Educators demonstrate a broad knowledge base and an understanding of areas they teach.
I’ve had the opportunity to be in most grades throughout the teaching practicum. I began by observing in grade 7 and kindergarten classrooms, followed by my 391 practicum in grade 2, my 490 practicum in grade 5, and finally my 491 practicum in grade 3/4. This broad range of grades has given me a variety of experience that has allowed me to build practices that I can adapt to different levels of learners.
I was always a good student, and that means I still do my homework. I don’t like going into anything not knowing what I’m doing, and that expands to teaching. I always do my research so I know what I’m talking about during my lessons, and I try to make it so that I know more in the inevitable situation in which students have questions that go beyond what I am covering in my lesson. At the same time, however, I am also not afraid to admit when I don’t know something. There have been lessons I’ve taught that have developed into showing students good research skills as we as a class search for answers to a question.
Having a broad range of knowledge is important especially for teaching elementary. On any given day, we teach multiple subjects. If we don’t know what we’re talking about, if we aren’t confident in our delivery of our lessons, we can’t impart the importance of this learning to our students. We are building the foundation of our students’ knowledge and future attitudes towards learning, so we need to make sure that we give them the tools to be positive and excited towards learning new things.
As a new teacher, this standard can be difficult to uphold at first. We don’t have years worth of knowledge and resources to pull from to build our lessons. I know there will be many evenings and weekends spent building my knowledge on subjects and concepts I may not have had much recent experience with. All of that will be worth it, though, because I will be helping my students learn and grow, and I will be building my own resources for future years.