At this time of the school year, I gauge the success of my approach to teaching and community building on a few criteria.
- Do students view me as an impediment to their learning? This seems counterintuitive since I’m a teacher. However, bear with my thinking for a moment. A lot of us observed some deep learning over the past few weeks (e.g., G5 Assembly, Winter Concert, Learning Celebration, etc.). At a certain point, I needed to allow students their agency to approach their learning as independently as possible. This means that I need to trust the processes that my co-teachers and worked hard to establish. I’ve taught, coached, mentored, discussed, reminded, and so on and so forth; show my what you’ve learnt!
- Are students independently and spontaneously miming, humming, and/or singing together? When I began my career as an early childhood teacher, I thought this phenomenon had to do with the age or stage of development of my students. When I continued my career as an upper elementary school teacher and language/learning support teacher, it continued. I just began to accept that when students form community based on their standards with me as a facilitator, we are having a great year. This has always happened; very early this year and very late just once but it has always happened.
- When do we start feeling like a family? This is a difficult question to answer, especially when we consider that we just met each other months ago. I suppose it has do with group think or the ways that we–all–start finishing each other’s thoughts or when we roll on the floor with laughter to the same jokes or when we make random and tangential connections to whatever concepts we are trying to master or when we can sit with each other and enjoy the silence. Yesterday, we were reflecting on another extraordinary day just sitting quietly with a book–physical or digital–reading or chasing our thoughts.
What a great half-way point to this school year! See you in 2023 🙂
