Lately, in my journal I’ve seen that teaching has a huge impact on my personal affectation—not that this new information, really. In teaching, I have felt inadequate—like I shouldn’t be teaching. My journal has reflected those same feelings. As I rethink about what I have put into my journal, a lot of my thoughts and feelings come to the idea that I am just not doing enough for my students in my classroom. I want to be there for them. I want to help them grow. I want them to feel successful. Yet, when I come home and sit down to journal, I can only think about my shortcomings. It feels as though my effort for the day is wasted; I feel as though the curriculum I have crafted in my classroom isn't always doing its job to create positive learning experiences.
It’s funny, though, because one of the strategies I have been using to reflect on my teaching is storytelling, and my storytelling about my teaching is not often about my shortcomings. By practice, I am a writer; storytelling naturally fits into a place of comfort in reflecting. Before this class began, I compiled a list of students about which I would be able to tell stories. Since this class began, I have taken a focus in writing about them more: what the story is, what does it tell me about my teaching, what was our experience together. These stories have been allowing me to see the good in the teaching I do. So, while my journal is mostly me complaining about my shortcomings, the stories I remember to write about are about my students and the moments that I have had with them—most of them being positive experiences. It’s a happy contradiction.
In designing curriculum, teachers should reflect as a way of noticing the experiences they craft for their students.
It’s been enlightening somehow to think back to students to see what I remember as our story together. Those stories are our collective experiences. In this class, I have begun to realize that teaching—regarding curriculum specifically—is more than just what teachers teach. It’s the experience. The experiences I write about have very rarely had to do with lessons or stereotypical curriculum materials. These experiences have to do with the student. If these are the moments of teaching that I remember through the students, I can only imagine that students remember these experiences as well--not the materials or the lessons I create. Somehow, the focus and memory of the experiences--as opposed to materials--comforts me in ability to teach effectively.
It has really gotten me to thinking about how I lesson plan and create learning experiences in my classroom. This final thought and connection led me to begin some document analysis as is referenced in Teachers as Curriculum Planners. If the experiences with my students have more to do with my students and the relationship I create with them than the lessons I plan, why would I continue to create lessons that lend themselves less to relationship building and experience creating?
I lesson plan through an online program called Planbook. It allows me to collate all my lessons online, change them on the fly, and align it with all my other online resources. Even further, there is an option on Planbook for reflection. Those reflections are saved and can be reviewed at any moment.
Recently, in my lessons, I have noticed a trend of getting students to work through problems on their own. This year, I am attempting a new standards-based and project-based approach to English Language Arts class. In that, there are meant to be lots of opportunities for students to individualize their own work and their own progress. I create assignments that ask them questions about their ideas, their thoughts, and what skills they would like to improve. It’s still early in the year, so these questions and assignments are meant to ease their mindset toward this new approach.
Yet, within this time frame, I have yet to really touch on the student’s interests, their strengths, and what they want out of this class. I have even gone so far as to mostly dictate the latter for them. Reading through these documents, telling these stories, and writing about my shortcomings have brought me to realize the missing piece in all of this: intentionally allowing students to embrace and let out who they are into their learning experiences.
That, through all this reflection, will become my next goal: creating moments for those relationships to blossom into learning experiences for my students.
With this new curriculum, that will be a guiding aim.