Jaylen Fudge

C&T 491

Critical Incident Reflection

During my time in South Korea and participating in this practicum I have reflected on

who I was as a student over the course of my education. My reflection led me to realize a few

things; first, how much effort teachers put into lesson plans without my knowledge. Second

there's a purpose to what I am being taught whether I understand it or not. And finally I have

realized how disrespectful giving anything less than my undivided attention to my teachers is. In

preparation for these weeks of teaching my teaching partner and I learned about our students; we

found out what their musical interests were, what extent their knowledge went to, what classes

had more energy and how to gauge our lessons to what would most benefit our students. All of

this preparation was before we even created our lessons, a lot of time went into preparing for the

students and that was never something I even remotely considered when I walked into a class.

Another crucial thing I have learned is that whether I could understand it or not my teachers were

teaching me with a purpose. I can distinctly remember teachers teaching me especially in middle

and high school and thinking that my teachers did not know anything and were just doing busy

work, although that was the case sometimes my teachers did have a point to what they were

teaching us. With the lessons Sophia and I prepared the students are always excited to participate

anyway but often times I do not think they understand the lessons points as to why we are

teaching what we are teaching. We are trying to educate students on american pop culture and it

is more important than they think. The final thing I have learned as plan on implementing is
being a better student, many times there have been students texting, talking, sleeping and

ignoring the lesson that we had created for the students. I now understand how frustrating this is

as a teacher and do not want to be one of the students that makes it even more difficult and

honestly disrespectful after knowing the hard work they have put in.

Upon being ignored by students because they felt that they had better things to do rather

than to listen to our lesson it really made me evaluate what kind of student I had been in the past.

There would be classes I absolutely dreaded going to or discredited that the teacher knew what

they were doing. Because of this mindset I often times would go on my phone, whisper with

friends, work other assignments and even fall asleep sometimes. Looking back I can fully

acknowledge how disrespectful this was to the teachers that spent probably hours working on

lesson plans. Moving forward, as I still have multiple years left in my education, I definitely

realize I need to be a better student. I have learned how much I appreciate the students that lead

their class into being quiet and respectful to Sophia and I while we are teaching or just the

students that pay attention while we are teaching. After seeing the difference in student it has

made me want to be not only a better student but just a better listener for anyone trying to help or

teach me.