What are you passionate about with regard to learning and why?
I am passionate about so much when it comes to learning. So much, actually, that I could go on forever. First and foremost I am passionate about the feeling that I get when I learn something new. Its an excitement that has fueled me my entire life. Honestly, when it comes right down to it, I think that the entire reason I became a teacher in the first place is rooted in my love for learning. In the teaching profession it is imperative that you are a life-long learner. Things are changing so quickly all the time. The students you teach are changing yearly, daily, if not by the minute. The curriculum is changing. The expectations for any given year are changing. Your colleagues are changing. I could go on. The need for teachers to be ready to jump in with both feet and learn how to use a new strategy or technique is frequent. I love this about teaching. I love adding to my practice. I love being wrong and finding a new way to do something. A way that is completely different from the way I did it before. I try to pass this love for learning on to my students. I tell them from day one that even though I am an adult and they may think that I have all the answers, that in reality, I really do not. I want them to challenge me and respectfully critique me. I got hired as a first grade teacher 8 years ago at Shearer Elementary and for anyone who may know the school I refer to it has a reputation of being a school that has a very high Hispanic population and we also have a very high population of students who are living in poverty. Most families do not speak English in the home and most qualify for free and reduced lunch. I think it is so wonderful to be bilingual. I wish I was closer to being bilingual myself, but the climb to the top of the mountain of knowledge that must be achieved in first grade feels a lot steeper when there is a language barrier and you are not able to teach in Spanish. That being said, learning does not come easily at the school I teach at, in fact it is very very hard. If you don't really love learning and believe wholeheartedly that what you do can change the world then you wouldn't do this job. If you don't believe that every child can learn regardless of their circumstances then you would go to teach somewhere else. The fact that the climb is so hard is what makes the journey so rewarding and fullfilling to me. I think there is something pretty special about the grade that I teach as well. In first grade they come in as such little guys and gals. They are so dependent on me. I find myself calling them my little ducklings because that is kind of how they seem. By the time they leave me they are transformed. They are readers and writers. They are mathematicians and scientists. I shed happy tears each year that I say goodbye to a class because of the amazing learning that has been done.
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What problems in your classroom might point you to your driving question?
Many of my students come from a low socioeconomic background. In most of these families both parents work and some even have more than one job to make ends meet. This means that mom and dad are not around much for support with schooling. My driving question will originate from one of two areas of interests for me. These interests originate from the needs of my students one being wellness and the other being play. Wellness is something that I started teaching in my classroom about 3 years ago. Many of my students come to school with an "invisible backpack" on and they carry around extra baggage from lack of routine, lack of sleep, and so many other factors. The teaching of wellness techniques has always seemed important to me, but I was never sure what its impact on learning and social and emotional health really was. That sparked an interest for me to go and find out. As far as my other potential driving question I had the pleasure of working with someone who was from the Queen of the Valley hospital and would come once a week to work with the 1st grade students. She taught them how to play games that were geared toward gross and fine motor development. The benefits for these students was endless. We got to talking about the importance of doing exercises that crossed the mid line. These exercises are imperative for the development of an area of the brain called the corpus callosum. I have heard that the corpus callosum plays a heavy role in reading and writing ability. In 1st grade these two skills are in their developmental stages. I am wondering if an increase of playtime and exercises that help with the development of the corpus callosum would in turn affect reading and writing ability.What will you “Need to Know” to answer that question? Before I can even begin to start answering either of the two questions of interest I will need to get baseline data to show where my students started from academically. I will need to have a group of students that I will observe and keep record of to see how their progress changes depending on the input that is being given. I will also need to see what research is out there that is already out there about this topic. What do you already know (from your own experience and from reading about)? I already know that both wellness strategies and play have positive effects on learning. I know that in most cases children will learn in a vacuum. Despite what strategies you impart on them they will make growth. I already know that a lot of learning and growth depends on what takes place at home which I have absolutely not control over, but as a former administrator once said we have to take action over the variables that we have control over and that is precisely what I intend to do. |
AuthorI am a first grade teacher who is passionate about her students and learning new things! Archives
January 2019
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