many things that I still want to know and still need to learn. I have grown a great deal since I first wrote my essay in April of 2009 and revised it in November of 2010. In the year and 3 months since I sat down to revise that essay, I have learned to change my thinking. No longer is it important to learn what to teach and the best way to teach it. It is important to learn how to teach individuals and how to help yourself as an educator to take what you know and use it to help that individual sitting in front of you right then and there that has a need that you need to meet. It is not necessarily about the what, it’s about the HOW!