Ashley Walter: September Blog (Ch. 4 Teach with a Sense of Urgency)

As I read this article, I immediately thought of the teacher I did my student teaching under. She would run like the energizer bunny all day, everyday. She never stopped. Her love and devotion to her job and her children is mesmerizing, and encourages you to have the same attitude in your day, with your students. She always taught me, that there never was a minute to waste in the day and to never have those children sitting idle when they could be learning! Her persistence always paid off because the majority of her students were strong academically and knew how to have fun with learning. Where she made this "teaching with urgency" look easy as pie, I have found that it can be a bit difficult at times. 

For the most part, I feel I am successful with the optimal learning model. I am a very visual learner, so demonstrating what I expect from my students is easy for me. Also, I love the idea of starting altogether and then gradually growing into independent learners. As a child, I wanted to be handheld through certain things out of fear of messing things up or doing them wrong; and in that regard I completely understand and relate to children who need extra guidance. 

There are definitely areas that I need to work on though, I do not give enough "turn and talk" time during read alouds,and I can see how important this is to students. I want to work harder at trying to implement this more into my read aloud times. Another area that I am working on is writing. I personally have never been a good writer and it is very intimidating; so I would be lying if I said I didn't struggle with teaching it. However, I am learning that my attitude toward writing will be the same attitude my students have for writing. If I want to be a mesmerizing teacher with an encouraging attitude, then I need to work harder at teaching with urgency and purpose. My students will enjoy reading and writing when they are able to read and write about things THEY are interested in. I need to keep them engaged and motivated to have successful learning in my classroom.