It Amazes Me...

I am in a teacher education program. You would think that those entrusted to teach teachers how to be teachers should be the best of the best of the best - especially here at BYU with such a big education department. Yet I continually am amazed by how much busy work and poor instruction I come across here. I consider myself a teacher - I have taught for 3 summers at a day camp, I helped to teach 1st grade for a month last year. While this is not a lot of experience, I am not just a student trying to impress the teacher into giving me a good grade.

As graduation looms ahead of me, the most important thing to me in a class is no longer the grade - it is information that will help me in my own teaching. Making me jump through hoop after hoop of junk will not make me a better teacher. Making me do an assignment 3 times, once in a whole group with the teacher, once with a partner, and once on my own will not help me when the assignment is so simple I could have done it on my own the first time is not efficient. Filling time with useless activities is not helpful. Making a class hard, full of bunk, because "teaching is hard, so we're trying to get you used to that" is just plain stupid.

ok, I'm done ranting.