GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

After a month of ranging classes covering behavioral psychology to educational methods to Judaic though and practice, I realize that most important to me was what I learned from the text that is my fellows. In writing my initial credo, based mostly on personal experience and observations, I found myself peppering in concepts learnt in my first month of Deletxploration, but also ideas presented and shared with my brilliant, caring, thoughtful, passionate 9 fellows. So as I present this credo, I hope that is does change somewhat and become more refined as I enter my internship phase, but I really hope that the guidance of my fellows will open me up to creating an ideology for who I want to be as a teacher.

CREDO

A teacher's role is to facilitate learning, growth and excitement for the student about content, skills and a thirst for knowledge and understanding. In order to function efficiently, a teacher must attempt to work within the framework of the school's mission, value’s system, rules and procedures. This will enhance the student's appreciation of their role within the larger community as well as enable the teacher to utilize all the school's resources.

Each student's personal growth, development and comprehension, results from the teacher’s ability to engage the student as an individual. The teacher must modify the approach, technique of communication and assessment utilized in order to establish goals, models and forms fitting for the individual student, based on the student’s own skill sets, social cognition and developmental stage. By building relationships of trust and co-operation with the student, parents, administration and other teachers, everyone will be able to work together and provide a stronger overall system of learning for the student. A teacher must recognize that temporal and spatial dynamics interact with the student to alter their ability to learn to the best of their ability. Each student must be attended to and appreciated for their abilities and not compared, contrasted, assessed and idealized based upon others. A teacher must work to reach every student not just the most attractive, easy, engaging, exciting, creative, smart, etc.

For all material, the teacher must think about how the material will interact with other learning the student has acquired. A teacher must utilize all avenues of knowledge and materials to encourage the student to understand the interconnectivity of all material. Material must be presented in way that utilizes as many of the senses as possible in order to engage all learners in as diverse a mode as possible. A teacher must adjust the material and modes of communication based upon the needs of the classroom community and the individual students, sometimes even straying away from planned material in order to present material that needs to be addressed.

Most importantly,

a teacher must be a model and a text for the students. The teacher's methods, decisions, disciplinary system must be transparent, in order to allow students the ability to understand the process of education and how it impacts them. The teacher must always be open to learn from the students as must as the teacher is will to teach. A teacher must be open to present many ideas and perspectives and not just one's own. A teacher must have the courage to engage the student that is unreachable, challenging and difficult. A teacher must fight to protect the student from others, whether it is the authority figures or peers. A teacher must function within a larger system of values and education philosophy in order to allow students to see the big picture of how a larger community functions. Ultimately, a teacher must be available to student, constantly open to student to allow for them to be the center of importance, and not make the teacher’s ideas, plans, credos and justifications the primary focus of their educational experience.