The Truth about Leadership and I

While I have maintained a focus on leadership thus far, my heart is truly in the classroom. Some leadership opportunities I have taken on as a result of a school need. The ones that I am most passionate about are the ones that result out of a need that I notice needs to be met. While I know that we are really supposed to consider leadership in the broader sense the leadership that I most value is miniscule.

Below I have embedded some written reflections during this course under the heading of some important personal beliefs (not an exhaustive list) on leadership and learning.

Modelling - Let's show one another how to treat each other.

Caring and cooperation

When we go out of our way to support others and work together we show that they matter as does the work we are completing. It brings value to both.

Through the establishment of classroom guidelines and modelling a caring spirit to my students they understand that they are seen as humans who are expected to support and value one another as well as be supported and valued.

Trying - It doesn't always work out sometimes, and I normally don't do it right the first time

My students truly benefit from the variance that shared readings offer. Once I began to recognize all of the opportunities for it I began to use it much more. For example as I taught the students about animals we used posters as a shared reading lesson almost daily. The poster could be used multiple times during the day; both in science and again in language as we discussed advertisements and posters for media literacy. Shared reading material can come from sources such as the Saturday comics, Owl or Chickadee magazines, newspaper articles, maps, advertisements, brochures etc. With an open mind to shared readings I have discovered that students connect with a relevant society and see that school is just a reflection of that society. It increases their confidence to read texts that they might not consider accessible to themselves.

Referencing - Using the supports, either paper or people, help to affirm and refine your efforts.

In our classroom we are establishing a chunk wall. A chunk wall has the headings a,e,i,o,u. Through our shared readings we choose one or two words that have a common rime, for example, “ack” as in black. We brainstorm as many words as we can that include that rime such as “pack”, “quack” etc. Together we agree on one of the words as our “wall word”. The word goes on the wall under the appropriate vowel, in this case “a”.