A New Era For Education

After taking this course I believe that the purpose of education is to address the whole child. Providing students with academic, physical, and social and emotional growth. Right now, and moving forward, schools are doing much more than teaching students math and reading. Learning is so greatly effected by emotions that it is something schools cannot look past. I see education headed in the direction of implementing technology in a meaningful way. Maybe in the near, but distant future, we will slowly move toward more of a competency based style of learning, but all these things take time.  

Finally, I learned that differentiation in the classroom does not need to be a cumbersome task. It can be something embedded into lessons and is probably something I already do in the classroom on a daily basis without realizing it. It can be things like allow students to solve a math problem in a different way. Allow lower writers to speak what they are trying to write in a final draft and modeling how that looks. Giving a student manipulatives and extra visuals. Differentiation and individualization does not mean I need to give every student a different worksheet at all times, it is more of allow students to find a way to success. One phrase that stuck out is that learning is a constant and time is the variable. 

One of my biggest takeaways from this course was that many people do not know how to apologize. In the classroom apologizing is so incredibly important, whether it is student to student, or teacher to student. Often times when students are acting out it is because of a deeper issue. Students are sent out of the classroom to deescalate. A part that many miss is the reentry. This begins with apologizing so that the student can feel comfortable reentering the classroom. Otherwise, that student is just going to feel triggered by the trauma of being sent out of the classroom. When apologizing, the student AND teacher should acknowledge the harmful actions and should be sure to state how they will do better moving forward. Much more powerful than the classic “I’m Sorry” and “It’s okay”.  It creates a positive classroom culture. 

I also learned about how curriculum and what teachers teach matter. Students of color often times feel un engaged and under represented because the content that is being presented to them is not relevant. Students need to feel heard and comfortable in the classroom. What we teach should be equitable and accessible to students of all different races, ethnicities, genders, religions and more. We should celebrate our students differences, allow them to teach each other about one another's cultures. With that being said, we need to be aware of equity traps, and artificially creating equity in our schools. 

I have also learned how important it is to work together. Teacher teams in the pandemic showed to be more successful than those who worked alone. Cohesion in a school can make it a much better place to learn.