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Becoming a Teacher Short Essay

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Submitted By adrienne
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There are two pieces of advice that I received that helped me to become a better teacher.
This advice included - have fun with teaching and don’t be afraid to try new things.
My senior teacher told me not take things so seriously. Instead, have fun with teaching. As a new teacher, I had a rigid concern for responsibility. I frequently put too much pressure on myself to do the right thing and set the best example. As a result, I was excellent at disseminating information, but I was not a lot of fun. I guess that I somehow believed that “being the teacher” and truly enjoying the job were mutually exclusive. Although I was a person who easily made friends and around whom people felt comfortable, I quickly realized that the students were intimidated by me. This was not the kind of atmosphere that I wanted in my classroom. However, I thought that I would “lose control” if I didn’t keep everyone on task at all times. After many role play activities and what if... scenarios with my senior teacher, I learned strategies to help the students to be comfortable and expressive in their classroom while maintaining order rather than control. This lesson served me well during my years of teaching and is second nature now.

The second piece of advice was an extension of the first. Once I learned to relax and enjoy my time with the students, I became free to employ different teaching techniques and use everyone and everything available to me to help create an atmosphere conducive to risk taking which fosters learning. I learned that there was no one way or consistently correct way to teach. I had to allow myself and the students the flexibility of making mistakes and using those mistakes as learning

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