PARTNERING FOR SUCCESS

Sometimes, being a teacher requires being a superhero – but that’s just my opinion. We have to juggle a lot of things every day, but we manage to accomplish them at the end of the day, sometimes even singlehandedly.

Teachers have to build relationships with people around them. They often ask themselves, "What was the best lesson I ever taught to my students? What made it so good?”

In trying to reflect on this, they ask themselves what could make the teaching and learning experience much better.

It is in this reflection that they are able to have a revelation on what his plans are for their students: what the most important thing it is that they want their students to learn in class. Also, they are able to discover at this point what their plan is for getting them to that point.

Teachers need to become partners with their students, if they want to achieve greatness. They then reflect on how they can help make this the best year of learning that their students have ever had.

When we have done this, we can create priorities for our students. We can then plan what our vision is for our students after they have completed a year in our class.

We ask, “What do we want them to know and to be able to do?” Then, we can prioritize further the ideas we have.

The goal is to inspire students to learn. If we want them to learn a thing or two, what would those things be, and how would that change our teaching?

We should be able to determine what system we could devise that would help us stay on target with our learning goals. We should ensure that in the end, all students are learning.

--oOo— The author is Master Teacher I at Mancatian Elementary School