My Journey

The Journey

My Ideas On Teaching and Learning

"I believe that younger generations, just as young trees, can improve their communities' landscapes, make the world more diverse, and contribute to society in new and unique ways."

The Seed

A seed is a learner who has just begun his or her journey of growth. Although it is an individual entity, the seed cannot flourish unless it has a suitable environment in which to grow. Just as seeds require a rich and healthy environment for their physical growth, students also need a positive and stimulating atmosphere to sustain academic growth and prosperity. I believe that teachers play an important role in supporting and nourishing the development of young learners, the seeds of future generations. Teachers are the “planters” in education who help ensure that pupils grow academically and reach their unique potentials. Every child is different and will need an amount of scaffolding in each subject area at various times during their schooling. In my secondary English classroom, I encourage and scaffold students through consistent written and verbal feedback. Informal assessment and one-on-one conferences allow me to gain an understanding of the assistance each student needs and the depth of their learning. Although no two students are alike, all learners, like seeds, need similar resources and support to explore and fulfill the purposes of their lives.

Seeds can also be thought of as the pieces of information that learners obtain through instruction and reading. When students discover new information, whether through teachers, texts, or each other, a seed has been planted within them. Similar to seeds, it is hard to predict exactly what new and exciting things will grow from a student who is learning. Just as foresters, teachers are unable to completely control or predict the environmental conditions that students will live in. They can, however, create an engaging classroom that invites all learners to express themselves and connect to others through reading and writing. Giving students free-writing activities, opportunities for group work, and the freedom of choice facilitate my roles as observer and supporter, as each assignment allows me to understand the lives that my students face beyond the walls of the school.

The Inside of a Tree’s Stem

English teachers, in nurturing young learners, prepare students to be lifelong readers and writers. This is a difficult task in education because teachers usually instruct students during only one academic year. Reflecting over a student’s academic career is comparable to peering at the ringlets inside of a tree’s stem. These ringlets provide insight into a particular tree’s growth patterns. In a tree’s life there will be some years where, with an abundance of rain, sunshine, and other essential elements, the plant develops considerably. At other times little growth may occur. Similarly, students may only make considerable academic advancement during a few years in their schooling, while making minimal progress during others. I believe that English teachers can help students achieve prosperous periods and create lifelong readers and writers by equipping learners with different strategies that they can use to navigate reading and composition. Equally significant are the opportunities that they must provide students in order for them to experiment, work through, and master both texts and genres of writing. Also, introducing students to a variety of writers, styles, and themes, can encourage them to find their own niche in the English classroom. I embrace variety in text selection, activities, and assessments in my classroom.

The presence of both thick and thin ringlets within a mature tree’s stem reveal that, although particular years made development difficult, stronger, healthier years helped them survive. Similarly, as an English teacher, I can help my students find the strength and confidence to persist in any academic situation by teaching them to make connections between new information, prior knowledge, and past experiences. Journal entries are just one way that I encourage this learning in my classroom. My goal is for the seeds that I plant in my students to develop, mature, and reach out to touch the different areas of their lives.

The Branches

The branches of trees are the connections that English teachers help students make between their lives and pieces of writing. In the beginning of their academic journeys, learners explore basic concepts and begin to grow weak, yet promising connections. I feel that utilizing elaboration with new information during these early learning years is important because it helps students store information into their long-term memories in an organized, simple-to-complex sequence. Just as each new branch sprouts from a stronger branch previously formed, new information is connected to what students have previously learned. As learners continue through middle school and on to high school, students may begin to discover that one side of their education tree is more developed, and contains more branches, than the other. This branch imbalance may reflect disinterest in a particular content area or, possibly, a teacher who was not able to effectively engage students in a subject. As an English teacher, it will be difficult for me to help each and every student find an appreciation for reading and writing, but I feel that this is an essential duty. I believe that a significant part of my job will be to listen to my students as they share their interests and passions. I can incorporate what I learn from them into my English curriculum to promote the growth of new branches and encourage further exploration. Frequently, I include songs, poetry, articles, and artwork relevant to students' lives and instruction to engage learners.

English teachers also have the important task of connecting their content area to the others that exist within schools. When you peer up into the underside of a tall tree, it is often hard to determine where branches begin and at what point they end. I believe that English teachers can leave students with that same feeling of unity by teaching them how to successfully navigate the different styles of reading that they will be exposed to in both their academic career and personal lives, and by helping them learn the most effective reading strategies that aid their comprehension and deepen their understanding in any given text. As a teacher, I want to show my students the importance of each new branch in their lives and the power that it contains. It will not always be easy to engage learners in areas like grammar and language studies, but I hope that my students will ultimately leave my classroom with an understanding of how elements like these can make them better communicators and more well-rounded individuals. Above all, I will encourage my students to continue growing despite natural life barriers and to remember that reading and writing connects us to the human experience that unites us all.

The Leaves

Leaves are above-ground plant organs that are produced from the branches of trees. As most trees develop, their stem expands, new branches form, and beautiful leaves are created. Teachers try to ensure that their students’ academic careers will follow a similar growth pattern to ultimately produce learning gifts. I want to equip learners with solid reading and writing skills so that they might be successful in a variety of areas in their lives and share their talents and gifts with others. I believe that all teachers should strive to make their curriculum engaging, relevant, and interesting so that students will continue to produce leaves for the rest of their lives. As a secondary English teacher, I approach each class with enthusiasm and energy. Through exemplars and personal experience, I describe the relevance and the real-world significance of my assignments to students.

Unlike like tree stems and branches, leaves are not permanent entities. Instead, they are constantly evolving as the purpose of their existence changes. While they are attached to the tree, leaves capture sunlight energy and also serve as a source of food for herbivorous animals. At a certain point, however, leaves transform and fall off of trees to decay and enrich the soil with organic matter and nutrients that can be recycled. Similarly, students also change and evolve as their learning journeys continue. In the classroom, students absorb information from teachers, texts, and one another, just as leaves absorb the sunlight to begin the photosynthesis process. For learners, it is outside of the classroom that they apply and make use of what has been learned. I explore students' dreams with them to help them make connections between the concepts I am teaching and their future aspirations. Students, like leaves, also share parts of their journey for others to utilize. Small group work in my classroom encourages learners to share their experiences with their peers to combine their strengths for growth. As a teacher, I want to both prepare students to use what they have learned to improve their own lives, and also reveal the power of cooperative learning and how we can enrich each others’ lives.