Reflective Teaching
After reading the John Hopkins Documenting Your Personal Growth, it made me take a step back and evaluate whether I have effectively applied the three levels of reflection to my teaching practices. The article described a practitioner’s responsibility to take time to develop a rich reflection on teaching practices. It is with practice and consistency that teachers become better at their craft. I am naturally very critical of myself by constantly reassessing what I am doing right, doing wrong and what I can do better. I am aware of my own strengths and weaknesses, and I am confident in myself to know what traits I lack and need improvement. I believe that my identity, culture and personality are reflected in my behaviors. I try my best to constantly keep myself open-minded with differences among peers, adults and professionals. I grew up with a supportive single-mom and she worked closely with children and families for Head Start. She raised me believing that children needed experiences and opportunity to explore the world around them.
Something my mother did to raise me was hitting your child to establish authority and create fear if they did not follow rules. In my culture it is natural that elders hit children if they show lack of disrespect or discipline. I was raised to believe that you do not talk back to your elders and I am responsible for chores around the house. I do not believe in hitting children or raising my voice to set boundaries for children. I believe respect comes from respecting others. My mother believed that children need to learn from their own mistakes, and they learn by facing the consequences for their actions. There was always a direct consequence for bad behavior and reinforcements for good ones. This helped me to learn to be independent. I believe that children need to make mistakes to learn from them, and as educators we are responsible for giving them the tools and guidelines to succeed. Children need to learn to think for themselves and learn to keep trying. As teachers we help children to develop self-help skills to learn to become independent.
I am aware that every parent share their own believes and values that they teach their children. I feel that I am comfortable working with parents whose values are different from mine by being open-minded and taking the time to listen to their concerns. I accept that they have different values than my own, and more importantly that they know their child better then anyone. I believe that I take the time to listen to their concerns and remind myself of what is best for the child. My first responsibility is being an advocate for the child and making sure that he/she has all the support needed to succeed in and outside of the classroom. Even though I do not always agree with how parents parent their child, I respect their opinion and realize it is better to work with the parent then to disagree or argue with them.
Sometimes the hardest thing a person could do is admitting that their values are different from others. It is a natural reaction for people to become defensive and stubborn when defending what a person believes is true or not. In dealing with values different from my own I stay calm and listen. I try to consider what they are saying and whether there is truth to it. Then I try to think if I need to reevaluate my way of thinking to understand their perspective. I always try to put myself in the other person’s shoes. I consider and internalize everything being said. I know that what I believe and my values are not necessarily superior or better than someone else. Just as each child learns differently, everyone believes and looks at things differently. I respect people’s differences by first recognizing that they are there and accepting them, without trying to enforce my own believes. Instead I try to find a middle ground, and I learn to let go afterwards. Sometimes people hold on to the anger, animosity or differences between values. As important as it is to self-reflect and stay open-minded it is equally important knowing how to separate emotions to stay objective.
After reading the John Hopkins Documenting Your Personal Growth, it made me take a step back and evaluate whether I have effectively applied the three levels of reflection to my teaching practices. The article described a practitioner’s responsibility to take time to develop a rich reflection on teaching practices. It is with practice and consistency that teachers become better at their craft. I am naturally very critical of myself by constantly reassessing what I am doing right, doing wrong and what I can do better. I am aware of my own strengths and weaknesses, and I am confident in myself to know what traits I lack and need improvement. I believe that my identity, culture and personality are reflected in my behaviors. I try my best to constantly keep myself open-minded with differences among peers, adults and professionals. I grew up with a supportive single-mom and she worked closely with children and families for Head Start. She raised me believing that children needed experiences and opportunity to explore the world around them.
Something my mother did to raise me was hitting your child to establish authority and create fear if they did not follow rules. In my culture it is natural that elders hit children if they show lack of disrespect or discipline. I was raised to believe that you do not talk back to your elders and I am responsible for chores around the house. I do not believe in hitting children or raising my voice to set boundaries for children. I believe respect comes from respecting others. My mother believed that children need to learn from their own mistakes, and they learn by facing the consequences for their actions. There was always a direct consequence for bad behavior and reinforcements for good ones. This helped me to learn to be independent. I believe that children need to make mistakes to learn from them, and as educators we are responsible for giving them the tools and guidelines to succeed. Children need to learn to think for themselves and learn to keep trying. As teachers we help children to develop self-help skills to learn to become independent.
I am aware that every parent share their own believes and values that they teach their children. I feel that I am comfortable working with parents whose values are different from mine by being open-minded and taking the time to listen to their concerns. I accept that they have different values than my own, and more importantly that they know their child better then anyone. I believe that I take the time to listen to their concerns and remind myself of what is best for the child. My first responsibility is being an advocate for the child and making sure that he/she has all the support needed to succeed in and outside of the classroom. Even though I do not always agree with how parents parent their child, I respect their opinion and realize it is better to work with the parent then to disagree or argue with them.
Sometimes the hardest thing a person could do is admitting that their values are different from others. It is a natural reaction for people to become defensive and stubborn when defending what a person believes is true or not. In dealing with values different from my own I stay calm and listen. I try to consider what they are saying and whether there is truth to it. Then I try to think if I need to reevaluate my way of thinking to understand their perspective. I always try to put myself in the other person’s shoes. I consider and internalize everything being said. I know that what I believe and my values are not necessarily superior or better than someone else. Just as each child learns differently, everyone believes and looks at things differently. I respect people’s differences by first recognizing that they are there and accepting them, without trying to enforce my own believes. Instead I try to find a middle ground, and I learn to let go afterwards. Sometimes people hold on to the anger, animosity or differences between values. As important as it is to self-reflect and stay open-minded it is equally important knowing how to separate emotions to stay objective.