2nd Entry

I.               What are some of your fears in the classroom?
 How have you dealt with them? What
Have you learned about yourself and about fear as a result?

I think we don’t take in account what Palmer says about the student’s fears (page 37) because we are thinking too much in ourselves and we don’t realize that students might also feel afraid of failing, not understanding and look foolish in front of their peers. We must overcome our fears and we must be sure that our students feel comfortable without fear of participating or giving their opinions, otherwise the education will be paralyzed as Palmer says.

Another thing is that fear is not always something bad because we sometimes can feel some kind of fear that makes us challenge our worries. (Page 39) If we are afraid of making a mistake in class, giving a poor class or not having the required skills to do the job, we will study hard, we will prepare ourselves better and we are going to make sure that we are skillful teachers because of the fear that we feel.

The book also tells us that there is a reason for our blindness to our students and it is because the  fear that we feel in our selves. (page 47)

 

When I came to the classroom the first time I didn’t know what to do because I was afraid to be too rude or to be too friendly with students and what consequences could bring to me.

Now one of my fears is to lose the control of the class, because sometimes students start doing a mess in the classroom.  I truly believe that we as teachers must maintain the control of the class without showing us as too boring, rude or rigid. Moreover we must be friendly but respecting the line between students and teacher, otherwise students could think that they don’t need to show us respect.  

I have dealt with my fears through the time I have been teaching. One of my fears is when they ask something and I could not have the answer that is something that we must avoid because they will think we don’t have the skills to teach them. I learnt how to deal with this fear by studying a lot, being prepared for the class and the words they could ask in that class. I learnt too much from students but also from myself. I learnt that is not the time that tells us how to teach but our devotion and dedication. 

II.              Palmer writes, “Good teaching is an act of hospitality toward the young, and
hospitality is always an act that benefits the host even more than the guest”
(p. 50). In what specific ways do you think a teacher has to be hospitable to
students? In what ways do they treat them as unwelcome guests? How do teachers benefit from practicing hospitality toward students?

When the teacher creates a good environment, he allows students to feel comfortable in the class; this makes students want to get involved in the class. 

A teacher must be hospitable with students first;  letting them feel that they are in a safe place in which they can have the opportunity to participate without receiving a disgusting signal from the teacher every time they give their opinions.

It is an act that benefits the teacher because is easier for the teacher to work with happy students who have a good image of the teacher than students who hate a teacher. In addition hospitable doesn’t mean that you are going to let them do what they want because they are going to do a mess. The benefit of being hospitable with students is that if we respect students, they will respect us; if we make them feel comfortable with our class and our treat to them, they will response of the same way. Finally in a way what we want is to have a good atmosphere in which students and teacher can work together. 

III.          Write about a fear, not necessarily related to teaching that once controlled you, but no longer does. What caused you to confront that fear? What helped you
get loose from it? What were the results? What did you learn?

Being around a crowd of people have been always my fear, I struggled with that fear and now I feel more confident. But that doesn’t mean that the problem is covered, what comes to my mind is; what people are thinking while I am talking? Am I saying the things right? It is a despair, now I am aware of that everybody makes mistakes and I try to overcome it

IV.       Evelyn Fox Keller says of Nobel Prize—winner Barbara McClintock that her knowing came from “the highest form of love, love that allows for intimacy without the annihilation of difference” (pp. 55).  Does this kind of love have a place in education? If not, why not? If so, how might it be taught? How might it make a difference if we could teach students to love the world in this way?

That quote is really true because love is a powerful feeling that connects us to each other and makes us understand what other people think. May be when we love we have an idea of what are the people’s needs and what they are looking for in life, in our case if we love our students and we realize that they are real people like us, we can understand what are their needs. Even if we set the line between them and us, we can try to go deeply in their minds and their hearts to discover what they want of the class, of us and of life. We could change their minds in order to make them reach their goals in life if they feel like fish out of water in life. 

Love is an important part of our lives. We are humans and need to feel wanted that somebody worries about us, about our feelings and our needs. when we meet someone who doesn't care about us, we feel listless with that person. We don't want that our students feel listless with us. we want that every student behave of a good manner with us so that we need to show them that we care about them.