This class has been a very enlightening experience for me. I have had the opportunity to evaluate and assess various strengths and weaknesses in my behavior, personality, professional development, and knowledge. Of course, growth never comes without some "growing pains", and I have felt a few. But I have also had good experiences that have helped me identify values and mores, and what things are most important to me, both personally and professionally. .
When we read the chapter on teaching styles, I was struck by the fact that I am outside of the norm. A passage in the book says that typically one's political style will be very similar to the style of teaching that best suits him or her. I found that this was not true for me. I am very liberal in matters of politics, but find myself leaning towards a very conservative teaching style. In fact when we took the survey on teaching styles in class, I scored much higher on Essentialism than any other style. It is very interesting to me that my values in teaching and outside of teaching can vary so dramatically. .
I have run into a few problems in my field experience with my personal philosophy of education. It seems to me that most teachers at my school are very liberal in their teaching styles. In fact, my teacher and I vary dramatically on how we feel a classroom should best be run. She allows a lot of talking, and goofing around which drives me nuts. I don't feel that it is my place to tell her how she should be doing her job, but I find that I am sometimes upset at how "out of control" things seem to be. I like things to be under control, and running smoothly, so the constant chaos in her classroom tends to get under my skin.
One thing that bothers me about my relationship with my teacher is the fact that she doesn't like teaching very much. In discussion with her, she told me that she basically ended up at Baker because of a conflict with the administration at the high school she worked at before.
