Becoming a Mr.

Greetings My Faithful Few Readers,

Yet another week has begun here at Southeast Polk High School and already there have been new developments.  Today we had our first student teacher meeting with the associate principal, where we discussed logistics and how student teaching at this high school usually goes.  I greatly enjoyed meeting the other student teachers and getting to spend some time communicating with the principal.

One thing that came out of the meeting was a reminder that if I wished to teach a class that I have an endorsement in to make sure I voiced that desire to my supervising teacher and the principal.  I will have my endorsements in biology and general science, so I think it will be beneficial for me to get this experience in a non-agriculture classroom.  Am I nervous about the experience?  Yes I am, I haven’t had much, actually correction, ANY experience in any classrooms that were not agriculture related.  It is time to get out of my comfort zone and continue developing.  As it is said in education I will have to practice the time honored art of "staying one day ahead of the students."

Now to get to the title of this blog, "Becoming a Mr.” It is a funny feeling finally becoming a Mr. after 22 years as just Brandon.  This last week has served as a break in period where as students begin to accept me as a mainstay in these classrooms, they ask me more questions and thus use my name more.  I have now begun to respond to Mr.  Werner and now I do not cringe at the sound as I did in the beginning.  This is all part of this experience and will serve me well when placed in front of my future classes.  This is all part of developing and growing up, but I know I have put some time into finally becoming a Mr. and several of my fellow student teachers have as well so I thought I would document these thoughts.

In my previous blog I talked about curving negative student behavior in a respectful non-confrontational manner.  My quote this week has to do with growing up and treating students with respect.

“Too many people grow up. That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don't remember what it's like to be 12 years old. They patronize, they treat children as inferiors. Well I won't do that.” _Walt Disney

One of the most important things about growing up and "becoming a Mr." is that I never forget that that the students teach me almost as much as I teach them and that I am not here to spoon-feed them questions and answers. I am here to guide them as they take responsibility for their education and their learning and along the way learn a lot myself.