Kuma Chapters 1 & 2

As I read through chapters one and two I was pleasantly surprised by the text and the way it was written. More importantly, as I read, I found myself asking many questions starting with my own personal decision to teach. As chapter one points out in the very first paragraph, there are people who believe teaching cannot be considered a discipline. I found it interesting that it went as far as defining a job, a career, work, etc. in comparison to a vocation. For me, when I think vocation, I picture a bunch of nuns praying in a chapel- fulfilling their vocational duties. In a way, I feel that as a pre service teacher, I can relate. Many religious figures claim to be “called” to do as they are and in many aspects, I feel the same. I have always “just known” teaching was something I wanted to do- so this all this vocational name calling, actually makes sense to me! I was glad to read this in the beginning of the text as it got my mind spinning for the rest. Although there were many interesting questions that sparked my thinking like does teaching actually cause learning to occur? Learning can occur without teaching-- right? Which are two questions I’m not sure I would re-consider asking if ever speaking with an experienced teacher. I was interested to read about the roles of teachers. The three roles that were described in the chapter, I think, were really spot on. As I read them, I tried to consider which type of teacher I most relate to at this point in my pre service career. After reading through them, I felt I most identified with teachers as transformative individuals but found that certain aspects of the other two roles also pertained to me. I think I most identify with this because I believe that personal transformation is extremely important for teachers, especially those of diverse learners. The third paragraph on pg. 14 does an excellent job of almost capturing how I seem to feel about teaching. The following list I find to be very important and seem to relate to. Two of the most prominent examples from the list for me are, the improvisation that takes place in a classroom and a sensitivity to pluralism. In general, I think that maybe I like the idea of this kind of teacher because it seems to strive for students academic and social knowledge/achievement while also requiring a sort of personal transformation. I think this mix could be a very powerful component in a classroom because everyone can then grow together- including the teacher.

Briefly, chapter two discussed the meaning of method and referred to three separate types of methods. The one that I seemed to most relate to was the learner-center method. While reading, I was wondering what the authors would say about this being an effective method or not. In the end, however, the authors seemed to agree that there is not any one right method.  Finally, I enjoyed reading about the dissatisfaction with the method. It was interesting to me that so many teachers can claim to follow one method but in reality not have a true understand of that method, nor follow it at all!