In the first week of my last year of college, I have been asked more about my goals than at any other point in my life. When the 'real world' is looming and you are about to step into the career of your choice, having a pre-established plan of attack and goals to back it up seems to be the keys to success. I am a great creator of lists that never get finished and post-it note instructions and tips for life that get left in random spots; journaling out my goals has never been something that I did with any success. If I did sit down and right out my goals, I found I always missed the important one. I would focus on the overall picture instead of the stepping stones.
The overall picture of the next nine months of my life can be summed up into three points:
- 1. Graduate in May as a licensed teacher.
- 2. Establish a firm foundation of classroom control and instruction that can easily be built off of as a first-year teacher.
- 3. Find a teaching job and enter the world of adults that have a regular stream of income.
However, I feel that those goals leave out the heart of the matter and I find that most of my internal focus has been on the upcoming student teaching experience: I am very determined to leave my MT's classroom being the best teacher I can be at that exact moment. In the year that I spend under the tutelage of an experienced teacher I hope to establish an ease while dealing with classroom distractions and interruptions, enforcing classroom policies and procedures, and engaging students in the content while keeping the lesson and unit plan on track. If I leave my MT's classroom in May feeling confident in my ability to control a classroom, prepare and teach a lesson, and establish routines and procedures that make learning feasible then I will feel as if i have accomplished what I set out to do when I started the teaching program. Everything else can be refined and perfected through years of experience.
So as we move forward- good luck!
