Strengths and Weaknesses

My last day teaching was Friday, December 9, and it is hard to believe how fast time has gone. It just seems like I started planning yesterday! Now that I have come to the end, it becomes easier to reflect back to my strengths and weaknesses. As far as strong points, I feel I have gotten better at working in technology for various content areas, as well as judging how to plan time-efficient lessons. I also feel that one of the biggest areas I have improved in is classroom management. Before this semester, I would get nervous about dealing with student behaviors when my mentor teacher was out of the room. After this semester, I do not feel nervous any longer. In fact, I now feel more confident in my abilities to manage classroom behaviors.

This semester, I had a student from my tutor year when I was placed in a second grade classroom. While I remember family-based issues coming up this child’s second grade year, I do not recall the same misbehaviors I experienced this semester. Talking out of turn, yelling, arguing, defiance, and a sheer refusal to be productive were some examples, just to name a few. Looking back on the semester, I am unsure of how I dealt with that child’s behaviors on a daily basis. While it drove me crazy most days, and sent me home in tears on others, I think it may have actually benefitted me.

Before having this child in class, most of the students were generally well-behaved, and rarely required me saying or doing much of anything to correct them. This child was a constant struggle for me; every content area and every day. Whole-group or small-group learning. Independent, partner, or group assignments. Using computers or pencil-and-paper, reading from a textbook or having a discussion. Nothing seemed to change his behaviors. By the end of the semester, his behaviors were not necessarily managed, only documented. He did not just keep or lose his sticker; he got tallies in the daily boxes on his sticker chart.

In many ways, such behaviors really impaired the rest of the classroom’s learning, along with my teaching. However, there was a positive effect. I now feel confident in my abilities to “run” a classroom while still teaching. I have heard from veteran teachers that it is not an annual experience to have a child like that one. Therefore, I feel that I can manage what comes along. Mainly, I learned that despite one child’s behaviors, the students are there to learn. With that being said, I learned that my job is not necessarily to deal with that child’s behaviors all day, but to make sure the ones behaving properly are getting a proper education.

Something I still need to work on is finding appropriate ways to hold my students accountable for the day’s learning. While it is sometimes appropriate to take things for a grade, it is also acceptable to have days in which nothing is assigned. I feel I have a hard time finding the balance between the two. As a student myself, I hate to have students put effort into anything they do not receive credit for. However, as a teacher, I found it extremely difficult to find the time to grade each and every little assignment. As the years go, I hope to work on finding a better balance between those two areas.