New Teacher Discussion

I was really interested in all of the things all of the Luther Alum had to say about their experience as new teachers.  I found the pros and cons of teaching at smaller schools particularly interesting.  It makes sense that the sense of community would be very prevalent which is a good thing, also the fact that small classes worked for their advantage.  However having students become too comfortable with teachers is the thing that scared me away.  Doing my observations at Turkey Valley over Jterm I was able too see how this becomes non advantageous for teachers as it seems they become more likely to somewhat blow off the possible consequences of their actions.

I was also shocked to hear about the use of technology in the school.  The fact that students are now issued laptops in some schools is something that i could have never imagined as a student.  I feel as though this is almost doing the kids a dis service as they are exposed to opportunities to neglect written resources that should be considered basic skills to know how to operate, such as dictionaries.  I also thought that this maybe more likely to provide students opportunities to cheat on assignments.  

The final part of the discussion that was interesting to me was the advice about classroom management.  Again, while doing my observations, I found that my cooperating teacher struggled with managing the behavior of her students.  For me, not being able to gain control of a classroom is my biggest fear as a future teacher and will definitely be paying more attention to these skills in my future observations.