Ethical Educator - Article Analysis

I recently read this article on We Are Teachers titled "We need to stop rewarding teachers for not taking sick days". This article brought up a lot of good points about teachers not taking sick days, such as how it leads to others getting sick, sick teachers aren't great teachers for that day, it sets a bad example for students, you can't model work-life balance, and it plays into the teacher as a martyr story. All of these are definitely points I have felt and can agree with. I, as well as the article, also know that it is infinitely more work for me to be gone for a day than for me to just suffer through. I know I try and make it to a day where what I had planned is convenient or easy for a sub to do instead of taking the day when I might really need it, but students are doing like a hands on activity I need to be there for.

The article pointed out that districts and school leaders that don't insist on teachers taking time when sick send a message of mixed up priorities. As they put it "If a school would rather have a puking teacher put on Netflix for a day than pay for a sub, that's pretty clear evidence of confused priorities". This article kinda hit home for me because it's something that all teachers deal with. I know when I'm gone, I'm constantly worrying about my kids' behavior and if what I had planned is actually working and getting done with students or trying to gameplan what I can do when I get back based on what they got done when I was gone and then feeling guilty when I don't get a sub and my classes are covered by other coworkers in the building on their preps.

I think ethically this is a big issue. One of the major elements of all the ethics codes we looked at, talked about creating a safe learning environment for students. If teachers are coming in sick instead of taking a day, you're going to infect your students and get them sick. We are also tasked with being good ethical role models. As the article outright states, teachers coming to work sick are modeling bad work-life balance for our students in the future. It's teaching them that it is more important to be at work instead of taking time for yourself to get better. The United States as a whole has huge problems with taking time off of work - regardless of what industry you are in. We don't take vacations or sick days because we feel guilty about leaving our company and jobs high and dry without someone to work - IT SHOULDN'T BE THAT WAY! Everyone should not feel guilty about taking a sick day to get better or taking a vacation to maintain your mental health and give yourself a break. I think the biggest ethical problem with this is that modeling aspect. We need to showcase to our students that it's important to take time for yourself; whether it be for mental health and balance or for recouping from sickness.

Rocks in my shoes

I think some of the major rocks in my shoes are the fact that I hate letting people down and I don't like admitting I need help. I tend to bottle things up instead of complaining or asking for help because it makes me feel weak. I also think that's just how I grew up; I'm the oldest in my family and I grew up during a time where my parents kinda needed me to be self-sufficient and just kinda get things done and not put up a fuss. Vice versa, my sister and brother are the opposite; especially my sister. If something is wrong with her, everyone in our family knows because she puts up a big fuss about it until it's figured out. So like where I would feel bad asking my parents to have me go in and get my bad knees checked or my eyes checked or such because I didn't want them to have to worry about doctors bills or scheduling stuff and I could just deal with it; my sister would pester my mom constantly to go get her wrist checked out or go get braces and orthodontics and such done. I've always been the independent, responsible one in my family; I have cooked most of my meals since forever for example and my siblings will get my parents to cook for them at home. Because I'm known as the independent one who just handles her stuff, I think mentally I see asking for help as a problem and it can cause me to over book myself and struggle to tell people "no" because I want to help them.

I think I've started getting better at saying "No" to things and being more realistic about what things I can and can't do. For example, last year I was a full-time assistant director of the school play and everything else in my life suffered because I agreed to suddenly work until 5:45pm everyday. This year, I've turned down being the tech director and told my colleague I can only do 3 days a week to try and balance a bit better. It's still really hard to do this because I want to be there and to help and I know a part of me is going to struggle with actually holding firm to my 3 days a week, but I know it's gonna be for my benefit. I'm trying to be more open with my friends as well about things going on in my life like family health issues and such. I just kinda need to remind myself that they are here for me just like I've been here for them, and I'm not being a burden when I talk to them about it.

I'm still in this transition zone with being more open and asking for help but I know it's gonna make me less stressed and happier because I have more support from people but it's definitely a process. Just last week, it almost pained me to ask my team teachers if they could reach out to parents to confirm if they were coming to a conference or not instead of me doing it because I just didn't have the time. So it's definitely going to be a journey.

Presence Activity with Students

After being challenged to create an activity for my classes that lets them apply their learning in a more humorous or fun way, I decided to have my students create government memes. We were talking about different types of government and who was in charge for each already in class and instead of my old review, I wanted to try something new. Students were broken into small groups and drew one of the types of government that we talked about in class. Then they were required to make a meme that alluded to their type of government without using the actual word so we could quiz ourselves on them.

This was to serve as a way for them to review who was in charge of making decisions and how each government actually functioned after we talked about them in class. My hopes and dreams were that this would be something quick and fun for students to do - as memes are huge with a lot of 8th graders and I wanted to find something that would take less time than my past review activity which involved them creating their own island government and then classifying it.

This allowed my students to incorporate some creativity into their review and some critical thinking about which meme base and what text would best convey the type of government that they had.

Overall, it went decent......there were definitely some major challenges. I had found a meme making site on my laptop that I thought worked at school......it didn't on the kids ipads. So my first hour we ended up trying it and then just skipping it and moving on because I had blocked out over half the class to do it and it wasn't working(thank god for having the next thing prepped and ready). Over lunch, I quickly figured out my backup plan which was this teacher created meme template that utilized a google drawing template to create a meme from teacher chosen pictures. Students would just drag the one they wanted and then add text and be good, right? Wrong. We tried it with my next hour and they couldn't seem to drag the photos on their ipad(grrrrr). But, in that hour, one of my students was able to find a meme generator that worked so we ended up using that and actually was able to create some for the rest of the day. We had some really good ones that made some really good connections and I had some students who were really confused as to how a meme worked.

