Begining Reflections

 I guess when I reflect upon where I'm at in my journey to become a teacher I think of it most often in how many hoops I've jumped through in order to meet Stouts requirements for graduation, such as passing the praxis test and completing the benchmarks.  I don't feel like these have been the most beneficial experiences for me however.  While at stout I've learned the most about what it means to be a teacher from my practical experiences.  It's one thing to know your materials and how they function and be able to manipulate them.  To be able to pass on that knowledge and experience to another individual is a completely different task though.  You can be a great artist, but a crumby teacher.  I feel like I have a strong grasp of my materials and the ability to create lesson plans to teacher art concepts.  What I always feel I need to work on is describing how a process works to a student who didn't grasp the concept as I explained the first time.