A Messy Business Joseph Mcdonald Summary

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In the article “A Messy Business” by Joseph McDonald, describes the complexities and author’s personal experience and his perspective of teaching. McDonald believes no matter how skillful you are in teaching, there are always some external factors may affect you. When he first start teaching, he has to deal with all the ambiguity and uncertainty. However, after 10 years he has better connect with students and knows how to accommodate himself with kids. He thinks teaching is “not just being a teacher or being with kids.” He also thinks it is wrong to control kids. The author claims the phenomenon of teacher burnout is due to the teacher is overconfidence and they fail to recognize new problems. Therefore they are still using their past experience …show more content…

I think students should have freedom when learning things and teachers need to make students feel learning is fun and let them engage in learning. Teacher should not control or suppress students, because it will bring negative influence to students and it also will be bad for students’ mental health. Eventually, students will not want to learn anymore or maybe afraid going to the school.
I have similar experience before. I remember it happened when I was in 4th grade back in China. When I was in 4th grade, my math is not so good, so my math teacher gave me a lot of homework and force me to do it every day. Every night I have to stay very late to do the homework. There is one time, I didn’t finish the homework because I was too tired. The next day when I go to the school, my math teacher yelled at me. After that day I start to hate math and my math teacher and sometimes I will pretend to be sick so I can escape from school. Until now I still don’t have any interest in math.
After reading this article, I think I gain a lot of valuable information and advices. This article makes me realize being a teacher is not that easy and it requires a lot of efforts, and dedication. Teachers also need to deal with a lot of difficult situations. As a future teacher, I think I still have a lot to

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