Running head: PAST STUDENT EXPERIENCES SHAPING FUTURE TEACHER

BEHAVIOR

Past Student Experiences Shaping Future Teacher Behavior

Jordan Van Eerden
EDUC 430 Fall 2014
Assignment 1

PAST STUDENT EXPERIENCES SHAPING FUTURE TEACHER BEHAVIOR

Past Student Experiences Shaping Future Teacher Behavior

As a learner I am a very driven student but at the same time I
am also a very confined student. There were many ideas as a child that
I was told were wrong and that I was thinking improperly. This has
seemed to limit my creativity for all future activities and something I
constantly battle with as a student and now becoming a teacher. I have
been struggling with being creative as a student and now becoming a
teacher I am finding it difficult to re-enact this creativity. The image
that most closely links to this creativity is an image of a quote by Henri
Matisse regarding what creativity is. For me, this quote is everything
that I want to be as a creative teacher and lifelong learner. Obviously
as an educator it is important to foster the creativity within oneself so
that you can spark that same creativity in the children that you are
going to be teaching, because this creativity is what leads to divergent
thinking (as discussed in our Pragmatics course) as opposed to the
standard convergent thinking that many students, such as myself have
been historically confined to. Divergent thinking is more relevant to
some of the most current and important teaching pedagogies, not only
in my opinion but in the opinion of many scholars that have written on
the topic.
My role as an educator is not vastly different from that of a
learner as being an educator is all about lifelong learning and selfdiscovery. I truly believe that everyday I that I face challenges, I am

PAST STUDENT EXPERIENCES SHAPING FUTURE TEACHER BEHAVIOR

going to learn more about myself in the role of a teacher and I will also
learn how to react to a multitude of situations not only in the
classroom, but also in my personal life. Something that has stuck with
me since I was younger was that people had told me all through
elementary and junior high school that I should be a teacher. I always
ignored the idea and never thought that I would have the patience to
be a lifelong learner because I couldnt wait to finish school and I
never seemed to have the patience for teaching others and their
struggles in learning. Since I never struggled with a lot of things when I
was in school it was hard for me to conceptualize why other people
didnt understand certain concepts in class or when I tried to explain it
to them. Now that I have grown up over the years and reflected on
these experiences I know why I never had the patience for my friends
or fellow classmates to explain topics to them that I understood well
and thats because I never knew about learning styles or teaching
methods employed by teachers in my own classes. My knowledge of
diversity was limited.
Teaching methods mentioned in chapter 9 of Kristen Nielsens
textbook, An Introduction to Teaching, Learning and School Culture A
Reader for Beginning Teachers, are a huge source of reflection on my
own experience as a learner going through several alternating school
systems. My most vivid memories of divergent thinking, discussions
and in-depth analysis of topics, come from my years in Catholic school

PAST STUDENT EXPERIENCES SHAPING FUTURE TEACHER BEHAVIOR

and opposite to that, my years in public school remind me of very

standardized classrooms as described by Doctor Brent Davis in his
book Engaging Minds: Cultures of Education and Practices of Teaching.
These teacher-centered classrooms always had lots of lectures, lessons
and few multimedia presentations and an even more limited student
interaction. The majority of the activities that I remember from public
school, both at an elementary and secondary level were not in groups
but rather as individuals, quietly in our desks that were also situated in
rows. This is a starkly different picture from that of my experience in a
Catholic school where the majority of the assignments were done in
groups or think pairs, and discussions were a large part of class time.
These reflections of the differences between Public and Catholic
education were for me very interesting because I still do not fully
understand how teachers being trained the same and working with the
same curriculum could be so opposing from one another.
As a Spanish bilingual teacher I think it is really important that I
am able to share with the children the fact that I am also a second
language learner and not a native speaker. I know that while I was
learning Spanish I never thought that I could become as fluent as I
have become now, so its really important to illustrate to the students
that teachers also have had struggles with learning at some point in
their lives and that teachers are also learners. This ties into a quote
from chapter 2 written by Robert Cole regarding rules and rigidity in

PAST STUDENT EXPERIENCES SHAPING FUTURE TEACHER BEHAVIOR

the classroom that states: Teachers who try to impose too many rules,
too much rigidity, and too many uniform activities quickly lose control
(2014, p. 49). In the last five weeks of group and class discussions in
this program, I have reflected on myself as a teacher and what habits I
would like to form as part of my regular teaching routine. One of these
habits is to make the children feel comfortable with me and not
necessarily see me as superior to them, but rather as a friend,
someone they respect and value. I want my students to be able to
recognize that I am just like they are, and have been in their position
before, something that I never felt when I was in school.
Something else that I have thought about for when I am a
teacher is being a role model inside and outside of the classroom. For
example, making separate social media accounts for my students to
communicate with me on directly, or interact on for assignments, but I
do not plan on incorporating my personal life fully with school. This
being said, I will have to allow my school life to overtake my personal
life and change some decisions I might have previously made. Chapter
9 of Nielsens textbook, written by Edward Ebert, Christine Ebert and
Michael Lee Bentley, talks about teachers being role models in and out
of the class. According to these authors [Students] expectations [of
teachers outside of school] remain the same (2014, 191).

