Would You Want You For a Teacher?

Would You Want You For a Teacher?

As we approach the end of the school year it is time to reflect on you accomplishments. Was this your first year as a teacher? Or is this your final year as you approach retirement. Has teaching been your chosen career from the beginning or did you choose teaching a career change or to capstone a career in public service.

This is time for a little reflection.

ü  What goals did you set out to achieve?

ü  What have been your accomplishments?

ü  What have been your greatest disappointments?

ü  What were your failures?

ü  Have you created plans to make next year a better and more productive one?

ü  Are you considering leaving the profession because it was unfulfilling?

ü  Did you work to change the lives of your students in a positive way?

In reflecting on the 2010-2011 school year and your performance in the classroom ask you self this question. Would you want to be a student in your class?

If your answer to this question is no, it is time to do some serious soul searching about yourself and your commitment to the education profession. There may have been some circumstances way beyond your control.  Perhaps you are in a school with a high transiency rate and it was nearly impossible to have a core of students in your class every day. You were searching for a consistency that was never there. Maybe there was some tragedy in your class, a death in a student’s family for example that served as a distraction. But there are other issues that are teacher centered. Were you focused on making your students a success? Were you able to engage your class (es) in educational activities that were challenging, exciting in an enthusiastic manner?

It is not too early to begin thinking about the 2011-2012 school year. Prepare a list of the positives and negatives of this year. From that you can begin check list of things that you can do this summer to prepare for next year. It is extremely important to reinvigorate yourself and recharge your pedagogical batteries this summer so that you will all set to enter the next school year with an infectious zeal that will spread to your students.