Disposition Paper

As an educator, I believe I have many strengths. I am a very enthusiastic teacher. This

makes it easy for me to make my lessons enjoyable for my students. I believe my enthusiasm

begins with my mother. I grew up in her classroom. Every day I could I spent helping out with

her students. Watching her passion as she taught allowed my own to grow. As I began subbing

and working in classrooms on my own, my mother has said the same thing each time: Laugh,

and have fun with the students. Its so important to make school a fun, comfortable place.

Laughter can bring this to the classroom environment. This has been a wonderful piece of advice,

and it allows me to be very excited every time I go to teach.

Another of my strengths is the ability to use all intelligences, all learning modalities, and

incorporate many parts of the curriculum into one lesson. This has been a skill I have practiced

over and over again, every time I write a lesson. I began this practice when I was invited to join a

group of EMU preservice teachers who go into schools in River Rouge and teach art-integrated

lessons. I spent the first semester teaching English language arts (ELA) to second and third

graders, then moved over to second and third grade math my second semester. In the last year

and a half, I taught math to the fourth and fifth graders. During my time there, I learned a lot

about art, and making learning fun. The students taught me that caring for others in the

classroom community is just as important as getting through each lesson. It was an amazing

learning experience, and the students and I had a lot of fun. One of my favorite lessons in the

second and third grade was one based on telling time. Students taped clocks to paper headbands

that they wore, and had to share their daily routines in order to figure out the time! We had a

blast. This lesson also incorporated looking at and analyzing visual art, as well as listening to

pieces of music and making connections. This lesson is one that I am proudest of because we
covered visual art, music, and movement all in one lesson, and really brought out the skills of

students with an intrapersonal intelligence. This lesson was only thirty minutes long. My favorite

lesson in fourth and fifth grade was one that took place on Veterans Day. Students made pop-up

cards and we sent them out to seventy-five different veterans! Many of them wrote back! It was

very touching to hear responses. Many of the veterans we reached out to were part of the draft,

and told us it was very special to be recognized for their service. This was a great way for the

students to connect to the outside world in a way they havent before. Watching the students

grow and learn while experimenting with art is really inspiring, and the students really enjoy it!

A final strength can be found in my ability to be flexible. Before I began teaching my

own lessons, I never realized how much improvisation goes into teaching. I will never forget the

first day I learned that lesson. I had planned to visit my moms classroom for observation and

teaching hours, but she had a field trip planned and I couldnt tag along. Instead, she asked

around her building and had other teachers sign up for a time to have me in their classroom. She

told me I needed to have lesson plans ready to go. I was fully prepared when I showed up that

day. I had all my lesson plans, my materials, and I had practiced. However, absolutely nothing

went as planned that day. The first teacher I was supposed to visit did not come to school that

morningher daughter-in-law had gone to the hospital overnight and was giving birth to twins!

At the time, I could not be in a classroom without supervision, but there was no sub. One of the

other teachers in the same grade level had a room attached to her classroom. I was thrown in

there with a full class. They had morning work to complete and check, and I was told to lead the

class. I was very nervous, this being my first time fully leading a class with no one to back me

up. Since it was a back room, there were not enough desks or chairs and some students were

working in bean bags or on the floor. I didnt have any lesson plan to follow, just a worksheet. I
did my best, and we got through everything we needed to. This was the first real success I had in

the classroom. It was stressful, but it was encouraging. I began to believe I could do anything.

Later that day, I had a reading lesson to teach to second graders. My mom had told me

beforehand that it would be a small reading group, no more than ten students. When I got to

the classroom, the teacher had decided she would be taking the small group, and I would be

teaching the rest of the class. I did not have enough materials for all the students, but I had them

get into groups and share, and instead of completing the worksheet we did an activity as a class

that was even better than I had originally intended. I accomplished a lot this day, and have

continued to realize the importance of thinking on my feet ever since. I think I have just about

perfected this skill.

I do, however, have my weaknesses. I think my biggest two are my confidence and my

patience. I say my confidence is a weakness because it wavers easily. When I sub for a class that

is difficult to manage, I start to feel like I am a bad teacher. This also comes into play with my

patience. When I began my teaching career, I barely had any patience. I easily became angry

when classes did not listen and would raise my voice every time. And every time, as soon as I

heard myself yelling, I felt guilty. These kids didnt deserve itthey were just being kids! I

would ruminate on that moment and that guilt, and that is what made me feel like a poor teacher.

How could I ever be successful in my own classroom, every day, all day long, if I couldnt even

handle a few hours in a different classroom? My confidence would drop. Ive never stopped

wanting to be a teacher, but some days I felt like I didnt deserve it. Ive been working on my

patience and raising my voice. It still happens on particularly difficult days, but as time goes on it

happens less and less. Hopefully, if I continue working, I will gain enough patience to leave that

anger behind, and allow my confidence to flourish and be stable instead.

 For this field experience, I focused on the disposition of reflectiveness. In the past, once a

lesson was written it was done. When I got into the classroom, most of the time it would be

taught differently than planned. Sometimes I would look back and realize it couldnt even be

considered the same lesson plan because of how much had changed. However, I never went

through and changed the plan. That changed this semester. I began to write lesson plans, get

critique on them, and edit them. Then as I taught I would take notes on changes or challenges,

and add them in as soon as I got home. This makes me feel like I really will end up teaching the

lessons again. I feel like I have grown as an educator and as a student. I appreciate everything

this class and experience has taught me, and I cannot wait to apply each tool in my own

classroom.