Communication

Some types of writing I am asked to do in classes for my major are case studies, presentations, and lesson plans. The reason we are assigned lesson plans is pretty straight forward. When teaching, teachers are required to write up lesson plans before their lesson in order to have a good lesson but also to think their lessons through in order for it to reach the maximum students instead of having a really bad lesson and the students don’t learn much from it. Because lesson plans are so crucial to a teacher’s job, it only makes sense to start practicing this writing skill while learning about becoming a teacher and teaching. By practicing this skill now, students majoring in education can learn from their professors how to improve their lesson plans but can also learn from other students in making their lessons more creative or just helping each other out. This is also crucial because in the classroom there’s a lot of group work and students collaborate a lot, so for teachers to know good collaboration skills but also see what forms of collaboration works and what forms don’t is important for lesson planning in the future. Presentations are also very important for teaching.  From a young grade, teachers often teach their lessons through PowerPoint presentations. Then, as students get older and move up in grades the teachers then teach the students to create and present presentations themselves. In order for teachers to teach how to do this, they need to know how to do this themselves, especially if they are going to use it to teach lessons, not just about how to create power points and good presentation skills. This is why it is good for prospective teachers to practice the skill while they are in school. Since by now most teachers have practiced the skill while they were in high school and even middle school, their fellow students can also give valuable input to their presentations, not just the teacher. Now, students who major in education don’t have one opinion, but have the opinions of all their classmates and their teachers, which can really help them improve. Case studies may not seem like they have much importance in education but in reality they do have a significance. Teachers need to keep an eye on their students to see how they are doing with their fellow classmates, with their work, or just in general. Case studies are a great way to learn to observe; especially if you are being taught step by step how to do one. In case studies, you don’t just observe the physical behavior, you observe everything you can see or even test the subject on. This includes intelligence, morality, socialness, etc.  Observation is a key skill in teaching so being able to nurture the skill through case studies is very important for rising teachers.

A huge example of a topic in education is bullying. Nowadays, bullying is a hot topic and is often discussed. Adults, mainly parents, know how much effort schools put into stopping and preventing bullying. Some of these methods work but there are always those few kids who will be mean. Occasionally, there’s a case where the bullying is incredibly severe and has a tragic end. Then, the school administration is blamed for not helping more or not  trying hard enough to stop or prevent the bullying. In this case, these professionals are taking on unrealistic tasks. There are only so many teachers for some number of students that each student cannot be watched every hour of every school day. This is why some kids slip through the cracks and have a harder time than other kids. It is also one thing to have knowledge about a topic but can be completely different to put that knowledge into practice. This is the case for a lot of teachers. Teachers often go to seminars to learn about bullying or there are school assemblies that discuss bullying and its effects, but not everyone has experienced it firsthand which can make it difficult to use the knowledge they have been taught. A teacher’s job may seem  incredibly exciting because they get to work with children all day and not necessarily have to do office work. However, a teacher’s job is harder than most think. Teachers have to put in a lot of extra work before and after hours. They also have to buy their own supplies for their students or their lessons if the school is not willing to provide them. Teachers also have to keep their eye on around 20 kids at one time by themselves whereas in other professions, it’s mostly adults supervising other adults (bosses or managers). I think this misrepresentation is harmful because not everyone understands how much effort and work teachers put into their job in order to help their students which means they might not understand how much time it takes up and away from other things they could be doing such as watching for, stopping, and preventing bullying. Teachers have to keep an eye on a large number of students at a time while also doing their job such as teaching a lesson, grading, and making sure the students do their work. That’s a lot to juggle for one person and nobody is perfect, everybody makes mistakes.