I realize as I look back over this past
month that I focused a lot on relationships both with my students and with their
parents. I was able to really build stronger relationships with both
parents and students of my class. I feel as though I was really able to make
some strong headway with certain parents that things were previously not going
well with and I was able to celebrate making major breakthroughs with certain
students that have been really struggling with throughout the year. Being able to break though and have multiple
successful days with Jamari is a huge success for me, as well as really feeling
as though parent relationships and involvement is taking a positive turn rather
than a negative, accusatory turn. I also
really focused on working with my students and meeting them where they needed
to be met rather than trying to force something on them that I knew in the end
wouldn’t work anyway. I feel as though I
was really able to see what was working and what was not working and create a
plan that worked for my students.
I feel as though I have gotten much better
at becoming a responsive teacher and really trying to stick with trying new
things and working on things until a solution is found rather than just simply
giving up. Again this comes back to me seriously asking the question - who are you? I am also really happy that these parent relationships that I
have been trying to foster and grow are finally coming around. I realize that
things do not happen overnight and that it takes time for things to change.
Our action research class has really allowed
me to focus in on what my students needs are and think about different ways to
go about bringing my students and my student’s parents to a more positive
place. Our class with Dr. K last spring has also helped me because it
has given me the opportunity to really see behind the scenes with my student’s
parents and realize that culture plays a big part in the classroom and what my
students experience outside the four walls of my classroom greatly impacts how
they are within the four wall of my classroom.
I realize that things take time and you don’t
really get to know someone overnight. I also have to remind myself that
people see things from different perspectives and how I am interpreting something
may be very different from how someone else is interpreting something. It is
these differences that help make us who we are and allow us to be passionate
about things in different ways.
I want to really allow freedom with my
students – freedom for them to do things that matter to them, freedom
to be themselves and the freedom for them to determine what kind of impression
they want to leave behind when they move on next year. I want to apply that to
working with my student’s parents too to some extent. I want them to be
advocates for their child in what their child wants rather than advocates for
themselves as parents trying to make a point about something.
So I ask the question - who are you?
