Teacher Candidate Dispositions Essay Cover Sheet
English Education Program
Teacher
Candidate: Sara Winterling Semester: Spring 2006
Course
(check one): _ _ I:
EGL449/CEF551 X II:
EGL450/CEF552 ____
Seminar EGL 454/CEE590
Instructor: Prof. 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.
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NYS “Code of Ethics” |
INTASC “Dispositions” |
NCTE “Attitudes” |
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Dispositions Essay Title: To Read, or Not to Read: Making a
Choice to Foster Learning. |
2 |
1, 4, 6 |
5, 12, 13 |
To Read or Not to Read:
Making a Choice to Foster Learning
During my field experience in the spring of 2006, I saw one particular way of teaching that seemed as though it could be improved upon. The 7th grade class I was observing had only enough books for a class set. Because no outside-class reading was possible, the ELA teacher was forced to do all reading during the class period. Either the teacher would read to the class, or have the students take turns reading. During this time, the teacher frequently stopped the reading to point out specific sections, ask specific questions that had specific answers, and then continued reading. Even though this method gets the students through the text quickly, it seems to be sacrificing the higher learning that is suppose to come along with English education.
The teacher’s methodology was in complete contrast to INTASC Disposition #1. The teacher asked for information that could be recalled by students, making it seem as though literature has specific right and wrong answers. By not allowing the students to come up with their own ideas and interpretations, the teacher is essentially stunting the growth of her students. As NCTE Attitude #5 indicates, the teacher must recognize the need for mental development in students while still getting through the necessary material. The teacher is doing the students a disservice by rushing through a text. It may take longer to get through a piece of literature, but if the teacher were to slow down and sacrifice a bit of time to solicit for the students’ opinions and analysis, the students will only benefit. This reflects INTASC Disposition #4, which encourages students’ development.
By only having students communicate in the classroom when the teacher is requesting a “right” answer, the teacher is not actually being an effective communicator. As INTASC Disposition # 6 outlines, the teacher must allow students to discuss the information they are learning as a way to uncover and interpret complex notions they are exposed to through the literature. Further, when a teacher is only looking for “right” answers, and infrequently stops to explore multiple possible answers the teacher is neglecting to encourage insights that the students can develop, which clearly contradicts NCTE Attitude #13. The teacher needs to have these outlets for personal exploration built into the lessons and encouraged, keeping a journal about the text or having students search the Web for related information.
Constantly reading a text to a class for weeks on end gets monotonous and discourages students from reading on their own. NCTE Attitude # 12 outlines that we as educators are in the business of creating life long readers and learners, but boring the students through literature is defeating our purpose. The Code of Ethics Principle #2 describes that teachers must nurture student learning, but forcing a class through a book does none of this. The teacher must make a choice to either get through a text like it is a task and have students maybe remember only what the teacher tells them to in order to pass necessary tests, or the teacher can give the students more liberty, expect more of them, and make it a creative, receptive learning environment that shows students that it really can be fun to read.