Wow, what a guy.

 Wow, what a guy! That's a common phrase I use amongst my friends when someone says something that just registers and "makes sense."  I must say based on the circling, underlining, stars, and side notes on my book, Peter Smargorinsky made an impression on me. For starters, his immediate need to draw attention to metaphors held my interest in the preface. Although, I won't get into all of them. But, I will say that I've always been the type of person that found the use of analogies helpful in learning, so for Smargorinsky to stay faithful to them throughout the Preface and Chapter One I commend him; touché!

 As a future teacher I ask myself, "What conceptual units will bring out the best of my teaching and out of students learning?" It is very refreshing to know that as a teacher there are so many options and categories to pick from. Picking, however, doesn't seem like the hard part; it's making the right choice of picking things that students will produce that matter to them.  I've always labeled myself as a future "multi-cultural" teacher and that goes hand-in-hand with the "construction" of a unit. I agree with Smargorinsky, there SHOULD be two levels to teaching and learning, but in my opinion, that cannot be fulfilled till after a sufficient amount of experience. Am I wrong for believing this? If I base my style of teaching on a few hours of field work this semester, that shouldn't be enough to label me as an authoritative or contructivist teacher because enough time isn't going to be spent in the classroom. With time and experience I feel I can appropriately know when I am one or the other because it is a trial and error process; isn't it? Do not get me wrong, my goal is to prepare myself and plan accordingly to say that I am, in fact, practicing constructivist teaching. Again, that's what I see this semester for, teaching a few lessons and reflecting on the type of teaching I have done. 

 Before I can reflect on my teaching, I have to, according to Smargorinksy, bust my ass and enjoy every second of busting my ass. My fear of hours of lesson planning and grading is finally about to become a reality, and he's telling me to enjoy it; at first I didn't know how to feel. Then, looking back at previous teachers and professors I had, I realized the one's who I never had a complaint about were the same one's who busted their ass to make sure I received my papers, tests, and projects back on a timely basis with engaged responses to all of them. What did this tell me? If I want the best from my students it would only be right for me to give them my best and with that comes time and determination (aka busting  my ass.) Brian Charest and Sarah Donovan immediately came to mind when Smargorinsky  explained how a teacher should do work alongside their students to understand  how they are learning and how effective is the teaching. Both Brian and Sarah did do a few projects alongside of us or presented a similar project they did in the past which was also effective in my opinion. That motivates me to know that as a teacher I truly am a life long learner.

Moving forward, I found the section about motivation in students extremely enlightening. I never thought of student's motivation being intertwined with insecurity, in fact, I always thought motivation came from the way they were brought up in their homes and what they saw as examples (parents, siblings, guardians.) I find it fascinating that as a teacher, I can take some responsibility for helping my students  realize their motivations more easily by providing activities and goals that the students would expand their motivations on. I know that that will not happen with every student, but the thought alone is rewarding and humbling at the same time.