I'm way to stressed for this....

There is so much work to do lately, I think my head might explode-so I'm going to keep this one short. For some reason this November is so full of assignments and tests and what-not; I think teachers must think that we don’t need to sleep. Or that we have clones that help us do our work. Or something along those lines. This has caused me to become a person who is a ball of stress, consistently at the verge of unravelling.

http://www.sheilapartridge.com/articles/stress-the-enemy/

Again, I think this all comes back to marks; I'm sure I wouldn't be so stressed if we weren't so focused on getting those 90’s. Recently a phrase has been popping up every so often amongst my friends in fourth year: “C’s get degrees”.  Although this is true (and it really shouldn't be marks that we’re concerned about), I for some reason can’t seem to stop myself from worrying about getting the best mark possible. And make note on this: I did not say that I was focused on doing my best, or learning the most. It’s about getting the best mark, because that is what reflects our “learning”. However I am becoming more and more frustrated because I don’t think that I'm doing anything that will actually help me. All of these theories and practices we’re learning, without the experience to back it up I just feel like another student working towards the grades, who isn't really prepared for the real world that’s out there.  And as a future educator, this is not what I want to happen to any of my students. I hope to be a teacher that actually causes them to learn, and not just care about marks.

However, this reminds me of the living contradictions that were briefly discussed in chapter 6. In this, it talks about the idea of “I used to think” versus “I now think”. This is an interesting concept where it explores the idea of what teachers think before they're teaching, compared to what it is actually like in the classroom. I think through all of our classes it’s easy to say that we have certain ideals that we plan to follow in our classroom. We talk about our power bases, or having a student-directed classroom, but when it comes down to it what we might actually do in the classroom could be completely different. We may think that we want students to actually learn, or explore their interests, but what happens when it comes down to the time crunch of including everything that the curriculum requires? More importantly is the main focus of the contradictions, which is the need to scaffold learning, while also challenging students to discover things on their own. We know from our discussions in other classes that one of the most important aspects in fostering higher level thinking processes is the opportunity to explore. However, teachers need to find a way to balance this while also fostering their learning through clear information.  And I think that as students that have always been focused on marks, as well as mostly having information given directly to us (lack of exploring), that is something that we will struggle with, as we may fall into teaching in the ways in which we were taught.

However, project-based learning, or an inquiry based approach can be a very effective way for students to actually be engaged in their learning within the classroom. Kids are naturally curious, and instead of schools killing this curiosity, we should have teaching methods that instead foster that want to learn. Below is an interesting video that I found very relatable to the idea of inquiry based learning as a whole. Instead of reverting to the ways in which we were taught, and continuing to put the emphasis on marks (and therefore stressing students out instead of causing them to be excited about learning), we need to look at new ideas to be a 21^st century teacher.

So, to circle back to the beginning of this post where I talked about my stress, I would instead like to leave everyone with something that I am interested in and excited about. Though it may not necessarily be learning that I'm excited about, at least I'm enjoying something….and have something to take my mind of the stress of getting good marks! So here it is, the excitement of the upcoming minion movie!