03/29/2024

Reflection

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By Amy Schumacher

Reflection

The school year is coming to a close and most teachers are busy teaching to “the test” that is required for each student to take. Reflection is not high on the teachers MUST DO list but its very important that teachers ask themselves some questions and remind themselves that there is a great deal more to “teaching” than the bulleted content outlined in the content standards.

Take 15 minutes and ask yourself these five questions, taken from Education Week

Reflect on these questions to ensure that the time has been taken to teach the skills children need to grow into strong, capable, compassionate, and caring people. The world is counting on teachers to assist in raising our future generations, teaching them a great deal more than Content Standards.

The questions are as follows:

“1. What have you taught? This means a lot more than the bulleted content outlined in the standards. What have you taught the children in your care this year, by your words or example, about how to be a human being in the world?

2. What have you learned? What do you know now that you didn’t in August about children, teaching, and yourself?

3. What have you done well? Teachers tend to be hard on ourselves. Don’t gloss over your strengths and successes, large or small.

4. What do you need to work on? Not a single teacher in the entire world has had a flawless school year, so don’t beat yourself up for the ways you may have fallen short. But think about what you can change or learn to better meet your students’ many needs. Seek out resources on teaching English-language learners. Resolve to speak more kindly to the children in your class, even when you’re frustrated. We still have a little time left to make those changes.

5. What impact did you have beyond your own classroom? Teacher leadership doesn’t have to happen on a grand scale to be significant. If you led a professional development session at your school, gave your grade-level team an idea for a project, or gave a new teacher a little reassurance and wisdom right when she needed it most, your influence extended beyond your own students.”

Reflection is the process that allows people to grow, to move forward, to become better, more capable and to understand the mistakes they have made and make better decisions in their future. For teachers reflection is a necessary part of the job and is done automatically between lessons. These questions take reflection in a new direction, to a destination where teachers are helping students learn to be the best “human” they can be.

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