Mr. McClung's blog: "What I've Learned This Year"

Mr. McClung's post was very humbling. It took a great deal of personal reflection to be as thorough as he was in his blog, "What I've Learned This Year". I think it is difficult to go into anything you are new to, and perform perfectly on the first try. I believe it is how you react after that first experience that characterizes your performance. Mr. McClung is definitely on the right track from what I can tell. He has had to make changes in everything to his policies to how he delivers the lessons to help things run smoother.

That being said, I think the most important things on his list are: Read the Crowd, Be Flexible, Be Reasonable and Listen to Your Students. These portions of the post hit home the most for me. In my extremely limited experience in front of a class I know how caught up in your own expectations you can get.

Let's face it. I am not a teacher yet. I also have not had any formal training that would help me plan and deliver a lecture. But I have given a lecture. I can relate to Mr. McClung in the fact that I wanted my presentation to be perfect. I spent days rewriting and reciting it to make sure it flowed smoothly and covered everything I wanted it too in enough detail. When it came time to deliver it, I found myself very nervous. Not because of stage fright, but because I thought that people would be very judgmental over something I had worked so hard on! After all, it was my peers that would grade my delivery. Our professor simply graded content. I received an A on my delivery, but with one side note: "Your presentation was good but where's your personality?" I was giving a presentation on something that I loved but didn't show any character or personality in my delivery.