Sept 17th Entrance Slip

I found this reading incredibly relevant despite being written a while ago. Because it gave characteristics that reflective teachers have instead of focusing on what teachers should do in any given situation, I think it was able to remain relevant. Because the article is emphasizing an approached that consists of considering students views and beliefs and being considerate of the consequences of how you teach. So, it is still relevant even though the views and beliefs and cultural norms teachers may be working with today are likely different then they were when the article was written.

The thing I found most helpful about this article was that it got me thinking about when to value tradition and the ways that teachers before you have done things and when it is important to make changes. At the beginning of the reading, I found that although the author made good points, I couldn’t fully get behind them because I kept thinking that there were likely good reasons for the traditions and norms in place in many schools. I was wary of pushing back against the ways that previous teachers had done things or of examining those traditions too closely because it felt like I would risk losing the advice and guidance that I could otherwise gain from how other teachers teach. However later in the reading it discussed ensuring you maintain a balance between blindly rejecting tradition and common ways of teaching and blindly accepting them as absolute truth. I think it was helpful that the reading highlighted ensuring you are working based off of evidenced based beliefs. This gave me a clear way to know when to accept tradition and when to push back against it. To me the idea that you should be able to differentiate between tradition that exists because it has never been examined and tradition that is in place because it has proven to produce the best results for students is important. For me this distinction is verry important when thinking critically about how I teach because it will ensure that I do not discard the advice and knowledge of other more experienced teachers without good reason. But, it will allow me to still think critically and be a reflective teacher.