Classroom Community

           

                              (If I had photoshop I'd change the "mistakes" to be something like "attempts")

            It took me three weeks to notice this but now I cannot stop thinking about it.  This week I noticed that the four students who generally have “behavior problems,” which in Kindergarten means not following directions or sitting still, are the only ones to point out if another student is misbehaving.  For these four students, it is so normal for them to be reprimanded that I feel like they are oftentimes just waiting to be in trouble again, or to point out someone else who should be in trouble.

            We as a school system have trained students to see another person’s failure as our own success, and this is only kindergarten!  Some of these students did not even go to preschool yet they are displaying this mentality that is so common for students to buy into.  I feel like sometimes by always correcting or redirecting these students we as teachers are creating bullies: a teacher picked them on for their behavior, so they pick on other students for their behavior.  Clearly this is not what I want to be doing; in fact one of the things that I look forward to the most/am most apprehensive about is building a community in my own classroom that will eliminate this phenomenon and mentality.  I do not want my students to see another student’s “failure” as their own success.  I do not want there to be so much inherent competition that students are rooting for their peers to fail.  I’d like to believe that despite the individualistic society we live in, it is possible to eliminate this behavior in the classroom.  I just don’t know how I’m going to do it yet…      

Teacher Vs. Facilitator

Humility.

It is often an elusive quality for any human being to possessive (probably even more so for Americans) yet humility is incredibly important for teachers to have.

Every time we told someone we wanted to be a teacher, we were admired for being so “selfless” and “patient” while also being warned that we would be underappreciated.  This was a sentiment that I become so accustomed to that I did not even think about what being a teacher meant to me as a person.  To some, being a teacher means you are going to change the world one kid at a time and help oodles of students over the 30+ years of your career.  This can boost your confidence.  This can make you feel like you are doing something worthwhile and highly regarded.  The problem is, in order to be a successful teacher we need to humble ourselves and realize that the students are more important than we are. 

We are facilitators of learning.  We cannot force students to learn.  We cannot force anyone to do anything for that matter, although we can influence situations to better encourage learning. 

Today, I was reasoning with a student that once she completed her letter tracing worksheet, she could move on to the more fun activity that she was watching the rest of her small group do.  It made perfect sense to me: complete step 1, move on to step 2.  But to her, this didn’t make any sense and she was definitely not “learning” anything at this point except for maybe how long she could push me before I asked my Cooperating Teacher (CT) for assistance. 

Being a teacher does not mean that I transmit all of the things in my mind and the textbook into my students minds because they have minds of their own.  In order to create an environment where my students want and choose to learn, I need to work to humble myself and realize that the thoughts of my students are just as important as my own.  I am not a teacher; I am a learner who hopes to facilitate the learning of 19 kindergarteners.