It's April. With Showers (and Flooded Basements) Comes Reflections!

It's always a strange phenomenon when one realized that all the pace, the sleeplessness, the grading, the planning, the teaching, and the organization is turning a corner. Now, it is time for student to pull their learning together for final projects and culminating insight. It comes quickly - this corner - but it does happen and suddenly an educator realizes, "I poured what I could into the semester, and now it's time to find out if it made any difference at all."

Yesterday, my students in Philosophy of Education reflected on course readings, experiences, classwork, and conversations to bullet out insight on what they feel are absolutes for teaching. The following is what this cohort of ED 329 came up with (and I'm thankful for my SLA, Student Leader Associate, for typing this up. Thank You, Ally!)

Philosophical Statements from our experiences working with Columbus

 ·      Students open up to you when you open up to them.

·      Take time to listen to your students. Their minds are full of ideas.

·      There is no such thing as a genuinely unmotivated student.

·      Most if not all students want to learn and apply themselves; they just don’t have the support they   need to do so.

·      Inclusion must be followed by individualization.

·      We do so much more than just teaching subject matter for a specific class.

·      Respecting students and showing them that you truly care for them is the best thing you can do for a classroom.

·      Sharing personal stories help the students and their mentors become engaged in the learning and  each other.

·      With personalized help and encouragement, anyone can achieve anything they set their mind to.

·      Every child is extremely smart, intellectual and intelligent—no matter who they are or where they  come from—and it is our job as teachers to get in touch with these strengths.

·      Teachers must be approachable, empathetic and understanding for students to learn

·      It makes me sad to see students try hard in school but struggle because they don’t get the help or 

guidance they deserve.

·      Students are more engaged in learning when they are having fun.

·      Every child has the ability to be the smartest child in the room, they must need the right teacher to interest them.

·      Kids who are excited by one activity may be bored by another. It is about engaging them in what  they interested in and highlighting their strengths and weaknesses.

·      I never understood the real magic of dreams until I met the students at Columbus School.

·      Thinking outside the box to reach at-risk urban classes is a must for the 21^st century.

·      The philosophy of togetherness might be one solution for solving pedagogical inequities across the U.S.

·      Every child deserves one-on-one opportunities to be mentored academically and socially.

·      Sometimes teachers take on bad practices because they don’t know how yo solve the myriad of 

     complexities in their classrooms.

·      Literacy matters because, as political acts, it exposes young people.·      In addition to context, a 

   good teacher helps his or her students—in reference to Matt de la Pena—to find beauty in their    

    worlds.