Learning Letter

Dear Dr. Agriss,

            This class was a lot of work, but the amount I learned equaled out the work load, so I didn’t mind having to work hard, because I was rewarded with a lot of knowledge about each subject we learned about

The book talks were a great way to show different texts that we can use within our classrooms. I loved learning about each of the books that my classmates presented on. It is very interesting to see what each of my classmates chose to present on. It was helpful to learn more about what texts our students can read. There are so many great texts that can be a great tool to teach the classroom content, but many of them teachers don’t know about. I am going to keep all the handouts with the book talk information on them so in the future if I need to recommend a text to a student or If I have the opportunity to have a text implemented into a classroom the books my classmates presented will be in my repertoire of choices.  

            One of the most helpful assignments I did in this class was the mini-lesson. I was so nervous to teach my mini-lesson, I was super prepared, but I was still shaking in my extremely squeaky shoes. I think it was because of the topic that I was teaching. I had just gone to the Holocaust class and I wanted to teach my lesson well and do it justice. When I got started all those nerves went away and I had a great time teaching my classmates about Night, even though it is a heavy subject to talk about let alone teach.

            Even though most of the pedagogy texts were extremely dense to read I learned a ton from each of them. Probably the most helpful piece was discussing each text after reading them before class. It was helpful to hear different classmate’s opinions on what I had taken a totally different way than they had. The text that I enjoyed the most and learned the most from was Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I still think about his analogy of how students shouldn’t just be trash receptacles for their teachers to throw their opinions and expect them to regurgitate when the time comes to test them on it. The students learning experience should allow them to explore the material they are learning about and they should be able to form their own opinions and not be told they are wrong on something that doesn’t necessarily have a right or wrong answer. I think Freire’s opinions will stick with me the most because my opinions are a lot like his. I also agree that students should be equals with the teacher. It creates a more comfortable and open learning environment that the students don’t have to be afraid to be wrong in. When students are expected to be right the first time they won’t grow as much as they could because they will be afraid to be wrong. By creating a learning environment where the students know that being wrong is ok, that will make the students less nervous to voice their opinions, which will in turn make the learning environment better for all the students.

            The unit plan opened my eyes up to a multitude of things. First, that lesson plans take an extremely long time to thoroughly create. Times that by 15 and they take forever. The unit plan was the biggest project I have done in my college career and it taught me that when a huge obstacle is set in front of me I won’t give up until that obstacle is completely torn down. Also, from the unit plan I learned that there are still so many pieces to teaching that I don’t evej have a grasp on. Hopefully I can learn more about those pieces before I start student teaching and working in my own classroom.

            I was really proud of myself this quarter and in this class especially. Usually I’m a student who sits and pays attention to everyone who talks, but I don’t really voice my opinion/ Throughout this class I have gained confidence to talk about my opinions, which I am proud of. As a teacher I think this helped me grow as well. Having confidence when you speak is important to gain students trust, if you sound unsure of yourself in front of people then the students will doubt your knowledge as well. As I am learning more and more about what I am talking about I am gaining confidence in my own opinions as a teacher and as a student.

Sincerely,

Kirsten French