Entrance Slip 05/10

Having grown up with very traditional teaching methods, I can see myself potentially struggling to be as flexible as I would like to be in my own teaching. However, I also know that sticking to a rigid picture of what teaching is will prevent me from growing as an educator. I really enjoy spending time outdoors and I know from personal experience on top of research that's been done on this topic how beneficial it is for students to see nature as a teacher rather than just a different setting for a classroom. I liked the idea that instead of aiming to move as far away from grids as possible, your goal should be to use them where they're actually useful but be able to abandon the comfort of grids at times when it would make sense to do so. I appreciated this framework because too often theories about education are completely abandoned when newer ones are developed even if some aspects of them are still useful and I can imagine that this pattern often makes it difficult for teachers to develop as educators. It's difficult to work on improving your teaching style if every year you're being given information that contradicts what you were told the previous year. I think the true is that if teachers actually want to improve their teaching, they have to spend time developing their own teaching style that incorporates new ideas about best practices but isn't totally transformed every time they hear about new research that may contradict some of the things they do.

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