Growing is what we aim for

Hello everyone! I just got done recording my video lesson for Jeff's class, and I wanted to give everyone some hope! 

Upon finishing my recording and watching it back, I realized that my face cam did not record, which as we discussed is not optimal. Initially I was thinking I might have to redo it, which again we talked about as being sub optimal. In the end, I decided to just roll with it, and I realized a few things.

1. It is okay to make mistakes. We are developing teachers, and the simple fact is that we don't and won't always know what we're doing. We will mess things up. So rather than get caught up in kicking ourselves, we need to learn and grow and do better next time. 

2. It is okay to have fun. We don't need to be serious all the time, nor should we be! First of all, who actually enjoys being serious 100% all of the time always? Second, our students are going to want to laugh. For elementary people, your kids will be with you all day. If they don't laugh a few times, I feel like you're going to lose their attention. For secondary, we only see those kids once a day, so make it count darn it.

3. It is okay to say you're sorry. As we learned this morning in Kristen's class, saying sorry is not the end of your students listening to you. In fact, that humanizing aspect of "Yep, I biffed this one" is going to make us more relatable and less intimidating. So show some humility, and admit when you've goofed. 

I think if we are doing all of these things, we are going to continue to learn and grow far beyond this program. And obviously that is the goal. Learning does not stop when you're no longer "being taught" because life can teach us something new every day.