Thursday, December 25, 2014

2015 Peaceful Response

With a focus on love and peace in the new year, I'm thinking of what that will look like and the words that will lead to this?

At the center of this work is the desire to provide every child with a life affirming, future-ready, holistic program. I want my students to learn with happiness, care, engagement, empowerment, and success.

Classroom Actions
How can I make learning a dynamic, engaging, inviting activity for each and every student?
  • Focus on the standards
  • Focus on individual student needs and interests
  • Focus on hands-on, project-base, differentiated learning
  • Listen and respond to students, their families, colleagues and others with respect to student needs.
  • Continue learning
Collegial Care and Collaboration
How can I work with colleagues to develop a top-notch, student-friendly, welcoming and successful learning environment?
  • Listen, observe, and incorporate the ideas of others
  • Debate and discuss with depth, care, research, and the shared goals in mind
  • Ask questions when policies are not clear
  • Contribute and help out when possible
Learning and Professional Development
How can I continue to learn in ways that positively affect the teaching/learning work I do and environments I contribute to?
  • Continued share with my PLN online and offline via reading, conferences, chats, and debate
  • Continued writing and reflection about the learning I do
  • Organization of my blog into a more manageable and accessible collection of ideas, practice,  questions, and think on my new blog/website: TeachWell Collections and Connections.
Personal Health and Happiness
How can I balance my professional life and personal life in ways that matter?
  • Engage in interests new and old: music, nature, friends, home, travel. . . .
  • Follow a healthy weekly routine of living (always the challenge :))
  • Make time for sleep, rest, relaxation, fun
  • Care for those I love the most.
The year ahead's path is invigorated by a central question that I am passionate about:
How do we teach children well?

I am committed to this quest because together I believe we can positively impact the world in ways that matter if we pool our insights and good work to create the best possible environments for learning and care inside and outside of school. 

Like me, we all have room for growth in this endeavor, and I look forward to this positive development in the year ahead.