As a teacher, it is easy to think about culture and immediately focus on what's happening inside our classrooms. It's where we spend all of our time, and often we are the only adult in the room. This creates a conception that teaching is an isolated affair. That what we ultimately do in our classroom is ours and ours alone and that what the teacher next door is doing doesn't really affect how we work.
And I think this is a misguided assumption. Teaching isn't just about me and what I'm doing in the classroom with my students. It's as much about who I'm surrounded by, and the attitudes and mindsets of the other teachers.
As preservice teachers, my peers and I spend days in classrooms observing, and nights at school, learning research and methodology for teaching. We are asked over and over again to reflect on what is important to us as educators, how to effectively facilitate academic learning, and what it means to teach the whole student as a social and emotional human being. All of the experiences we get as students frame the way we think about education. For me, and likely for many of my peers, it forces us to step firmly into our beliefs about who we are and why we're doing what we're doing.
What I've found is that the beliefs we've so carefully developed don't always connect with the beliefs of the teachers we are asked to work with. We are affected, as humans, by the people we are surrounded by. What's that Chuck Palahnuik quote? "Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known."
Here's the problem I've seen myself and my peers running into: What if you're surrounded by teachers who are uninterested in expecting success from their students? Or who focus on compliance before learning? Or who just have negative attitudes all the way around?
I know that when we are student teaching, we're supposed to be "finding our voice" and figuring out how to be ourselves as teachers, but that's such an impossible expectation. Regardless of the placement, we become shadows of the cooperating teachers, and we (intentionally or unintentionally) adopt the mindset of our environment.
A friend of mine is particularly frustrated right now because she was told something along the lines of "I've never seen you be so negative with your students," when that's exactly what she strives to avoid doing. And she's found that the teachers at her school as a whole are just like that. Unnecessarily negative. Focused on students' deficits rather than their ability to grow. She's fighting against this culture and it's overwhelming.
Even I have found that I'm a different teacher with different cooperating teachers. Some versions of myself I love. Some I despise.
The people who you spend your time with matters. I know we spend most of our time with the students, and not other teachers, but it is up to the teachers to provide a culture where the students feel safe, welcome, wanted, and capable. We are their models. If we could work together and be more positive and supportive with each other, imagine what our students could do.
It frustrates me when those of us who are learning and want nothing more than to be the best teachers we can be are surrounded by teachers who don't want to do the same for themselves. We're students too. Be models for us.
And I think this is a misguided assumption. Teaching isn't just about me and what I'm doing in the classroom with my students. It's as much about who I'm surrounded by, and the attitudes and mindsets of the other teachers.
As preservice teachers, my peers and I spend days in classrooms observing, and nights at school, learning research and methodology for teaching. We are asked over and over again to reflect on what is important to us as educators, how to effectively facilitate academic learning, and what it means to teach the whole student as a social and emotional human being. All of the experiences we get as students frame the way we think about education. For me, and likely for many of my peers, it forces us to step firmly into our beliefs about who we are and why we're doing what we're doing.
What I've found is that the beliefs we've so carefully developed don't always connect with the beliefs of the teachers we are asked to work with. We are affected, as humans, by the people we are surrounded by. What's that Chuck Palahnuik quote? "Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known."
Here's the problem I've seen myself and my peers running into: What if you're surrounded by teachers who are uninterested in expecting success from their students? Or who focus on compliance before learning? Or who just have negative attitudes all the way around?
I know that when we are student teaching, we're supposed to be "finding our voice" and figuring out how to be ourselves as teachers, but that's such an impossible expectation. Regardless of the placement, we become shadows of the cooperating teachers, and we (intentionally or unintentionally) adopt the mindset of our environment.
A friend of mine is particularly frustrated right now because she was told something along the lines of "I've never seen you be so negative with your students," when that's exactly what she strives to avoid doing. And she's found that the teachers at her school as a whole are just like that. Unnecessarily negative. Focused on students' deficits rather than their ability to grow. She's fighting against this culture and it's overwhelming.
Even I have found that I'm a different teacher with different cooperating teachers. Some versions of myself I love. Some I despise.
The people who you spend your time with matters. I know we spend most of our time with the students, and not other teachers, but it is up to the teachers to provide a culture where the students feel safe, welcome, wanted, and capable. We are their models. If we could work together and be more positive and supportive with each other, imagine what our students could do.
It frustrates me when those of us who are learning and want nothing more than to be the best teachers we can be are surrounded by teachers who don't want to do the same for themselves. We're students too. Be models for us.