Emilee Rodriguez

Jenny Ahn

Tch_Lrn 401

14 December 2023

Personal Reflection

Throughout my time in the teaching program at WSU, I have learned a lot and have gained a

whole new level of passion and excitement for teaching and learning. I never realized how

fulfilling it can be to teach, and I worried a lot that I would end up one of those teachers who

realize too late that they don't want to be an educator. While there's still time for me to figure out

that I'm in the wrong profession, I really do feel a strong sense of purpose when I am in the

classroom working with my students.

During my student teaching, I'm looking forward to working with students and getting to

know them better. I went in for one day after my pre-internship and the growth my students had

was crazy. I can't wait to see where they are now and help them continue their personal and

academic growth throughout the rest of the year. I can also tell that their social-emotional

problems have become more prevalent. Although they are kind and caring kids, they can have

some issues being nice and regulating their emotions throughout the day, Luckily, working

through social emotional problems is my strong suit, so I’m really excited to be able to jump in

there and work with a few of my students to give them strategies to regulate their emotions and

empower them to use their voices for kindness even when they are frustrated or upset. I also

want to get in there and try to create community-focused social studies lessons, as I had a lot of

fun this semester coming up with social studies lessons that engage students in issues that they
see in their community, rather than the social studies curriculum that I grew up with where we

just focus on memorizing geography and historical events.

Collaboration and communication are two very important skills that I have learned and

continued to develop throughout my time in the program. Many of my professors have been

amazing models of empathy and flexibility when it comes to students dealing with things outside

of school, and they empower me to be a kind, understanding teacher who focuses on student

mental health and security before pushing them to meet academic demands. Of course, this isn't

as radical and gracious in first grade as it is in college, but I think that it's still important to be

able to take a step back and recognize when it's better to leave academics aside for a second to

focus on a student's emotional wellbeing. I was also surprised to realize that I now have a sort of

internalized understanding of common core standards, which allows me to see an activity, book,

or game and start to think of ways I can bring it into my classroom in a way that still provides

educational benefit (although there's nothing wrong with playing a fun game or reading a silly

book just because it's fun or silly!).

In TL401 specifically, I learned a lot about how to work with MLLs and how to be a

resource for other teachers who may not have experience working with MLLs or creating lessons

with MLLs in mind. After seeing how important it is to be a resource for other teachers, and

being in group projects where my peers weren't also getting an ELL endorsement, I shared my

understanding with them when we collaborated. It was awesome to feel like an “expert” and over

the course of TL401, whenever we would start working on lesson plans for other classes, I would

instantly start to think about how MLLs would complete the lessons and what we could do to

make it accessible and include language proficiency objectives. It was crazy how that process
that was so overwhelming to me when I made my first lesson plan using language objectives in

Block II became automatic towards the end of this semester.

In the future, I hope to be an MLL specialist to make the most of my endorsement and

my passion for collaborating with others to make their lessons better for MLL learners. However,

even in a general education classroom, I can see how many of the MLL competencies would

benefit all students, like competencies relating to understanding diversity, analyzing policies and

their effects on students, and using parents and community members as resources for the

classroom. Being a culturally responsive teacher is something that I take pride in, and I jump at

the opportunity to expose my students to diverse worldviews and experiences to help them be

tolerant and accepting members of society who can recognize that no matter how different we all

are, we are also all very similar. I also think it’s important to keep classroom policies in mind,

especially when it comes to policies that don't necessarily relate to the desired outcomes, like

requiring students to raise their hand to speak, when in reality you just don't want them to

interrupt or speak over each other- so maybe your new policy is that they can speak as long as

they aren’t interrupting or speaking over each other. That would help them lead their own class

discussions and give them the tools to self-monitor their actions and keep everyone accountable.

By far the most challenging thing has been overcoming my anxiety and building

confidence in myself. I am by no means a perfect teacher, and some may even say that I'm rough

around the edges, but I have come so far. On my first day of pre-internship, I was really nervous

when my mentor teacher asked me to make copies while she went to a meeting. It's a silly thing

to be nervous about, but that was where I was at. And on the last week of my pre-internship, I

made about 200 copies of worksheets to put in our emergency sub packets. Of course, making

copies isn't my biggest achievement as a teacher, but the way I got over my anxiety and finally
started to feel like a competent adult teaching professional was by recognizing my teensy-tiny

baby steps and celebrating each one. Now, I am able to glance at the curriculum and stumble my

way through a lesson and have my students actually learn something – aka teach! It's a great

feeling and I can't wait to celebrate more mini-wins on my way to becoming an independent

teaching professional.