Every Child Matters: Notes From An Aspiring Teacher
The last six years have been an amazing and unforeseen journey leading to this moment, now, when I am searching for a classroom, school, and community to make home. Throughout my time in AmeriCorps in Seattle Public Schools to three wonderful years as a teaching assistant at The Island School, I developed a diverse toolkit of knowledge, skills, and experiences that prepared me to become a leader in our teacher education program. Over the course of the Master in Teaching program at The Evergreen State College I have been a passionate student of teaching. All of the work that I completed and experiences that I had, books scoured and relationships built, skills refined and knowledge gained – everything was in the service of learning how to teach. The idea that education is not only about academic skills and knowledge but that it is, at its core, about personal and social transformation toward a more just, humane world for all of us is a belief that I hold dear. The knowledge and skills that have become a part of my life these past two years have fanned the flames of the initial sparks that drew me to teaching as a vocation. I have already begun to put all that I have learned into practice as a student teacher, and look forward to the challenges and joys that lie ahead.
Effective teaching is centered on the learner as a whole person. In order to meet diverse student needs, I will develop a profound knowledge of my students. I believe that successful teachers acknowledge who students are – their identities, needs, and interests – and differentiate planning and instruction in order to help them reach both state standards and individual learning goals. Regardless of the content area, I will create a learning environment that recognizes and facilitates the agency of the learner in constructing knowledge, offer relevant contexts and purposes for schoolwork, and encourage active, experiential participation in learning activities. Students and I will plan thematic, interdisciplinary units of study framed by guiding questions, such as How do we feed ourselves? Academic knowledge and skills are the tools we will use to investigate and guide our inquiry. Additionally, I will help students become capable critical thinkers, partners in dialogue and collaborative projects, and reflective learners who are able to think and talk about their learning. Integrated assessment and metacognitive practices will inform my lesson planning and preparation to ensure that all students are appropriately challenged and engaged in the classroom.
The core values guiding my approach to classroom management are trust, mutual respect, shared responsibility, and unconditional care and support for students. As a teacher, I am committed to multiculturalism, anti-bias practices, democracy and social justice. The democratic classroom I envision demands proactive, conscientious consideration and planning on my part to create an environment that involves meaningful student voice and choice to shape life in the classroom. Using cooperative group work, frequent conferences, interactive small group lessons, holding regular classroom meetings, and teaching peer-to-peer support and conflict resolution skills all help build community in the classroom. Creating a safe social and emotional environment characterized by authentic relationships establishes a climate that allows students to thrive not only intellectually, but as whole persons. I believe that understanding and attending to social, emotional, and academic learning as three related parts of an integrated approach to classroom management is necessary to create a classroom environment where students can succeed individually and together as a learning community.
Can prospective teachers learn to be both educators and activists, to regard themselves as agents for change, and to regard reform as an integral part of the social, intellectual, ethical and political activity of teaching? I am ready to answer the call to service as both an effective classroom teacher and an active participant in the broader movement for equity and social justice in and through our public education system.