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Frame of Reference
Teachers are the constant gardeners of the future. Teachers plant the ideas,
concepts and tools as the nutrients necessary to create a safe and supportive learning
environment. Like gardening, the results are not immediately evident; the process is
slow and it may take years for the beauty of our garden to take shape, but the teacher
always sees that potential greatness in each one of her students when she starts her
day.
From my own journey through formative education, I have watched the world
grow and change even though the purpose of education and the needs of students have
not. Teachers have always struggled to keep curriculum relevant and their students
engaged. Students will always need structured, caring and supportive environments in
which to grow and learn. It is my firm belief that, we, as educators, have the
responsibility to facilitate that growth and contribute to the students efforts to become
competent, moral and ethical individuals of the twenty-first century who are capable of
independent, critical thinking and responsible actions in our changing world. This is an
exciting time for all educators as we stand on the precipice of great change.
As teachers we sow connections and invest in relationships with our students
and with the content that we teach as we guide our students to relevance in hopes of
watching the seeds we have planted grow into something much more. This growth is
shaped from our social interaction with others that nurture and challenge our existing
ideas of our lived experiences. I value the works of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky as
elements of our development. As educators then, we must challenge a students
cognitive growth through appropriate scaffolding by providing them with opportunities to
engage in authentic activities that allow them to be successful. By allowing students to
internalize and reflect on what they are learning from their peers, teachers, adults and
the community, they are developing healthy cognitive strategies that allow them to
expand their existing schemata while creating new ones from which to draw upon. As
their experiences grow, the learning grows and the seeds we have planted begin to take
shape.
Never before have had teachers and students such an opportunity to invite the
world into their classrooms to learn collaboratively from one another. Educators are no
longer required to rely solely on books, but may choose to invite an expert or other
students from another part of the globe into the classroom through available
technologies to engage students in authentic dialogue that promotes learning. As our
world and our classrooms become increasingly global our abilities to work with and
learn from one another will become paramount. Providing students with opportunities to
work with each other or work independently in small group configurations allows them to
develop healthy socio-emotional relationships with the people in their world.
Through my experiences in the classroom so far I know now that it is crucial that
we develop purposeful relationships and relevant connections with the students we
teach. Our students need to feel cared for and respected from the moment they walk
into our classrooms in the morning if we are to ask them for the same thing. Children
require structure in their day if they are to feel safe in a space where they are to learn
and grow. As teachers our instruction and expectations of our students must be clear
and concise if they are to be successful. If students are to choose responsibly and
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respectfully how they are to be successful in their learning, so too should they be
encouraged to make choices in their behaviours and how they will make their
misbehaviours just; our job as educators is to manage and guide those students to the
right choice.
We know that no two children are alike; they bring different experiences to our
classrooms, they develop at different rates and they learn in different ways. Our job as
educators is to strike a balance to provide rich, open and authentic tasks that stimulate
the learning and growth for all of our students that focuses on the ways in which each of
our students learn best. This is no small task and a teachers toolbox is never closed.
So too then, should assessment be as varied and as thoughtful as the strategies we use
to teach, to provide our students with as many authentic opportunities as possible to
demonstrate their ways of knowing. Two such methods that I support allow students a
visual record of their progress through the use of portfolios and visual journaling
whereby they can make choices, reflect on their progress and develop that intrinsic
motivation to challenge themselves and grow into independent and critically thinking
individuals. I also ask that my students in engage in student-teacher informal interviews,
student-led conferences, class criteria rubrics, as well as peer and self-assessments.
These forms of assessment do not merely assign a number or a letter grade to learning,
but allow for more meaningful understanding of where the learning needs to go.
Growing up in a small community with a strong First Nations identity, I have
come to understand the place education has within communities. So too, is it important
that teachers and schools open their doors to the communities in which they are
educating the future of that very community. As educators we must bridge those
relationships with families and community through regular communication and inviting
those members into our classrooms. Keeping parents involved through phone calls,
emails, letters, extracurricular activities, newsletters home or merely just a chat in the
supermarket to let them know that you value their child can change the relationships
between schools and communities in which they thrive. Even small, but purposeful
steps towards a common goal can change the future.
As I grow as an educator, my experiences and strategies will grow too. Teachers
are always students first, learning from others in the profession, their own self-reflective
processes or the students they teach. As an educator it is my firm belief that we have
the responsibility to respect the rights and safety of the children that we teach everyday;
to foster an environment of inclusion where students feel the security to express and
explore their authentic selves. We have the power and the privilege to affect social
change in our lifetimes as we guide and mentor the leaders of tomorrow to challenge
them to think for themselves, to discover the unknown, to become moral and
responsible beings. What could possibly be more rewarding then to behold a child on
the verge of discovery? I cannot think of one!