Anna Lee

In one of the WordPress blogs that I subscribed to, a blogger by the alias ashleytan (is that even an alias?) wrote about the student-teacher trainees who are still so rigid in their student-like mentality.  Despite their title as student-teachers, they are very much still immersed in their identity as student-teachers, that when debating about the difference between constructivism and constructionism, they didn’t hesitate to ask him, the expert.  Although they were in a computer laboratory, where they had the “world’s libraries and expertise at their fingertips,” they still couldn’t escape their natural student-like inclination to ask questions–even when they were fully equipped with discovering the answers themselves.  It’s not that asking an expert is wrong, but oftentimes students are so accustomed to having all answers fed to them by teachers, which I can most definitely agree with.  I have the propensity to ask first, find later; that is, I never think twice about searching for something without asking the teacher first, and it is this exact mentality that will be the most difficult to escape when I become a teacher.

There couldn’t be a better time for me to have read this blog.  As I start my field experience next week, I want to go into the classroom with the attitude and mindset of a teacher.  Granted, I have so much to learn.  And this is not to say that I won’t need the help of my cooperating teacher (which in fact I hope to learn a great deal, from); however, I want to be able to think like a teacher.  Sure, I’ll be in my teacher clothes with my teacher demeanor, and as easy as it may be to fool others that I am ready to be a teacher, I want to really begin to think like one.  I will have my own classroom someday where I won’t have my own teacher to ask questions whenever I want.  I will be that teacher, and it’s time that I begin to both think and act like one.

The abovementioned blog by ashleytan can be found here: http://ashleytan.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/think-and-act-as-teachers/