Can’t stop… Won’t stop…

I’m already excited to post again. I was nervous about this at first. I feel self conscious putting my thoughts in a public space but a new PLN friend encouraged me – this is for me.  Thanks Bill! Also, I learned a new trick – links in my post (don’t laugh I’m learning!).

My plan for this blog is for it to stand as my portfolio. I want to collect my growth and best work all while growing a positive digital footprint. So today I want to look closely at the standards I’m evaluated on and see if I can understand them better.

Standard 1 – teachers demonstrate leadership – classroom, school, profession, advocate, high ethical standards

I think that leading in my classroom and school and upholding high ethical standards comes easily for me. They’re kind of a given… A duh!moment.  How could I teach and not lead my students or take on some leadership role in my school? I don’t think I’d be effective… Educators have long be held to high ethical standards. We’re role models for our students. The families and community we serve expect a lot out of us. These are the easy sub standards.

The ones that make us stand out are leading in the profession and advocating for schools and students. My goal in life is to grow up to be just like my all time favorite teacher Dr. Mira Berkley. She is my most favorite professor from college. She is a guru of early childhood education. She is passionate and a leader in the field as well as an advocate for everything developmentally appropriate. I want to be all of those things! In my near future I plan to return to school for my doctorate degree then pursue a career in educating future educators. I see this blog as my way of pushing forward to becoming more of a leader in the profession and then advocating for students and schools will come…

Standard 2 – teachers establish a respectful environment for a diverse population of students –  positive nurturing relationship, embrace diversity, treat students as individuals, adapt teaching for special needs, collaborate with families

In my humble opinion this standard needs to be observed overtime and needs to be part of a teachers belief system. This isn’t something you can fake. You have to believe that diversity is an important part of a community. I work hard to create a classroom community each year with my young kinders. We regularly talk about the differences and similarities between us. I encourage them to all be friends and to include each other during play. I reach out to my families to learn about their home cultures and traditions. We include those in our classroom discussions. When it comes to diversity positivity is key. I think that diversity comes in many shapes and sizes. It isn’t all the color of our skin. We also have to look at religions, socioeconomic status, and other cultural aspects. Every student in my class is important to me and so is their happiness and well-being. Of course I care about their academics, but the whole child is in my classroom not just their brain. I give hugs when they need love, food when they are hungry, sleep time when they are tired, and band-aids fix most everything else. 🙂 When it comes to academics, I challenge my students as they need it at their own levels. I differentiate lessons, center activities, and homework. None of this is easy but it’s the right way to do it and it’s what needs to be done for the kids. At the end of the day… it’s all about the kids.

So I’ve come to realize that talking about the standards is going to take me a while and in an effort not to make this post a mile long, I’m going to stop here.  I’ll be back soon to talk my way through some of the other teaching standards.

Please comment with your thoughts on these standards!