Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Personal Mission

My mission in school is to model and teach how to become a "life-long" learner. As a teacher, I learn something new each year. I learn new things about myself, my students, and about the profession. I am constantly put into new and diverse situations where I have to reflect on my beliefs and, many times, I have to create different solutions to one problem. My mission is simple, and yet it can be very complex. I love what I teach, and I love teaching. I hope that my passion for my subject is contagious, and I hope that students will want to explore more than just what I present to them in class. Over the years, I have had some reassurance that this mission has been completed, when a few students had brought to class websites, articles, etc. that they found on their own time and shared them.

5 comments:

Kate E said...

This sounds a lot like what we were talking about tonight. It sounds like you really teach by example and through your love of learning your kids will love to learn as well. I'm sure that your passion for problem solving and evaluating problems and finding different solutions will be contagious!

MattB said...

As a relatively new teacher (3 years) I agree with the fact that both students and teachers need to be "life-long" learners. Throughout my first few years it has been a constant learning process. I learn something new everyday, and I try to apply what I have learned into my teaching. Being a teacher means there's always room for growth and development, and I believe this should be modeled in the classroom.

PrincipalStein said...

Thank you kate e! I hope that this passion is transpired. I know that there have been days that I have become overly passionate, and actually "scare" the students. I could stand there and tell the students to be passionate about math, and we know that would go in one ear and out the other. However, if I model the behavior, I hope they will catch on....eventually.

Jay said...

I agrree with you that our role as a teacher is to model as a learner. Being a teacher means consistant growth. I once had a supervision professor that said "when i feel I have nothing left to learn as a teacher...it's time for me to retire."

PrincipalStein said...

Jay- that is a great quote, and so true! I think that we learn things about ourselves through experiences in the profession. Sometimes teachers can lose perspective and forget how exciting learning can be. I know when I feel that things are monotonous, I change things up, make it more exciting for myself. When I do this, I try to spark some interest in my students. I hope this is something I don't forget.