These

expectations of teachers by students are common in not only students,

but their parents too. When I was in school I know that the teachers

PAST STUDENT EXPERIENCES SHAPING FUTURE TEACHER BEHAVIOR

always maintained their rapport inside and outside of school when I

saw them, which is important because it made me trust them rather
than if I would have seen a different side of them outside of school
from inside of school. The artifact in my e-portfolio of me standing next
to a pyramid of sorts was taken in March of 2013 while I was on
exchange in Palenque, Mexico. This picture to me symbolizes being a
role model to my students in that I was able to follow my dreams of
going somewhere I had only ever dreamed of going. I never thought it
would be possible but I want my students to look to me as a role model
and source of inspiration.
With regards to promoting divergent thinking in the classroom
and trying to limit the amount of convergent thinking, I really liked the
teaching ideas modeled in chapter 9 of Nielsens textbook. In this
section, Mental Modeling, Discovery Learning and Inquiry are all
Student Focused Instructional Techniques that I plan on using in my
classrooms, but I dont think that I had ever really seen any of these
techniques modeled in my own classrooms as a younger student (Ebert
et al., 2014, p. 189).

One artifact that is in my e-portfolio that

represents this for me is the cartoon picture of a student thinking and

showing that convergent thinking is a negative practice and not
something that is to be developed such as divergent thinking.
The last idea that has come to mind for me as something that
envision incorporating into my role as a teacher is Blooms Taxonomy,

PAST STUDENT EXPERIENCES SHAPING FUTURE TEACHER BEHAVIOR

as discussed within the Standardized Education model for Doctor Brent

Davis Education 420 class lecture. Blooms Taxonomy is something
that I can see myself trying to incorporate into my lesson plans on a
regular basis until I figure out for each of my classes what the
appropriate balance is. Although I think that Blooms Taxonomy has
some very valid points and strategies that it incorporates, I also
believe that it is not the best way of teaching and for this reason it falls
within the Standardized model of Education. I envision myself as a
teacher incorporating a reverse model of Blooms Taxonomy more
heavily into my lesson plans than just solely the original idea. The
artifact that I have chosen to represent this is a word tree of Blooms
(revised) Taxonomy using verbs that are associated with this revision.
For me this is a very important reflection of the model that I would like
to use.
In conclusion, there are many things that I have learned and
discussed over the last 5 weeks in all of my lectures and classes that I
would like to incorporate as a teacher in my own classrooms, but I am
not sure yet just how I am going to react in certain situations and if I
will find that certain techniques work better for me than others. I think
the majority of my teaching years are going to be largely about trial
and error in the classroom, but hopefully the confidence for this trial
and error will grow every year and with every new and diverse class
that I teach. To help with this confidence as a teacher I find it

PAST STUDENT EXPERIENCES SHAPING FUTURE TEACHER BEHAVIOR

extremely helpful to locate websites, activities and pictures on the

internet that provide me with a deeper understanding of what it means
to teach a second language and some of the struggles that I might
incur.

PAST STUDENT EXPERIENCES SHAPING FUTURE TEACHER BEHAVIOR

References
Cole, R.W. (2014). Educating everybodys children: We know what
works and what doesnt. In K. Nielsen (Ed.) An Introductino to
teaching, learning and school culture for beginning teachers (pp.
22-56). Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall-Hunt.
Davis, B., Sumara, D., & Luce-Kapler, R. (2014). Engaging Minds:
Cultures of Education and Practices of Teaching (3rd ed., Vol. 1,
pp. 1-255). Calgary, Alberta: Taylor & Francis/Routledge.
Ebert, E.S., Ebert C., Bentley, M.L. (2014). Bringing the World to Your
Students. In K. Nielsen (Ed.) An Introductino to teaching, learning
and school culture for beginning teachers (pp. 181-198). Dubuque,
Iowa: Kendall-Hunt.

PAST STUDENT EXPERIENCES SHAPING FUTURE TEACHER BEHAVIOR

References (Artifacts)
Berry, S. (n.d.) Divergent Thinking [Pinterest page]. Retrieved from
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/386535580490692132/
Byom,

C.

(n.d.)

Creativity

[Pinterest

page].

Retrieved

from

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/107030928618951286/
Van

Eerden,

J.

(n.d.)

Palenque

Dreamscape.

Retrieved

from

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?
fbid=10152708774925693&set=t.766400692&type=3&theater
Ward, W. (n.d.) Blooms Taxonomy [Pinterest page]. Retrieved from
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/134334001360888290/