Being A leader means acting as someone that others can look up to and learn from. As a leader, there is a basic need for integrity and fairness for all of the people that follow you. Teaching is the perfect example of being a leader. There has to be a strong emphasis on what is fair for all students and not just fair for some. By creating a classroom where students can feel welcome and safe, they can express themselves more openly. Teaching them that what is fair may not always be equal is one of the hardest lessons. Some students need to have more love and encouragement than others, but they all need to feel supported and cared for.
Providing my students with every learning opportunity that I can is a personal goal. Teachable moments happen everyday. Most of these are not academic in nature, but are social or personal lessons. It is my opinion that my first job is how to teach the students to be good people. I want them to grow up caring for others, helping out with their communities, and to be polite and courteous. After that comes the academics. To teach these lessons, they have to be modeled. Therefore, I always model to my students how they should interact with each other and to adults and other students in the building.
Social Justice is the act of treating all people alike, the way they should be treated, regardless of what their backgrounds are. This is a lesson that my students get in strong force. All of my students come from various cultural backgrounds. Some of them have very little and some of them are very well provided for. Because of this there may be certain stigmas surrounding some of the kids. In my classroom this is not existent. All students are loved and respected by everyone in my classroom. We learn about lots of different cultures and different family situations as a way to ensure that students know that even though someone has a different experience, does not mean they should be treated differently.
Advocating for families is an integral part of my job. There are so many families in my school that need extra support. I talk to parents openly about what I can do to support them and their students. In the winter, I make hats and mittens for all of my students so that everyone can be warm. Not every student may be in need for these things, but this way no one is singled out. Our school also does clothing drives and warm meals for holidays that I participate in.
As a professional, I still have a lot of room for growth. I am only in my second year of teaching, but so far I have learned a lot and have changed tremendously. As I continue to teach, I will never stop learning ways to help my students both academically and socially. Having a partner that is a very experienced teacher and mom has been very helpful in developing my current teaching disposition. My long term goal is to become an elementary school principal. I feel that I am on the right path to achieve this goal.