Teacher Candidate Dispositions Essay Cover Sheet

English Education Program

 

Teacher Candidate:    Kerri Koch                                                Semester:     Fall 2005

 

Course (check one):        I: EGL449/CEF551   X   II: EGL450/CEF552        Seminar EGL 454/CEE590

 

Instructor:   Michael LoMonico

 

What does it mean to be a professional, ethical English teacher?  What kinds of issues should good English teachers think about as they go about the daily tasks of planning, conducting and evaluating lessons?  How should they include others in their decisions about teaching and learning?  What approaches should teachers consider as important and sometimes difficult social issues arise as a result of class discussion?  These are difficult questions with no one right answer. 

 

To address these kinds of questions, several important educational organizations have developed documents, which we will work with in the English Education program:

 

·         The New York State Education Department’s “Code of Ethics”

·         The Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium’s Dispositions from their “Model Standards for Beginning Teacher Licensing and Development: A Resource for State Dialogue”

·         The National Council of Teachers of English’s “Attitudes for Teachers of English”

 

Directions to Teacher Candidates: In connection with the above documents, you have written an essay that responds to scenarios from English classrooms.  Please carefully examine your essay and list the numbers of the codes, dispositions, and attitudes to which your essay speaks.  In this manner, you will demonstrate your awareness of and your ability to address these points.  It may not be practical for every essay to speak to every code, disposition and attitude.  Since you will complete three of these essays in your work in the English Education Program, please pose as a goal for yourself that you will address each of the codes, dispositions, and attitudes at least once by the time you have written all three essays. This cover sheet and your essay should be included in your Teacher Candidate Portfolio.

 

 

	NYS “Code of Ethics”	INTASC “Dispositions”	NCTE “Attitudes”
Dispositions Essay Title:     Self-Reflection and Recognizing Individuals: Two Steps to Becoming Ethical Teachers	1, 2, 3, 4, and 6	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and   10	1, 5, 6, 7, and 9

 

 

 

Self-Reflection and Recognizing Individuals: 

Two Steps to Becoming Ethical Teachers

           

The dictionary defines ethical as “being in accordance with the accepted principles of right and wrong that govern the conduct of a profession.”  My personal view of what makes an ethical teacher is that is it a teacher who takes into account every individual student in their classroom and continues to be reflective in nature about their professional growth as a teacher.  Good teachers come in all shapes and sizes and they go about being ethical in different ways.  Through my one hundred hours of field experience I have observed many teachers and seen some that are ethical and some that are not. 

            When I think about what makes a teacher ethical a quote by Alfie Kohn always comes to mind.  He once asked a group of English teachers at an NCTE conference whether they were teachers of students or teachers of literature.  I believe that you must be both to be a professional, ethical teacher.  You must have the capacity to deal with the variety of students in your classroom, but you must also have an intrinsic love of reading and writing (for you would not be an English teacher if you did not have this).  I would say that some English teachers would answer that question with one or the other in mind, but if they were present at this conference, they were already taking one of the steps I deem necessarily to be a reflective teacher.

            Good teachers continue to be students themselves.  They look for ways to stay abreast of new research or articles in the field of English teachers.  They read journals, such as English Journal or Research in the Teaching of English, and they look for ways to improve their teaching techniques.  They learn from their students and colleagues at every turn in their careers.  As I write this essay, I am taking Methods II of teaching with is teaching using performance and technology.  I was observing a teacher last week, who was singing the praises of a former Stony Brook student who was in her year of teaching at this particular school.  This teacher mentioned that she was communicating with her students via email and incorporating all sorts of technology into her lesson plans.  Then he proceeded to tell me that he was a dinosaur to this technology wave and had been teaching for twenty years.  But with the successful he saw this new teacher having in her class, he decided to give technology a try.  The class I was observing was Fiction Writing.  The class consisted of only fourteen students, and they had a laptop from the technology cart to write their dialogues, research on the Internet, and print the assignment before the bell rang.  This teacher noted that computers make his life easier while reading and grading the assignments, but they also give the students a sense of ownership and power in his classroom.  He told me that even the students who do not have computers at home have learned through interactions with other students in the class how to work the technology, while he has also learned a great deal from his students through this experience.  This teacher took a chance, with something he did not feel comfortable with, because of its success in a colleague’s classroom.  He also made the classroom atmosphere more about the students and less about him, because everyday he is learning something new about the advantages of technology from his students.  

