My "Great Expectations"

It might seem distasteful or out of place likening the classroom (at any age group and academic level) to a battlefield. However, as a teacher in training this is exactly what it seems like to me: a battlefield. I find this metaphor very fitting. Each day, educators (veteran or neophyte) enter their classrooms not knowing what to expect; some days they lose the battle and other days they win the war. By this I mean, some days classroom control is nonexistent and one disruptive student throws of the entire learning process. The teacher looses the academic battle. Other days, the classroom is in such order and flows so well that the entire group grasps the subject matter ahead of schedule and the teacher can move on to a more challenging task. Annually, educators "win the battle" when their pupils graduate and move on to the next chapter in their academic lives. Yes, one or two students may drop out or be left behind due to some circumstance usually out of the teachers control (social, academic, financial, or psychological) but if the teacher has done their part, they will press forward knowing that they did everything in their power to aid that student in success, maybe not at this moment but later in life.

I expect to experience the triumphs and challenges, horrors and pleasures, laughter and rigidity of being on the educational battlefield while working in LaGuardia Community College's (LAGCC) Adult & Continuing Education GED program. Because adults learn differently than children according to Malcolm Knowles andragogical model, I expect the adult classroom to be somewhat more challenging than my previous experiences working with and tutoring the K-6 age group. Adults tend to be more vocal and will “call you” on mistakes or be more adamant about not understanding an assignment or project.

The GED students in this program are young adults (18-24) who may seem mature because or their age but are still “high school” in mentality. I am not naive. I expect the students to be: feisty, impetuous, immature, insightful, hurtful, comical, timid, inappropriate, and/or out of place. I will not take any of these things personal but will view them as their way of saying “I need help” or “I don’t agree with your methodology.” I think this will be the most challenging for me: Knowing when to treat the students like adults and when to become the classroom disciplinarian. I hope I never need to treat them like children in order to get through the lesson. To prevent this, I plan on keeping Knowles' ideas on andragogy (listed below) at the fore front of my mind throughout the internship. I hope that I will be able to draw on these when assisting students one-on-one, in groups, or when teaching a lesson.

I expect to leave this internship with academic bruises, scars, and thicker skin! I expect to leave with a better understanding of what it means to be a teacher of adult learners.

Assumptions of the Andragogical Model

1. Self-concept: As a person matures his self concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being

2. Experience: As a person matures he accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning.

3. Readiness to learn. As a person matures his readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his social roles.

4. Orientation to learning. As a person matures his time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centeredness to one of problem centredness.

5. Motivation to learn: As a person matures the motivation to learn is internal (Knowles 1984:12).