By Heather Skipworth Craven
"The reflections on a day well spent furnish us with joys more pleasing than ten thousand triumphs."
- Thomas Kempis
It is hard to fathom that the end of the school year is in sight. The group of students that we've come to know as a community, spent eight hours a day with for the past ten months will be moving on. We've worked tirelessly to not only teach skills and objectives, but establish relationships. This transition is another rite of passage and as experienced teachers have found, every group of students you have is unique. And as with any progression I think it's valuable for teachers to reflect on where they have come, and what goals have been accomplished. It's important for us to not only evaluate what our students have learned, but what we have learned about ourselves from the experiences of the school year.
An ongoing goal for teachers should be to develop a constant process of evaluation to improve ones skills as an educator. The last eight years of my classroom experience were spent working with severely behavior/emotionally disordered students. My teacher assistant who was not only a valued coworker but a dear friend and I got into the habit very early on in our partnership of taking the opportunity each afternoon after our students left to have some time just to sit and talk about the days' events.
We would verbally walk through the day, what worked, what didn't, the victories, the crisis, exchange ideas or just listen to each other vent. Yes, there was always a mountain of paperwork, phone calls, meetings to attend, but we purposely set this time aside, even if it was only a few minutes. Our sessions served as a way for us to release the emotional tension and baggage that could build up especially after a difficult day. But our primary focus was always on what we could do to improve our program. As our year progressed we were able to reflect on the goals we had accomplished and brainstorm ways to better serve our students.
When reflecting about the school year, I think it is helpful to ask and answer what and how questions. For example:
- What short and long term goals did I want to accomplish this year?
- How did I achieve or not achieve those goals?
- What resources and support did I need to accomplish our goals?
- How did I obtain these resources and support?
- What were some obstacles that I encountered this year?
- How did I work through these obstacles?
There are variables that we can and cannot control each year we teach. We do have specific curriculum objectives to teach each year and hopefully our routines and procedures don't vary drastically every year. We do not know what kinds of students we will have in our classroom and how they will affect the dynamics of the group. What we CAN do is use reflection at the end of each school year to evaluate both the positives and negatives.
Reflection is the mirror into which we can be honest with ourselves, with our triumphs and defeats and continually strive to be truly outstanding educators. It is through this reflection that we can work towards a fresh start for the new school year with our goals clearly in mind. So, take some time this summer to reflect on this past year's successes and failures and apply those reflections during your planning process for the upcoming school year.
Read our tip entitled
"Prepare for the End of the School Year".
