The Top of the Mountain: A Reflective Statement by Ben Pass With Improv guitar playing by Ben Pass

I did this for my reflective statement last year during Practicum too. Last time was different, however—I had stayed up all night finishing up my unit, so when it came time to actually do this thing, I was running on about 2 hours sleep, I was 45 minutes late to class because I was printing stuff off, and I had nothing really prepared. I literally grabbed my acoustic guitar and my unit, and that was it. I didn’t have anything prepared, and I answered the questions in class while waiting for my turn to go. This year, things are a little different…

Like many things in life, I am not very experienced when it comes to teaching. I’ve taken the classes, gotten the grades, and written the papers, but yet I still worry about the future? Why is that? It’s all about experience. I haven’t yet had enough real field experience to settle my nerves yet. And so, as much as I study and read and participate, that worry will still always be there.

And yet, it doesn’t have to be… Case in point, me playing guitar. I have two real loves in my life (ok, 3 if you count my girlfriend, but I’m not)—teaching, and playing the guitar. Funny thing is, I’m not very good at either of them… Yet. It’s like an exorcism of fear, me doing what I’m doing. Why am I playing guitar in front of you all? I know I stink, but yet… it makes me happy. And someday, I won’t stink as much as I do today.

It’s the same thing with teaching. I’m scared to do it, but at the same time, I know that once I start actually doing it, that fear will just slip away, and I will fall into the rhythm of it. And with time, I will improve. I will come up with new techniques and I will improvise at times, and in the end, I will succeed. I know this, because I want to succeed. Because I know I enjoy teaching. Just like I enjoy playing guitar. Sure, my hands hurt and I often get frustrated, but I press on. When I’m teaching, my back will ache and I’ll get frustrated, but I’ll keep doing it.

I was excited to take this class with Dr. Grace, because of how Practicum turned out. Early on in Practicum, I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of work that Dr. Grace was throwing at us. I really hated MI’s and blogs. And then, at the end, I realized how much I had really learned, and it impressed me, the idea that someone that I was so dead-set against never seeing again could have such an impact on me. I grew up a little bit, and I signed up for 402 with Grace. I didn’t care how much work she would have us do—what mattered to me was that I knew I would take away something worthwhile. And I was right.

It’s true—we did have a lot of work. And I had to struggle to keep myself going. I felt a lot of doubts about teaching, about my future. It was rough—worries about finances, about whether or not I would find a job right away, a place to live, whether or not I was in the right relationship, the fact that I was a senior…it was really tough to keep going. My first reflection on the Discipline lesson me and Adam did conveyed a lot of these doubts to Dr. Grace, who was nice enough to chat with me about things. Just one of the many reasons why she’s so awesome—she’s there for us.

Anyway, this class had a whole lot to offer. The readings were excellent… for the most part. Teach With Your Heart: Awesome book, totally recommend it, up until the part where she leaves Wilson to go teach at college. It’s made me realize that what you know doesn’t matter as much as how much do you care. It’s important if you’re going to be a teacher to be there for your students, to reach out to them and say “I’m not here to hurt you, I just want to be here for you for a little while as you grow up.”

Foundations of American Education: Textbooks…are not where I learn best. The stuff inside this thing was important, but reading is not the same as doing. I understand why this was part of the class, but I would probably only go to this as a reference tool, just because without some sort of real life need (i.e., having an issue with something leads me to look it up in the textbook), I don’t see myself really reading this cover to cover or anything like that.

Promising Futures: Gonna be honest with you, I didn’t read this. I tried to get through a few pages, but it was sooooo dull. Articles: These were good, I think. I liked the philosophy stuff- the Voices article was wicked cool. It was interesting/funny/hilarious that Jesus was in this list of philosophers, although I guess it makes sense. I also found the Generations article sort of interesting, but I think the only thing I took from this is that people have different views, and that you should be respectful. But I knew that anyway, so… that’s cool, I guess.

Performance Tasks: We had the Philosophy paper, which was alright. It’s good that I wrote it, because I need to start thinking about what kind of teacher I’m going to be. Schools want to know that. We had the blogs too. I didn’t use them too much until I had to do the reflective statement, where I could look at what people said about our Discipline lesson. And speaking of the Discipline lesson, I liked that a lot too. And apparently you guys did too—some of you even looked forward to it! Gotta tell you, that makes me feel good. I hope my students look forward to my lessons too.

Alright, now I’m going to answer those questions Dr. Grace had on the syllabus (don’t worry, there aren’t too many more slides.) How’s the music?

How do you plan to learn across cultures represented in your classroom and globally? Music, tv, my students, other people, books—this is such an ambiguous question because a lot of things you learn about different cultures you can’t really find out in textbooks and such. Keeping your eyes and ears open, and your mind too— these are good ways to learn across cultures, because it helps you clarify your own culture in terms of others.

What will your professional development look like in the next ten years? I don’t know. I know how I’d like it to look— something like this: -Within 1-2 years: Have a teaching job -Within 5 years: Be on continuing contract -Within 5-7 years: Start attending night classes to continue my learning experience. -Within 10 years: Work on getting my Masters. Will I get there? I hope so. I’ll certainly try.

How will you update your content area knowledge and connect with excellent teachers in your content area? This is an easy one. In the next several years I plan on going back to take classes to try and pick up more credits, particularly in political science. But I’m also lacking in the economics side of my knowledge. So, I have a plan there. And my girlfriend is planning on being a teacher too, so I’ll always have someone to talk to and exchange ideas with.

And apparently, I needed to show my new knowledge base about historical influences, thoughts, ethical and legal perspectives related to my philosophy. …Not sure what that means. I learned about some of the philosophers like Thomas Aquinas and Montessori (historical influences). I no longer plan to have that much lecture in my lessons because listening to my own lecture bores me (new thoughts related to philosophy). And ethical and legal perspectives… I guess I’ll leave it to this guy to sum up what I learned.

Dewey: “I have been touched by your kids... and I'm pretty sure that I've touched them.” JUST KIDDING!!! The End