Reflection One

1) Discuss a variety of teaching dispositions you are modeling and "living" in your classroom this semester as a student teacher. Why are they important to you? What implications do they have for your children, families, colleagues, and community? 2) Metaphors are powerful emotional tools that provide a shift in perception, gives a new outlook to a career, and proclaims personal connections and meanings. Discuss your personal teaching metaphor as a future early childhood teacher. Please post your response to both questions and post at least one reply to your colleagues. For me I really have found that patience and flexibility have been the two dispositions that have stood out the most! My co-op had to bring in a substitute due to meetings all day, and then a day later a new substitute had to come in because my co-op had a death in the family and needed to be off. This really made me realize that you always need to be flexible! If you are so set in having to accomplish everything the children will really suffer! I also found out in kindergarten that sometimes you just really will not accomplish everything you planned and that is okay. Sometimes the children just simply cannot sit and concentrate anymore and you need to be flexible and learn to adjust to the needs of the children. No matter what situation you are in, whether you are the teacher, the parent or a colleague it is always good to be able to be flexible. There will always be a new situation that needs to be dealt with. My metaphor is "Patience is a virtue". It really is with being in a kindergarten class. I find myself always taking a second to think and just not over reacting. In kindergarten patience really is something that as a teacher you need. There is so much tattling, irrelevant questions to answers, shoes to tie and so much more. I do see myself as a very patient person but my patience has really been tested over the past few weeks. I must say though no matter how many shoes I tie, directions I have to repeat or tattling I have to deal with it is all worth it when one of them comes up, hugs you and tells you that they love you!

Reflection Two
Let's take time during the next two weeks to examine relationships in the classroom. 1) teacher to self 2) teacher to student 3) student to student 4) student to his or her own learning process When we notice the dynamics of these relationships and become aware of how our values and actions affect them, we increase the possibilities for creating a compassionate classroom, one interaction at a time. Discuss the following questions: 1) What is precious about your teaching? 2) How are you supporting a compassionate classroom for your children? 3) Looking back, which early childhood theorists do you bring "alive" in your teaching? 4) Share one teaching moment from the past seven weeks you will hold in your heart forever. 1. The students really have been the most precious thing about my teaching. There is so much that can be learned about them and myself just through being in the classroom and teaching. The things that I have learned about myself from my students have been the most precious. I have really learned that I can be patient, loving, caring and nurturing. 2. In order to support a compassionate classroom one must be able to build positive relationships with their students. I feel as if I was able to do this with my students. Even if they were getting wild, and I had reprimanded them, they still would come up and give me a hug five minutes later. Also by just sitting and listening to their stories you can build a compassionate classroom for the children. 3. I really feel that I hold Jean Piaget's theory into my teaching. He believed that every person is different and each student will learn differently. I really have found this to be true. Even though all the students were learning the same material not one of them was exactly the same in the way they performed tasks or answered questions. A way that I would do something or would think a child should perform a certain task, most times they completed the task very differently.

4. The one thing I will hold in my heart forever is the last day of my student teaching with my students. Even though I was extremely sad to be leaving my students their hugs made it easier. The one little boy came up and just squeezed tightly and it melted my heart. He is one of the little boys that you thought would struggle with academics but his parents really work with him at home to help improve his academics. I feel that any more it can be rare to find parents and students that care enough to work extra hard outside of the classroom. For this I will never forget that there are still wonderful people in the world that want the best for their child.

Reflection Three
1. "The teacher we each strive to be is one who inspires greatness within self and others. We can see this person in our mind's eyes: personally confident, globally charitable, deeply content, and fully engaged with students." After reviewing each enlightened stage, where are you as an "enlightened" teacher? Discuss and give specific examples from student teaching this semester. 2) "Teaching is Leading!" How are you a leader each day in the classroom with the following: a) students; b) families; c) colleagues, and d) the community. Discuss and share examples. 3) Since you took ED 240 with me last year, what are your thoughts regarding parent involvement. Discuss strategies and ways you have created partnerships and increased parent involvement this semester in your student teaching placements. 1. After reviewing over the stages of an enlightened teacher I would say that I am most like the protector teacher. I feel as if I always take the time to care for the needs of my students even if they are sometimes not the nicest to me. In kindergarten the caring teacher really comes out when trying to take care of all the needs of all the students. They would constantly be making remarks to not feeling well, or not being able to complete a task. You have to sort of take on the role as a second parent to the children. Essentially, as a teacher, you spend majority of the day with your students and it is important for them to know that they can come to you with any need or concern they have, and you will help them. 2. I feel that I am a leader in the classroom with my students by setting a good example of expected behavior from each and every one of them. More so in 8th grade learning support this type of leadership works. Being an inclusion teacher consists of being able to model expected behaviors in each individual classroom. Also I want my students to know that I will be the best advocate for them as long as they build respect for me and themselves. During student teaching I built positive relationships with parents of my students by speaking with them at the end of the day, sending home little notes to say their child was doing well, or even at open house/ parent teacher conferences. It was nice to hear at open house and parent

teacher conferences that their children loved having me in the classroom! Working with colleagues is extremely important when teaching. I would share ideas with other teachers and they would in return share ideas with me on different things that worked or did not work. Being in an inclusion teacher spot is really big on being able to collaborate with colleagues. You are constantly offering suggestions as to how you can help the students that have learning disabilities. Right now I just offered to help the students with an English project in which they needed to make flashcards for different parts of a text. An easy accommodation for this was to print off the words on the computer in a two column text. The students can now easily make flashcards for the words. 3. Parent involvement is really a large part of teaching. During the school year, the teacher is with the child for 8 hours out of the day; Longer than some parents see their children on a daily basis. So it really is important to have open lines of communication with parents. In kindergarten the students each had a folder that came back and forth to school with them every day. In there you could write the parents notes about how well a student was performing or if there was something that needed to be worked on. I really learned a lot from being at parent teacher conferences for the kindergarten students; it was amazing to me that some parents would talk for 30 minutes about their child, while others spent 5 minutes talking and were ready to leave. Another thing I found interesting about conferences was that the parents would describe a totally different child than the child you observed during the school day. It is important for the teacher to understand what the parents get at home from their child. Some of the parents that you needed to hear the most from about their child would not share anything with you. It can be hard to want and need more information about the child and not get it from the parent.