Week 3 Readings

I really appreciate how chapter one discusses how teaching is more than just what it seems on the surface, there is a lot of personal goals and ideology that must be considered when deciding on the vocation of teacher. Teachers are have many different roles and are viewed very differently by people from all walks of life.  There are teachers as Passive Technicians, who release knowledge to students constantly, allowing students to be learners, but not allowing them to perform the act of discover and/or creativity.  No new experiences are formed along with opinions only seen through the scope of the teacher. Reflective Practitioner educators are an intrinsic step above Passive Technicians, in that they are consistent in reflection of their teaching.  These teachers try to use their reflections and experiences to grow and develop their practices. This is excellent for the teacher, but there still needs to be a higher concentration on students. Transformative Intellectuals is the third tier of educators in terms of development and thought. They still use the Reflective Practitioner’s reflection practices, but are further committed to their students and are interested in student development and the major issues plaguing education.

Regarding the second chapter, I find some difficulty with it.  I cannot think of a single teacher who would not agree that there is not a single correct method to educating students, but then what?  I am all for individuality and making the classroom your own, but it will be incredibly difficult for me to walk into a classroom on my first day as a real teacher and feel like I have a handle on my classroom if there is no right way to go about teaching ESL students (any students, at that).  I am committed to being a Transformative Intellectual (hopefully!), but I feel like there is content and guidance lacking when I am constantly told there is no one way to teach students.  I do not know if I am just feeling self-conscious lately, but I am feeling fully underprepared with a lot of theory but little practical application information.