I remember feeling impacted by a few teachers growing up, but not connected with any of them, which is why I want to connect with all of my students as humans and learners and to make sure they feel seen, heard, and that they belong in the classroom. Students bring their unique and intersectional identities and experiences to the classroom and I will create an environment where students will develop an awareness of their identities and the identities of others. Whenever possible, lessons will be planned so they are relevant to students’ lived experiences and their interests. I will also incorporate parts of students’ identities into the classroom by decorating the walls with student work, affirmations, inspiring quotes, family photos, posters, and pictures of students’ interests. I will invite students and their families to share various parts of their identities with the class. As quoted in the book Raising White Kids, “the only way we show that we actually respect our shared humanity is by taking people’s specific, diverse, experiences of their humanity very seriously.” I commit to making my classroom an equitable environment, which means that we will have honest and difficult conversations about the realities of the world as it is and hopes for how we would want our world to be. More than celebrating and talking about diversity, I want my students to be empowered to be advocates for justice and liberation to ensure that students of all backgrounds can thrive.
Positive relationships are crucial to us as humans and learners. Students learn best when they collaborate and co-construct their learning through meaningfully engaging with their peers. Students will have multiple opportunities to interact with each other from the start of the day in our morning meetings, where we greet each other and answer the question of the day, during the day when we are working in partners, small, groups, and having whole class discussions, and at the end of the day during our closing meeting, where we will reflect on the day. Whether it is a math discussion or student-led discussion during book clubs, students can build on habits like how to explain their thinking, build off someone’s answer, evaluate someone’s response, and ask someone a question so new knowledge can be synthesized and students can think deeply and critically. As Paul Bambrick-Santoyo says from Habits Improve Classroom Discussions, “when you change how students talk in class, you change the way they think.” A major part of having a strong classroom culture and an equitable classroom is having an environment that is socially, emotionally, and intellectually safe. When students feel safe, they will be able to try new things, take risks, and learn from mistakes. I will incorporate community time into my classroom because it will build a strong classroom culture and teach students important life skills such as apologizing, the impact of their words, identifying and taking care of their feelings, problem solving, empathy, consent, mistakes, equity, pronouns, cultural and intelligence. I will explicitly teach, model, and practice academic and behavioral expectations that I have for my students and hold them accountable to those expectations, which I believe is crucial for the class to run smoothly to allow for learning to take place. Lessons will be integrated so students can make connections across subjects. One way integration of content can be achieved across disciplines is through the use of project-based learning. I believe students have unlimited potential, which I as a teacher have a duty to uncover and nurture. Placing students at the center of learning requires me to question “what are my students thinking? How are my students making sense of the content? How can my students’ understanding be advanced?” With an open-mind and flexibility, these questions will guide me towards crafting lessons that meet all of my students’ needs by appropriately supporting and challenging them. I will validate each student’s authentic self and styles of learning by providing differentiated instruction, student choice, opportunities for students to express their thinking and demonstrate their understanding through multiple modalities. Students will learn how to self-critique, peer-critique, and will receive constructive, specific feedback from my informal and formal assessments to set and make progress towards goals. I will continually check in with students by spending quality time individually conferencing with them and working with them in small groups, which is why rotations will be frequently used in my classroom. I will remove scaffolds over time to create the opportunity for productive struggle. I will encourage students, telling them that I believe in them and will help students cultivate a growth mindset by fostering the mentality that struggling and mistakes help our brains grow. Every time I see my past students in the hallway, a smile, wave, or hug motivates me to keep growing to be the best educator that I can be for my students. This includes differentiating learning for all students and supporting students’ social, emotional, mental, intellectual, and physical wellbeing. I may never realize the impact I have on my students, but I owe it to them to do my best because students can thrive when they feel understood, safe, loved, and have a sense of belonging and connection with their classmates and teacher. |