Becoming Routinely Reflective

1) Even though this article was written in a different time, I think it should speak to every prospective teacher. Being reflective is timeless. As our first blog has suggested, it takes a great deal of inquiry to be a thoughtful and successful teacher. Routine and acting on intuition become the enemy of the continued learning of ourselves, our class, our students, and how best to reach and teach them. I spend a great deal of my time in reflection, well I did before all of my transit time turned into reading academic material, and that reflection has led to great growth of myself as an individual. The reflection takes time, it takes continued emotional effort, but the results speak for themselves. I've never reflected so much on inquiry and reflective nature of a great teacher, but it inspires me to set the ever moving goalpost of being a reflective teacher. Much to the benefit of the article and this class, I believe the idea of a large portion of teachers being autonomous decisions makers is dated. I'm sure there are lots that still exist, but teaching is an ever evolving landscape of changes to policy, curriculum, and social politics. I would say the teachers of today are in general reflective to varying degrees, and hopefully through the continued education of teachers, that only improves. 

2) In all honesty this article seems to more reinforce the learning of inquiry from this class and my assessment one. The previous articles of this and other classes have already opened a clear vision of how teachers must inquire into all aspects of their job, self, and students if they wish to truly succeed in the profession. It's already been clear to think about why I teach something, if lessons are effective, my assumptions, my methods, biases, beliefs, students' perspectives, experiences, social events/factors, etc. It seems the greater idea is that teachers cannot get too comfortable with any one thing. It's a constantly evolving profession where stagnation can quickly turn into extinction. To teach is to grow, and to grow is to learn. 

No matter how timeless some of our methods are, if we stagnate just like this article, we too shall slowly be dated.