Sunday, August 22, 2010

A Teacher's Wish List...




In about fifteen hours I will lace up my boots, secure my ropes, make sure I have my snake bite kit, and begin the ascent up the mountain that is my thirteenth year teaching fifth graders. The children themselves do not arrive until August thirtieth. This coming week will be full of getting my room together, planning out the first month or so, copying papers, getting to know names, and of course, hours of  meetings (and there was much rejoicing).

As I sit here on my comfortable couch, knowing that my hours of enjoying its summer comfort have now dwindled down to single digits, my thoughts turn to my wish list for the upcoming year. So, I wish...

I wish for a classroom full of motivated kids. As a teacher I am more concerned about day in, day out effort than I am about each child's ability level. I would rather have a roomful of academically weak kids who WANT to learn and work hard to achieve as much as they can than a roomful of academically strong kids who are apathetic. There is no moment more amazing in teaching then when a motivated child surprises herself with what can be accomplished when good, old fashioned effort is a part of the equation.

I wish for a group of parents that embrace a collaborative spirit. The education of their child does not take place only in the classroom between the hours of 8:30 to 3:30. I wish for parents that see education as a three part team sport, with equal parts of responsibility between student, teacher, and parents. The better team effort we have, with excellent communication between all parties, the better chance the student will have to make the needed progress.

I wish for opportunities to grow, both professionally and personally.

I wish for patience, more so with my own short comings than my students.

I wish for the humility to reach out to colleagues if I need advice or help with a problem and for the quick response to anything asked of me.

I wish for time. For enough time to meet the needs of each of my students. Children are like fingerprints, like snowflakes. No two are exactly the same. When they walk into my room next week I will have twenty-four or twenty-five amazingly unique individuals. Each one will arrive with their own individual cocktail of strengths and weaknesses, not just academically, but also socially, economically, and emotionally. Time is the most valuable commodity in a school day. I wish to have enough for each need to be fully met.

I wish for success for each child and for the ability to shut out all the voices clamoring about standardized test scores and adequate yearly progress. My main focus must be on the success of each student and remembering that success is not always measured exactly the same for every child. If I can help a student's individual skills and ability to grow, to prepare him to handle the rigors of middle school, pacing guides and national averages be damned, then I have done my job.

I wish to remember that there is more to teaching than worrying about state assessments, to remember to teach my students to think critically and logically when they are faced with a problem. To always see my learners as people, not dots or lines on a graph.

I wish to remember to always choose my words carefully when I talk to my students. I am the single greatest influence on the environment in my classroom. My words need to be positive, empowering, and compassionate. Months of trust between student and teacher can be blown to pieces with a careless or angry word.

I wish for a successful and empowering year for my colleagues; in my building, my state, my country, and the world, be they public school teachers like myself, private school teachers, or home schoolers. We are truly blessed to have the daily opportunity to touch the future, from the nervous first year kindergarten teacher to the seasoned thirty year high school veteran.

Lastly, I wish for good health and safety for all as we begin this climb together. Before we know it...it will be June.


16 comments:

  1. Gorgeous in spirit and in the words chosen.

    If you figure out how best to ignore the elephant of state assessment pressure lurking in the classroom, please share with me. I find myself wondering constantly...will this be useful on the CATS test? When I know, instead, I should be asking...will this be useful to my students, now and later.

    Great post!

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  2. With a missive like this from a teacher, I wish my son had had more teachers like you.

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  3. Very good words. I hope you have a great year and that someday I can be as caring a teacher as you are!

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  4. Great post, Bri! I wish I had the joy of teaching with you...oh wait I do! Love you!

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  5. Very eloquent my friend. I have the deepest hope that each of those happen for you and the students.

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  6. A great list. You're clearly an awesome teacher. I'd like to add one wish, if you don't mind:

    I wish that the general public (and parents in particular) finally realize just how hard elementary school teachers work. I wish that people clue in to the fact that when a society devalues its teachers, it ends up doing irreparable harm to an entire culture.

    My daughter starts fourth grade in two weeks.

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  7. Sounds to me like your students and their families are lucky to have you.

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  8. Thanks for the kind words, friends!

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  9. This is a powerful post that I want to send to all the teachers I know. Good luck in the upcoming school year.

    Your students and their parents are fortunate to have you.

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  10. @SM...feel free to send where you wish.

    And thank you!

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  11. I absolutely LOVE this post.

    I know a few teachers who express the same desires. I know a few others who are too burned out to look optimistically at the year and instead they just hope to "endure" and look forward to retirement. And I know others that are too green to have such wide vision (I would fit in the "green" category, but I haven't actually started teaching yet, nor do I believe I'll start for at least another year+).

    As a parent of 3 children, I can say that our wish as parents is to get a teacher with a wishlist like yours. Unfortunately (as I saw in the parental attendance at yesterday's 'back to school morning'), it seems that my wife and I are in the minority as far as being "involved parents" and that our kids also seem to be in the minority as far as being "excited to go back to school" and "excited to learn."

    We try to encourage other parents to be involved in their kids's schooling...either by helping out in the classroom if they can or by helping with their homework, reading with them, or (at the very least) taking an interest in what they've learned/discussed at school.

    We had a strange conversation with a neighbor not too long ago. It went something like this:

    Neighbor: So, your kids like to read, right?
    Us: Yeah.
    N: My kids hate reading.
    U: Bummer.
    N: What did you do to help your kids like reading?
    U: We read with them each night before bed and take them to the library and bookstore so they can get books they like.
    N: So you actually read books to your kids?
    U: Yeah.
    N: I don't think we could do that. We don't like to read. I wonder if there's something else we could do.
    U: Um....uh. Yeah. Good luck.

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  12. Thanks okie, I appreciate the kind words.

    About clueless parents like your neighbor? Man, could I tell you some stories...

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  13. This is beautiful. It's easy to see what a wonderful teacher you are. I hope you get all of your wishes :)

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  14. May all your good wishes come true! It sounds like you have a good opportunity to instill love of learning for a lifetime to your students. We all need that in an ever-changing world. All the best this school year!

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  15. How beautiful...I wish there were more teachers like you!
    SS greetings from Casablanca, Morocco!

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  16. It's nice to see you have a real heart for teaching. I couldn't agree with you more about preferring a motivated student over the apathetic ones. The challenge is to get those apathetic students motivated too. I recently read "One Simple Act" by Debbie Macomber who shared some very good insights for teachers, one was the difference between praise and encouragement. Praise focuses on the final result whereas encouragement focuses on the action and the heart behind it. Teachers need to encourage their students.

    Stopping by from Saturday Samplings.

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