Shaundalyn Elliott's Diary
The First 180 Days

Shaundalyn's Diary: Continuing My Education!

Week 21

This week marked a turning point in my teaching career.

As the year progresses, I am more and more amazed at what being a teacher is all about.

When my classes began using their grammar books last week, I had high expectations for their academic success. Somehow, I felt that the new semester, together with the new subject matter, would inspire the students to become more focused and driven toward passing the seventh grade. I quickly learned that this was a myth.

As we began our first grammar lesson, on subjects and predicates, I felt at first as though my expectations would prove to be true. The students seemed to grasp the concept of identifying complete subjects and predicates so well that we breezed through that lesson into the next one. As we moved through lesson two, simple subjects, I was still optimistic about the students' ability to do well in grammar. It wasn't until we began lesson four, that I became concerned about my students' progress. It seems that they are quite unfamiliar with verbs and their functions. Seeing that helped me put my responsibilities as a teacher into perspective.

Because of the problems my students were having, I have decided to alter my lesson plans for the upcoming week by incorporating a lesson on the eight parts of speech. I plan to explain this to the students on Monday and put the plan into action on Tuesday. I want to present the students with the idea before I put it into action because I feel they have the right to assist in preparing lessons wherever possible. By Thursday, if I see some signs of improvement on the students' parts, I will return to my scheduled lesson plans. If the students continue functioning as poorly as they have been in understanding the eight parts of speech, however, I will wait until the early part of the following week to return to my original lesson plans.

The longer I teach, the more I learn that as professional educators, it is imperative that we understand our dual roles -- as both teachers and learners. We go to school to learn how to teach, but our real education occurs after our university training. The most valuable lessons in teaching are learned on the front lines -- in the classroom. No education classes can adequately prepare teachers for what they will encounter in the real world. The courses we take are simply a preparation for our real education in the classroom.

(See the main article: The First 180 Days: First-Year Teacher Diaries for a link to the Education World message boards and an opportunity to respond to Shaundalyn!)

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Shaundalyn Elliot
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