Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. -John Dewey
I believe that in order to reach all of your students and address the issues of equity and social justice in the classroom you have to first and foremost care about them. Showing each of my students that I care about them and their education is what will get them caring about their own education. If my students don’t feel that they are being valued ie: their abilities, their culture, their experiences, then how can I expect them to care about what is being taught in the classroom every day. By showing my students that I truly value their education, that I want them to succeed and that I genuinely care for them as person I hope to shine light on the importance of knowledge and how empowered it makes you feel. By learning about my students’ strengths and weaknesses I can learn how best to help them succeed. Acknowledging that every student that walks into your classroom is unique in personality, learning ability, and culture, I believe brings you one step closer to creating a more welcoming and equitable classroom for all of your students. Ensuring students that there is someone out there who cares about them and wants to help them succeed, especially those who come from backgrounds who don’t have that support at home, can make all the difference for these students.
I believe allowing students to explore in every way possible is at the utmost importance. By acting as a guide rather than the facilitator, it will give students the opportunity as well as push them to be an active participant in their learning. Through exploration and discovery and creating connections with classroom topics and real-life situations, they will be able to see how everything that they learn is useful and that any bit of knowledge that they bring into my classroom has value. It is my job to provide my students with scaffolding and guidance to help them become better critical thinkers and more independent in the classroom and outside of the classroom as well. My hope is that my students will grow as a person inside and outside of the classroom. Encouraging life-long learning is something that I plan on instilling in my future students and classroom.
In my classroom I plan on using Restorative Practices when dealing with classroom management and beyond. I believe Restorative Practices can help students on both the small and large scale. RP gives students the space to open up and feel safe and comfortable about doing it. RP starts a conversation instead of just scolding or punishing. It also breaks down the situation to more than just the action. It will force each student involved to really think about what happened and how it made them, and others feel. Which helps them not only in that moment, but for the rest of their lives when they are faced with these types of situations. This practice hopefully will not only help me as a teacher, create better relationships with my students and get to the root of the issue instead of just the surface problem, but I believe it will help my students see how far a conversation can go and that they are actually being heard instead of just being sent to the principal’s office.
I believe allowing students to explore in every way possible is at the utmost importance. By acting as a guide rather than the facilitator, it will give students the opportunity as well as push them to be an active participant in their learning. Through exploration and discovery and creating connections with classroom topics and real-life situations, they will be able to see how everything that they learn is useful and that any bit of knowledge that they bring into my classroom has value. It is my job to provide my students with scaffolding and guidance to help them become better critical thinkers and more independent in the classroom and outside of the classroom as well. My hope is that my students will grow as a person inside and outside of the classroom. Encouraging life-long learning is something that I plan on instilling in my future students and classroom.
In my classroom I plan on using Restorative Practices when dealing with classroom management and beyond. I believe Restorative Practices can help students on both the small and large scale. RP gives students the space to open up and feel safe and comfortable about doing it. RP starts a conversation instead of just scolding or punishing. It also breaks down the situation to more than just the action. It will force each student involved to really think about what happened and how it made them, and others feel. Which helps them not only in that moment, but for the rest of their lives when they are faced with these types of situations. This practice hopefully will not only help me as a teacher, create better relationships with my students and get to the root of the issue instead of just the surface problem, but I believe it will help my students see how far a conversation can go and that they are actually being heard instead of just being sent to the principal’s office.