Chapter 14 Succeeding in your Teacher Education Program

Concerns about teaching:

There are five big concerns I have about being a teacher. I worry that I will still have bad spelling. I always have to use spell check before self revision when editing a paper because there are words that I always spell wrong. I am worried that my students will ask me how to spell a word and I won’t be able to tell them the correct spelling. What if I do not know the definition of a word, especially if it is an english term; alliteration for example. I can always tell them to look it up, but that will not make me feel any better about myself for not knowing the words. What if I am grading and do not catch some spelling mistakes? I am also concerned about being unable to answer questions in general. If my students ask me a question related to my subject, english, I should be able to know the answer. Another fault I have is reading out loud. I am not horrible, but I do stumble sometimes and I tend to miss pronounce words.
I also worry that I may not address a standard fully enough. I am responsible at making sure each student is ready for college when they graduate. Will I have given them the proper amount of work in a certain topic? Or are my standards a little lower than the other english teachers?
My last concern is that if I do make these mistakes and struggle my first few years of teaching, will my students talk bad about me and gossip? There was one teacher in my school who needed to fill in a higher teaching position when a science teacher left. The students were always calling him stupid and criticize how he taught. They would say that he only uses the text book, he doesn’t understand what he is teaching. They never said this to his face, but if they thought he was doing a poor job then I bet he felt he was doing a poor job too. I hope that doesn’t happen to me.
There are four areas of concern: Unconcerned, Self, Task, and Impact. I fall under the category of self. Most of my concerns have to do with my ability to be successful in the classroom and having doubt about how well I will be teaching. I think that my concern about students talking bad about me would fall under the unconcerned category. This worry has little concern with my actual teaching, it has more to do with my relationship with the students.
After reading the chart describing the stages of concern, I determined that I fall under the personal stage. All my concerns have to do with my views of myself and how I analyze my role as a teacher. I also may fall under the stage of informational, because I am worried about how well I will cover my subject.
I know that most of these concerns will fade away as I grow out of them or learn how to address and master them. But right now these are the things that worry me about becoming a teacher.