Reflection on Student Teaching

Teaching Superpowers

Throughout this school year I have found that my natural penchant for individual or group interaction lends itself to fostering genuine, caring relationships with my students. Conversing and working closely with students has continued to be the core strength in my practice as an educator and will continue to be honed and used in any capacity I do within education. Another strength as an educator has been my ability to reflect on what is and isn’t working, seeking feedback from my colleagues and students to tweak and adjust my lessons and projects. This strength will continue to be key as I seek feedback from colleagues, students, and parents to continue to hone my practice. 

 

Areas of Growth

While fostering genuine relationships with my students is important to creating the space for their best work, I have found that often enough I do not have the answers they are looking for because we have such an open-ended classroom. Although in a controlled lesson I can usually expect certain questions, when it comes to running a project on a full-scale, there are a variety of questions they ask that I didn’t think of and I believe that I need to grow in what questions to expect. This’ll help me be a better educator as I plan around these questions students may have, and while it’ll never be perfect, to continually plan for certain questions will provide a better teacher for my students. 

 

Antiracist Educator

As a multiracial man, I would be remiss to exclude my own dealings with racism and colorism in our society from the classroom. I would be betraying my ancestors, before and after me, to exclude the voices of how a racist past and present have effected us…affected their teacher they see before them. For me to be an antiracist educator is to create opportunities for my students to have the freedom to explore and learn about numerous cultures and ethnicities. It is to have students, all students, reckon with the past of America that has been inundated in colonialism and enslavement. This said, it is more than a simple “Land Acknowledgment” or celebration of Black lives in February. It is reading from a diversity of authors, comparing and contrasting the way our past has been written compared to the true details, and incorporating the joy and happiness these groups have celebrated historically and presently.

 

​How Might I...

Investigate myself and what my skillset provides best for my return to education? There are a variety of skills I need to work on as I grow in my practice, no matter what direction I go, and I would like to continue to work on these while I step away. Throughout the year away, how might I continue to hone these skills despite not being the classroom? Is it possible?