Future Goals

Improving as a Teacher

                Teaching, like most big endeavors, is extremely complex. This means that teaching well involves a multitude of pieces that must be taken into consideration. There are endless aspects to what and how I’m teaching that I must monitor and adjust: assessing, scaffolding, rate and tone and length of speech, content, relationships, grouping, environment, and pedagogy, to name a handful. And the skills and talents I wish to develop to be better at teaching are innumerous. Entering the Master of Arts in Education (MAED) program, my goal was to improve as a teacher, a great goal which I intend to continue reaching towards. But such an all-encompassing goal requires drilling down to take a closer look at the pieces of knowledge and skills that are part of this and determining which aspects to focus on when. The goals I am choosing to focus on now are informed by my time in the MAED program as well as my teaching experiences. There are three specific goal areas that I am currently focused on; learning and including justice-focused practices and curricula, organizing and evaluating resources, and using my learning to educate and inform my colleagues.

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1: Justice- and Equity-Focused Learning and Teaching

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My first and most important goal is to spend more of my energy and time on learning to be a justice- and equity-focused teacher. This was certainly a goal I had coming into the MAED program but has become more important and pronounced to me throughout the last four years. Two main experiences have made this goal come to the forefront. Firstly, I became part of an anti-racism book study. Secondly, I took a course in the MAED program titled, “Issues of Culture in Classroom and Curriculum.” Both challenged me immensely and reminded me of underlying truth that often impedes the good that education should be doing. Namely, that being an expert in content-area knowledge and delivery can still lead to failure if taught in ways that are inequitable and that ignore the racism, classism, ableism, and environmental harm built into our school systems and our society. I must be part of changing that in my teaching, my interactions with students and families, and my work with colleagues. To progress on this journey, I will continue to read and discuss with my book study group, independently, and, in the future, with co-workers. There are a multitude of resources I have found, one specific example being the Teaching Tolerance organization. I plan to use both their magazine and online resources to stay current in my knowledge and to find other voices and groups working towards goals of justice and equity.

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2: Organizing Resources

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As with justice- and equity- focused work, there are an astounding number of resources for other aspects of teaching. Therefore, a second goal is to organize the growing list of resources I am becoming aware of. This goal has seemed more urgent to me as I gain years of experience and therefore have an ever-widening knowledge of the resources available to me as offered by colleagues, professional developments, educational sites and leaders, and, of course, the classes I have taken in the master's program. But disorganized or scattered systems for tracking these resources (and how well they have served me or others in the past) makes them much less accessible. To make the resources readily available and easy to sort through, I need to make personal changes in how I save files, file paper copies, and keep record of my reflections on resources I have tried out. Much of this work has less to do with learning how to do it than with building that systems which allow me to do it However, I will use the knowledge and experience of other teachers, such as the advice offered in blogs such as this and this, to in inform my organizational strategies and systems.

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3: Sharing Knowledge and Resources

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Lastly, as I gain knowledge, skills, and resources, my goal is to be bold to share what I learn. I want to engage in sharing my knowledge, skills, and resources, as gained through study and experience. I can be a leader and advocate in the areas of teaching English Language Learners and in using equitable and anti-racist practices. My goal is to find ways to be that for the good of my students, my colleagues, and my schools. There are two primary ways I am seeking to reach this goal. One is to offer resources through a shared drive I began developing this past year. Resources include items such as background information on different refugee populations and a guide to working with interpreters. Another is bringing professional development around English Language Learners to my school building. I began partnering with our district’s EL coach to do so this past winter and plan to continue to do that during the 2020-2021 school year, depending on what school looks like!

These three goals are huge undertakings. Yet they are just pieces of being successful in an incredibly complex occupation. As I dive deeply into these goals, I am sure to find new areas for growth. But all along the way, I can be confident that I am moving towards the larger goal of improving as a teacher.

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