So Much to Learn [Reflection Seven]

I currently have 5 or 6 pieces of notebook paper filled up completely back and front with different teaching tips to implement in teaching lessons. Do I remember even an eighth of them? No way. I think this fact alone has really opened my eyes to how much there really is be learned--about teaching particularly. It excites me!

Right now I have a job in the Harold B. Lee Library where I help with many things, but mainly work with the books coming through. Recently a group of books came in that had to do with public teaching in the United States. I got super excited and was wanting to check them out that day and read them all. When I realized my excitement, I got even more excited, because I am a huge reader, but not a huge fan of 'scholarly' reading, if that makes sense. I impressed myself with my desire to learn more about being a teacher. My work load this semester is a little insane, so the reading of those books might have to wait until summertime, but I set a goal that day to continually be absorbing all that I can to become a great teacher. I think if I start now, and continue throughout my life, I'll be that much stronger in not only my profession, but the raising of children and serving in church callings.


Educator and philosopher Parker Palmer said:

Good teaching isn't about technique. I've asked students around the country to describe their good teachers to me. Some of them describe people who lecture all the time, some of them describe people who do little other than facilitate group process, and others describe everything in between. But all of them describe people who have some sort of connective capacity, who connect themselves to their students, their students to each other, and everyone to the subject being studied.