Tales from Teacher’s College

Tales from Teacher’s College

We learn a lot of different things in Teacher’s college. We learn the fine art of educating the world youth. We are given the skills to prepare units, lessons and activities that will engage students and give them the wisdom to be responsible and productive members of society.

However, there are many other things that were taught to us as we were preparing to embark on our teaching journey. These are my stories from teachers college.

When I started teachers college I really wasn’t sure what I would be learning. Was it all going to be curriculum stuff and teaching strategies or was there more? I quickly realized that although the courses were designed to teach us specific things, the professors were going to teach us so much more. They were all former or current teachers who have been there and done that.

The gentleman teaching us about language arts and how to teach it ended up teaching me so much more. In fact, I think I learned more from his anecdotal comments and discussion than anything he told me about the curriculum.

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Something that he said to us one day was “Teaching is like a performance and you are always on stage.” I didn’t really get what he meant at first but through the different activities we did in his class it started to become apparent.

Teaching is a job where you are a teacher of course but you are also a stage performer. You are up in front of these kids all day long and it is up to you to make the show interesting and fun enough for them to engage and learn. From drama to improvisation and any other way you can think of, teachers do whatever it takes to get through to their kids.

I have never been the shy reserved type at all. I usually have no problems engaging in conversations and meeting new people. However, I have never been the type to perform or be on stage. This all changed as I became more engaged in this class. I performed several “acts” of teaching in front of my student teacher peers and found myself becoming more comfortable with myself.

I have always had a natural silliness to me and this encouraged me to bring that into my teaching style. I learned during my first observation that I had to be so much more than a boring deliverer of curriculum content. I had to get the kids excited and interested in what they were learning. So now, when I sing the formulas for area of a circle because it is just that much fun to do it, my students are having fun and are engaged in what is going on.

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Sure, my students might think I am a little crazy but I’ll take that any day over the alternative. I would rather have them remember me as the crazy teacher that taught them so much fun stuff then the boring teacher that they couldn’t wait to get out of his class. Luckily I had my own Mr. Miyagi to show me the way.