Good teachers conduct their classrooms with their students and their diversity in mind.  They take a student-directed learning approach to teaching.  They change stagnant lessons with the changing of students and the time.  They find new ways to reflect on their teaching style in the wake of the individuals they teach day after day.  While there are teachers that during your field experience you leave with the notion that you aspire to be like them one day, there are also teachers who lack what I would deem as ethical, professional behavior in the classroom.  At another school I was doing some field work in, I observed a very unique situation.  One this day I walked into a class I had been in previously, but the teacher was not there.  I introduced myself to the person I thought was a substitute teacher and in response I received the news that she was the new teacher and would be glad to have me for the period.  When I asked where the regular teacher was she said he had taken sick.  The students arrived and the moment the bell rang they began to ask questions.  Rumors had been flying that day about what happened to the teacher.  They eagerly asked the woman who stood in front of the desk.  She responded that she could not tell them what was going on until the chair of the English department got there.  Then she moved on to an introductory lesson of The Scarlet Letter.  The students paid no attention to her because they could not put their minds at ease over what happened to their teacher.  I knew from having been in the class before that the students and regular teacher had a great relationship.  He was the teacher everyone loved.  She began to read the chapter and then proceeded to tell them that there would be a quiz on chapter one later in the week.  The students began to move in their chairs and finally someone said that their teacher never quizzed them.  They wrote journal entries and papers when they read novels or plays.  This was something they as a class decided on.  The regular teacher was a proponent of student-centered learning.  He allowed his classes to choose how they would best learn the lessons.  She told them that she was the new teacher and she gives quizzes for every chapter.  This was the end of the discussion.  At about thirty minutes into the period, the chairperson arrived.  He told the students that their teacher had a disease that had gotten worse recently and that he took an early retirement.  Then he wrote the teachers address on the board (in case the class wanted to write him a get well card).  That was it.  They had a new teacher, whom I don’t blame for having her own teaching style, but could have been a bit nicer during this confusing time for the students.  The students came to me at the end of the period for advice and to talk about the situation.  I did not want to be placed in an awkward position so I told them to give her a chance and maybe down the line things would improve.  I am not giving the story justice here, but this is the kind of situation that anyone could face.  And I do not to point fingers, but teachers should take into account the emotions of their students.  She was not looking at them with any compassion that day.  She did not take into account that they were shocked by the news.  I am not saying that the day should have been spent taking about feelings, but I think the situation was handled poorly on the end of the teacher.  This class was a tough class.  There were many diverse, strong personalities.  I think it takes an open-minded, engaging, compassionate teacher to teach “tough” students.  The teacher who fell ill had those qualities, and the new teacher lacked the compassion needed to keep an environment of learning happening in this class.  This day was my last day at this particular school, but I am quite certain that the students who were getting A’s and learning are no longer.  This teacher lost the trust of these students by treating them the way she did.    

Good teachers have the ability use multiple strategies of instruction.  The above teacher could have incorporated writing with her quizzes and graded appropriately to find some common ground with the students.  Good teachers must also the learning capabilities in their classrooms.  Just as good teachers come in all shapes and sizes so do the students they teach.  If teachers continue to reflect, grow, and take into account their students as individuals, they will foster communities where intellectual stimulation and critical thinking takes place.  English teachers must find ways to reach their students through literature and writing and instill the intrinsic nature of love for those two arenas that someone once instilled in them.  English class can be an enjoyable place for both students and teachers if respect and learning are the keys to success in that classroom.