When I first started teaching, I compared myself to veteran teachers. I wanted to know what I could do to be as good as they were. I longed to have their know-how. Today, I wonder, am I a veteran teacher? I’ve been doing this job for over seventeen years, yet I don’t feel like a veteran. I still reinvent myself every year. I constantly question my teaching even though I’ve been doing this for so long. Back when I first started, I thought I would get to a point where I knew the best way—where I would have it down cold. Yet, seventeen years later, I still seek the answer to the same question I had when I began my career: What can I do better? The difference now is that I know it is good to question my teaching. In fact, it makes me a better teacher.
Lori McLain
7th Grade Language Arts Literacy Teacher
Bridgewater-Raritan Middle School
Bridgewater, NJ
Related Resources . . .
Adolescent Literacy and the Teaching of Reading: Lessons for Teachers of Literature
Author Deborah Appleman dismantles the traditional divide between secondary teachers of literature and teachers of reading and offers a variety of practical ways to teach reading within the context of literature classrooms.
Adolescents and Digital Literacies: Learning Alongside Our Students
Author Sara Kajder examines ways in which teachers and
students co-construct new literacies through Web 2.0
technology-infused instructional practices.