Feb. 22, 2008 - Back to work - a glimpse
My glimpse at back to work full time was actually short lived and interesting. I was surprised that I actually loved it. It reminded me how much I love to teach Spanish and I have had great experience in the past few years teaching homeschoolers – now I was able to merge both experiences into a classroom setting. I had a feeling that the students would like me because the teacher uses a very grammar intense teaching method. In all my college studies for the past ten years, they have told second language teachers to use more natural and communicative approaches (like Rosetta Stone uses, but for foreign language, I would recommend the video series Fluency Fast at tprs.com by Blaine Ray – his teaching methods are awesome and I learned German from the three workshops that I went to). It made me think, if the teachers are not listening to what they were taught in college about what are the “best proven” methods to teach, why do we trust our kids to the professionals? Well, one answer is bureaucracy; I worked for a district that told me I couldn’t teach in the best way because I had to control the kids. It’s true, that you do need to have classroom management and even though these students loved me as a sub, in a month or two they’d start to hate me since that is my personal weakness. Yet, there are ways to teach in the best way and control the class, yet usually teachers are told to follow the exact textbook (lots of money for those companies) and even to follow a “script” and pacing guide especially now with the tests. So, I don’t blame all the teachers, but more the pressure they receive, and yes, some teachers still use the tired and old type of lessons (at least in Second Language teaching). I didn’t realize until later that this teacher is close to retirement so she may have had a different experience in her college method’s class. Plus, teaching a second language through grammar is a nice quantative way to grade and “see the learning”. You just put the verbs in the correct form, you spell the words, etc. The problem is that there are so many words that break the rules. And language is about communicating. They aren’t neat and orderly. It made me think about how all of “schooling” in traditional schools is about quantative learning and putting facts into neat paragraphs and multiple choice tests, but real life and true long-term learning does not work out that way. When I traveled to Spain they did not ask me Como estas? (how are you?) a) yo esta bien b) yo estoy bien c) el esta bien The correct answer is b, by the way. So, again, I’m glad to homeschool. The other thing I noticed is that even when I was home, I kept thinking about work – what happened, what I have to plan for the next day, what I have to prepare to get everyone where they are going the next day. Wow, what an eye opener – I want to get back on track, thinking about my family and faith first. My prayers were answered. She doesn’t need a sub after some fluke of the hospital not being able to give the surgery they planned. So, I may try again or maybe I’ll just say no when they reschedule. Either way, I think I’ll stick to home schooling, and let the teachers battle it out with classroom management.
Comments
Mar. 3, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by noahsmom
Hi....
I recently noticed a message from you on my weblog....I didn't know there were private messages other than commenting on here...until I saw I had 4 messages today and all very old.
thanks for the compliments on my weblog here. I use it for MM post, weekly lesson log, and anything with tables because it's just copy and paste.
Romans chapter 11 and Ephesians chapter 2 explain that when we accept Yeshua as our Messiah we have been grafted into the Hebrew Faith. It's ours too, we are free to embrace it and I love it.
come by any time to chat Hebrew Faith
