Miss Know-it-all

If you ask someone on the street about the profession of teaching they will probably respond that they are individuals that are all knowing on the particular subject. As English teachers our students and their parents are going to expect us to how to spell any word, know every work of a particular author, and be able to recognize every run -on sentence. The science teacher will be expected to know all the elements on the periodic table and the math teacher will be expected to be able to solve any equation thrown at them. It's clearly a common misconception; even after I am a certified teacher with my own classroom I am totally not going to know everything about English and literature. Last year in my Intro to Education class, our professor stressed that we are never going to know absolutely everything about our subject or the profession of teaching for that matter. As a teacher we are life long learners and that can be attributed to our students. In chapter 2, Miller and McVie state that teachers should not be afraid to ask the students questions of for help when they may know more than us on a certain subject. I feel as though the teacher-student relationship is one of give and take; we all learn from each other as we are all humans, especially when it comes to technology. 

I think it is going to be important for us to explain to our students that literacy is not just limited to reading words off the page of book. Literacy paired in an English classroom has endless possibilities other than the great american novel. And perhaps a student knows of some cool or useful literacy ideas for the English lesson such as music, blogs, or for example book trailers. Teachers shouldn't be made to seem like they live in their desk. They should be extremely knowledgeable but they should also be open to learning from their students so both teacher and student can go on a journey together.