Patterns, emotions and relevance are the three components that are involved in order for true learning to occur. Today I attended the last day of my three day conference in which I attended a "Brain Based Learning" seminar. It was absolutely fascinating to learn about the make-up of the human brain and about the mechanics involved in memory. I certainly learned a new way of looking at teaching.
I'm reading a book that has been recommended to me by numerous teacher friends and future colleagues. The book is entitled "The First Days of School," By Harry Wong. I am really enjoying the book and getting a lot of practical tools to use on those first few days. In reality, how to approach the first few days of school were never taught in any of my Undergraduate Coursework, nor did I experience the first days of school while in my student teaching experience. I am surprised by this fact, mainly because the foundation for the rest of the year is established within those first few critical days of school. It is there where the students meet and make first impressions of the teacher, classroom, procedures ect. I am blessed to have been turned onto this book and will hopefully feel prepared when that first day arrives. (August 23 if you were wondering) A quote within the book really stuck out to me. It also intimidated me a bit, but was a definite reality check. It read, "The beginning teacher must perform the full complement of duties while learning those duties." Scary, huh? Definitely a sink or swim situation. I'm buying water wings.
So next up, I'm preparing to buy stuff for my classroom. This will include a valiant attempt on my part to pray money into our bank account. I never realized how expensive it all would be. I mean, how many inspirational posters can one classroom handle?
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