A teacher's ability to understand every students individual needs within their classroom is essential to the student's success and the overall feel of the classroom environment. To me, this standard is at the core of my teaching. One of the big reasons I have gone into education is to be an advocate for students of all cultures and backgrounds. I had the amazing opportunity to travel to India in the summer of 2016 to teach children English within a rural High School as well as work with children and adults with special needs. This experience has forever changed my life in the best of ways. It has opened my eyes to how important the need is for every students background to be acknowledged and appreciated within a classroom.
Student teaching in a Title 1 school was a great experience and opportunity for me to learn more. I was able to sit down at parent teacher conferences and talk with the families of my students. It was eye-opening to talk to most families and I felt like it gave me a better understanding of where each of my students were coming from. Through that experience my mentor teacher had every student reflect on how they believe they are doing in school. This was a great way for us, as the teachers, to see what the students are feeling about school. This also was good for the students to talk to their parents about it and see what how the parents reacted. By seeing their interactions with their kids it gave us a sense of the structure they have at home! My mentor teacher also reflected on the students progress and behavior within the classroom. This way the student was able to see that the teacher recognizes the good things that are happening in the class and the things that they can work on.
Close to Valentine's Day I gave a lesson on how we love ourselves. I incorporated the teaching of adjectives within this lesson. We talked about how adjectives are used to describe someone or something. Our main focus was to love ourselves and how we can love the outside of our body as well as the inside. We were able to brainstorm various things that we loved about ourselves and were proud of. I was happy with the students ideas! They were very positive and the students enjoyed it as well. My students were able to make versions of themselves out of construction paper with adjectives surrounding them that they believed described them. It was really fun to see how the students perceived themselves and how that came out in their pictures they made!