- What does this mean for you as an educator, and possibly other educators?
My inquiry leads me to believe that building strong, trustworthy relationship with students is fundamental to the teaching profession. Only when a teacher is able to build a caring relationship that allows for free flowing and on-going dialogue, can real learning take root. Student-teacher relationships are also deeply linked to classroom management and student’s abilities to progress socially, and academically. This implies that educators need to have a good social emotional competence, and practice healthy SEL approaches on building a safe and respectful classroom community.
- What are your next steps?
My next steps are to dig deeper into this inquiry’s implications for “youth at risk.” It is these children who need the strongest student-teacher relationships. In order to delve into this further, I take into account contemporary research on resilience, which leads me to connect my inquiry to First Peoples perspectives (ex. Circle Of Courage, co-authored by Larry Brendtro, Martin Brokenleg, and Steve Van Bockern.) These types of methods employ sophisticated and respectful ways of child rearing.
- What new questions do you have?
How does the new curriculum make room for teachers to employ such methods into their daily teaching?
- What connections/links to practice have you made through other coursework?
I have made extensive links between my inquiry and the EPSE 311 course on cultivating supportive school and classroom environments. This course outlines the importance of recognizing your personal teacher philosophy, factors that come into play for positive classroom environment, and how to deal with daily conflicts with respectful dialogue and further students’ inquiries.
- How I will “live” this inquiry and carry it through in my practicum:I plan to live my inquiry out in my practicum by developing trustworthy relationships with my students. This means that I am aware of having an ongoing dialogue with all my students. I plan to journal in order to reflect on my social emotional competence. I also plan on building trust between my students by building a healthy classroom community. Some lessons for building classroom community include outdoor group science activities, and art lessons such as “circle painting.” I am creating an art lesson on how to participate in respectful critiques, and promote supportive dialogue between students. I plan to use art for community building because this is a subject where students may express their inner voice, and being able to talk about each other’s art in a respectful setting will enable students to respect each others’ personal expressions. I am currently building a rubric to ensure success for these types of art critiques.
Another way to live my inquiry throughout my practicum is by me, the teacher, modelling pro-social behaviour. This includes a positive and sensitive outlook with all my school interactions. I plan on holding high expectations of my students, and using solely induction discipline. I also plan on giving students as much choice as possible with their means to share their learning. For example in my science lesson on the planets of the solar system, the students may choose to present their understanding in whichever form they desire; tableau, video, 3D model, poster presentation, power-point, audio recording, written piece etc. (and I am open to suggestions if the students can justify their reasoning behind their approach.) I plan on leading inquiry and enactivist projects. And finally, I look forward to developing interventions with my SA for specific difficult relationships.