1. Educators value and care for all students and act in their best interests.

In one day during centre time, one student, A, came to me crying, because he got rejected when he asked his friend, S, to join the play. I sat at a table with both students and listened to both sides of the story. What eventually happened was that A wanted to play with the toy car S was playing with, so A asked S if he could play with it. Before waiting for S’s answer, A grabbed the toy car from S’s hand and in response to A’s aggressive behaviour, S screamed, “No!” To both students, I explicitly demonstrated how to politely ask their friends if they would like to join their play and also how to invite their friends in their play.

Both A and S, and including most of my Kindergarten students lacked social skills or constantly needed to be reminded of how to say sorry when they hurt somebody, forgive a friend, and share things with their friends. Throughout my practicum I continued to work on the students’ social-emotional skills, while also successfully providing the curricular activities.

What a joy it was to see the improvement in their social skills and academic achievement!

On my last day of practicum, S showed me the card he made for me. He then said, “I am going to miss you. Do you know why? Because I love you.” That was the first time he ever gave me a hug and expressed his positive feelings toward me. It was the best gift I received on my last day.

As a teacher, I am aware of my responsibility for fostering the intellectual, physical, emotional, social and vocational development of students. The artifact is the proof that I followed this standard.