Never Cease to Learn
As I near the end of my master’s degree program I am filled with excitement and wonder. The question, “What do I do now?” runs through my mind. Part of me feels that I should take a break from classes and get a chance to just focus on my classroom, and the other part of me keeps repeating the phrase, “Never Become Stale.” When I was completing my teaching internship, I was fortunate to have an amazing master teacher guiding me. She was constantly attending trainings, reading professional literature, collaborating with other teachers, finding new resources, and more. Her mantra was always, “If you ever stop learning and trying to grow as a teacher, you will become stale and stale teachers shouldn’t be teachers anymore.” Her mantra has become part of me and is what pushes me to be a lifelong learner. I know that this program is not the end of learning for me, just the beginning of learning in a different way.
When I began the Master’s of Arts in Education (MAED) program, my goals were focused towards what I needed to enhance my instruction for my current students. These goals were relevant to me because it was what I was living every day in my classroom and what I knew would make me a more successful teacher. My focus was on becoming a stronger literacy teacher and influence. I wanted more education on best practices for literacy assessment and instruction and how to tailor my instruction to meet the needs of a diverse group of learners in my classroom. I especially wanted to focus on students that were struggling in any area of literacy and expand my toolbox of strategies to help them. My second goal was to increase motivation in my students pertaining to literacy. Literacy, especially writing, was something that my students dreaded. They didn’t find it fun or exciting. My goal was not only to enhance my instruction so the content wasn’t a struggle, but help boost their motivation and passion to read ravenously and communicate their imaginations with their writing. I am passionate about literacy and I wanted to help them find that same passion within themselves. Now that I have almost completed the program, I can say that my literacy knowledge has been greatly expanded and has enriched my instruction in the classroom. I feel as though my goals that I set in this program were greatly accomplished with the courses that I chose.
Now that my journey through the MAED program is almost complete, I am still left with the question, “What do I do now?” Expanding my learning into other subject areas, particularly math, would expand my strategies and instruction toolbox as well as increase student success and enjoyment of learning. I don’t want my students to just understand the procedure of mathematics, but the reasoning and explanation behind the process. Incorporating my best practice strategies I have gained from my literacy courses will give my students the tools to be able to do explain their understanding. I believe that using what I have mastered in terms of literacy best practice and shifting my focus to mathematics is the next step in enhancing my instruction and the learning of the students in my classroom.
I am a firm believer in constantly setting goals that are focused and can be attained. It is this continuous goal setting and achieving mindset that I use to continue to become better. Just like I set goals when I started the MAED program, I will continue to do this yearly as an educator. Education is constantly changing, the children in our classrooms are constantly changing, and with those changes, we as educators must change as well. Although my education may not be formal as it has been for this program, my passion to continue to better myself will push me to learn in different ways. One thing I know for sure is that I am a learner for life. Like John Cotton Dana says, “Who dares to teach, must never cease to learn!”