Seventh Post

Teachers.Net Gazette (November 2008: Vol 5 No 11)
"beginning-teachers" , student-teachers@lists.teachers.net

Topic: “A Reflection of Me: Why My Students Disrespected Me”
Date: November 1, 2008
This past week, I received a listserv email with a link to the Teachers.net Gazette. I was immediately intrigued by the short column excerpt that was included in the email. In this column, Kioni Carter, who is currently a life coach and educational consultant, describes her teaching experiences with the “bottom class” at a Brooklyn elementary school in 2004.

What I like most about Carter’s writing is that it is a reflection. She doesn’t just describe the unruly students and the details of her memories; she reflects upon herself and explains how her thoughts, emotions, assumptions, attitudes, etc. impacted her students. Carter describes the thoughts that she had after her first day and the epiphanies she began to have over the next few weeks. She explains that she realized early on that most of her effort was focused on keeping the class under control because of the horror stories other teachers told about these particular students and because of her own assumptions about the students. Carter came to the conclusion that because these students had bad reputations, and there were few teachers who truly believed that they were capable of achieving success, the students learned to believe that they were unable to achieve- and acted on this belief! This insight caused Carter to “check herself.” She knew she would have to start seeing her students as valuable, smart, capable, etc. in order to make them believe that they were valuable, smart, capable, etc. Carter explains how she pointed out any and all success she recognized in her students to help build their self esteem and to encourage them to believe that they were competent. Eventually her students showed noticeable academic improvement and their behavioral problems became minimal.


Useful Information For My Teaching Future:
From my first semester in the Career Change program at St. John’s University, many of my professors have discussed the importance of self-reflection. Kioni Carter’s story epitomizes the value of self-reflection; it is obvious that her progress with her students was directly correlated with her self-reflection. I am learning that, as teachers, it is necessary to be aware of our thoughts, emotions, values, assumptions, prejudices, attitudes, etc. in order to give our students the best opportunity to improve and succeed. Understanding ourselves is crucial to understanding our students and their needs.

As a teacher, I will not only reflect on my learning experiences and what motivates me to teach, but I will also reflect on my hopes, values, perceptions, prejudices, etc. I will always try to be aware of myself so that I stay focused on what motivates me to teach, continuously monitor how effectively I am teaching, and make sure that I am not overlooking something or someone because of an unexamined prejudice.