Lifelong learning starts here.
I was always drawn to Language Arts and World Language classes because of their connection to the human experience. Literature in Language Arts showed me the world through another’s eyes; the language of French showed me cultures unlike my own.
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My education taught me how to use a semicolon in my writing, how to conjugate regular verbs in French, and how to analyze the author’s purpose in a story. But the most important lesson of my education was when I learned that everyone -- truly, everyone -- experiences life as fully and as vividly as I am in this very moment.
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So began my lifelong learning in empathy, a value that is central to how I live today.
A LESSON IN EMPATHY
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For the next steps in my career, I’ve decided on three professional goals that are rooted in my personal value of empathy. My first goal is to use technology to create authentic learning experiences for my French students, which will allow them to connect with people who are different. My second goal is to receive training on trauma-informed teaching, which will help me be more sensitive to students’ personal needs. Lastly, my third goal is to create and share resources for countering the effects of burnout in teachers’ lives, which will let me support teachers who carry the same burdens I do. Embedded in each of these goals is my commitment to learning more about the human experience and how important it is that we acknowledge each other’s life stories.
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"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
HARPER LEE
MY NEXT LEARNING GOALS
1. Integrate technology into World Language learning that assists in increasing global awareness and authentic language experience for students.
As a French teacher, I believe that language goes beyond words, syntax, and grammar -- language is a pathway to learning about different people’s beliefs, values, and ways of life. I’m eager to prepare students for real-world experiences in the French language and to explore the intricacies of French and Francophone cultures around the world. While our current classroom activities allow students to practice their French together, I know their experience is limited within our four walls. Our current French department is actively seeking improved methods of integrating technology into our curriculum, knowing that technology creates opportunities to connect students to the world beyond the classroom. To help achieve this goal, I am attending the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) Conference and observing another school district’s French program to discover new ways to integrate technology into our curriculum.
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2. Develop strategies for implementing trauma-informed teaching that allows me to better care for students’ needs.
Every student is an individual with life experience and beliefs about themselves that impact their behavior in the classroom. For some students, they enter the room feeling destined for success; for others, they enter the room already feeling defeated. I want to better understand how to respond to students who carry the weight of traumatic experiences into their learning, so that I can support them with greater sensitivity. Believing firmly that quality education changes lives, I want to reach those students who resist and defy us. This year, I plan to receive training through Communities In Schools to learn strategies for trauma-informed teaching in hopes of breaking those barriers between teacher and student.
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3. Create and present resources on teacher burnout to support my professional community.
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Teaching takes our time, energy, and emotional capacity, but I do not believe that teaching should deplete our mental health or impose upon our personal lives. My master’s program gave me the opportunity to research teacher burnout, and I discovered common causes of burnout and strategies for revitalizing from burnout. My current role in the New Educator Support Team (no current website) that meets in Haslett, MI, has allowed me to start developing and presenting resources about how to decrease burnout and increase job satisfaction. Though I don’t know exactly where this work will lead, I hope to present my work at education conferences and develop a curricular program for teachers to help them revitalize from burnout.
LIFELONG LEARNER OF PEOPLE
My future learning goals are all about people. They’re about connecting students to the world, taking care of my students’ needs, and helping teachers experience their work with greater joy. Each goal requires me to build relationships, collaborate, and take care of others -- to be a lifelong learner of the people in my life.
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Moving forward, I chose these goals because I believe that to empathize with another person, to be able to walk alongside someone in their world, is to experience life more fully and more vividly than if we were to walk alone.
I believe that to empathize with another person, to be able to walk alongside someone in their world, is to experience life more fully and more vividly than if we were to walk alone.