Education happens all around us - at home, at work, with friends, through athletics, through music, when we read, when we listen, when we participate, and when we make mistakes. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. In other words, to be educated is to listen, learn, and appreciate that acquiring knowledge is a life-long mission. Ideally, my role as an educator is to guide student learning so that they may be better problem-solvers, effective communicators, and productive members of a community.
Teaching Manifesto
Teaching Manifesto
- Embrace the curious exploration and joyful messiness of learning.
- Teach students to see themselves as people who make things.
- Use minilessons to create routine, predictable, and repetitious learning opportunities.
- Remember that copying is not the same thing as writing!
- Consider how to teach into what students are doing (and not doing).
- Embrace the quiet hum of an engaged classroom.
- Use individual conferences to build strong working relationships with my students.
- Focus on one strategy at a time instead of trying to fix everything all at once.
- Be aware of my students strengths and challenges to help them effectively.
- Use guiding questions to scaffold the development of critical thinking skills.
- Teach students that they are capable of doing hard things.
- Use assessments to help students realize the remarkable tasks they have accomplished.
- Invite students to participate in the learning process.
- Celebrate a growth mindset!
- Collaborate with other teachers to support students.
- Share information with parents, students, and my colleagues.
- Continue to learn and grow as a teacher.
- Work towards a healthy work-life balance.
- Be an academic role model.
- Remember why I worked so hard to become a teacher.
- Take risks.