I think in the future, if I used memes again I would find an easier way for them to be able to make them on their ipads(and have my advisory kids test the website to make sure it worked - that way I would have my prep to fix it if necessary). I think I would also show them some examples of what I was looking for to help clarify for those who don't know what memes are or how they work.

However, this was a kinda cool way to get them to apply the knowledge and I did have a vast majority of my students get pretty into it - especially my meme boys who traditionally are not into doing work which was kinda cool. But definitely learned to test sites with my advisory kids and not just my staff laptop.......

Gratitude

Above I have a picture of my students about to jump into a pile of leaves. This is my reminder of gratitude for this year. Every year, our 8th grade students go and rake leaves of people's yards who are not able to do so as a service project. This is my third year doing it with them and I'm always surprised with how well it goes. Every year, I'm always a little worried because the class we are taking is my toughest class or the kids aren't buying in to the whole service project thing when we go over the info or it's Thursday and we have no rakes for the next day brought in or we are the only people at our two houses so hopefully everything goes smoothly since I can't be everywhere in the yards at once. And every year, I have those worries but it ends up being one of my favorite days. It's a day where I get to just be with my kids for a whole afternoon and we get to rake leaves and jump into them and then get to work.

This year, I was especially worried because my 7th hour is my most rambunctious and there were a lot of comments of "why are we doing this if we aren't getting anything from it?" and it's also a big class. But they pulled it together and it was an amazing day! I was able to watch my kids work together to accomplish tasks(either bagging leaves, maneuvering a tarp to push leaves on the street, or just do odd jobs around the farm we go to). Many of the kids were a huge surprise with how much they did when we were out - I swear two of my boys who don't do much in class, raked half of the first lawn we were at! I'm so grateful for the qualities in my students that make a classroom environment a little harder but when we do things like this, they excel. I did have to clarify for a few kids that the people we are helping aren't able to do this themselves, so we might be doing it for nothing but it's a good deed. Once they saw the owner of the first house, I think it hit home for them. I'm so grateful for days like this where I get to see my students in a different light and I get to see just how well they do come together to get something done. And I found out that some actually listen, since they came up to me and said "she offered us water, but we said we couldn't take it cause it's a service project, like you told us" lol. Overall, I need to remember that the day always goes well and I'm so grateful that I get this time with my kids each year.

True Artistry

According to St. Francis of Assisi, a true artist works with their hands, head, heart and soul. I like to think that I am on the path of becoming a true artist of a teacher. My hands are used for the daily tasks: typing, writing lesson plans or notes, pointing out buttons and directions on students' screens, moving tables so they are in the right position, posting seating charts, giving fist-bumps or high fives of encouragement to students. My head is used to develop those lesson plans and to think about which students I need to touch base with, who's leaving early, what's going on in the schedule today, this isn't working so how do I problem solve it, all the minutia we have to think about on a daily basis. Teachers always use our hands and head. My heart is my genuine love and appreciation for my kids. They are MY kids because they hold a special place in my heart. I love to see them grow and interact with them and each other. To laugh with them and see how their day is going. My soul I think comes from the fact that I genuinely can't think of what I would be satisfied and happy doing if I wasn't teaching. I feel like I would go insane if I had a normal business job or was stuck in a cubicle - I almost lost it this last week because I had to have my classroom in rows for testing instead of my convoluted pods/row/floor seats/chairs system I usually have. The only thing I could think of possibly doing besides teaching, is teaching other teachers or working in some sort of a technology position. My days would just be so boring without my students and their crazy but lovable antics.

My Motto

I would say that the motto I try to uphold and use in my class would be "I create Global Thinkers". It's a little cheesy; especially when I teach a Global Studies class, but I think it really does align with my beliefs and hopes of what I accomplish in my classroom. We talk a lot about being Geo-literate or understanding the world around you in order to decide how to utilize resources and solve problems better. We also focus on and try to problem solve various issues in each region around the world. I sincerely hope that when students leave my class, they feel empowered to create change and to do so understanding the world around them and being ready to do so respectfully of other cultures. I hope that they understand that the world is all connected and that what happens in one area of the world affects everyone. I also hope they realize that they have the tools and power in the future to affect change and make the world a better place. I love when we get to the part of the year where they get to create solutions to issues or when they really become invested in the problem and passionate about it; especially if it isn't U.S. centered.

Adaptation

For our class, we focused on looking at how schools can adapt through a constructivist lens. As I was reading the article, I was constantly reminded of our school district. Since we got a new superintendent last year, we have really taken the steps outlined in the reading. Our district has struggled with two failed referendums for a new building and stadium facility prior to this new superintendent. When he came in, he instituted plans to get feedback from all the groups in our district; students, teachers, admin, and community members, on what they wanted to see happen in the district moving forward. It has been a collaborative effort on all decisions and they have been grounded in lots of feedback and data. the whole last year was spent in different listening and data collection sessions to hear from all the different groups involved about what they wanted to see done and from that, we have created a program or intervention for the future that is highly focused.

Within my personal building, we still struggle with this constructivist lens. We do still have a lot of agendas or new implementations being introduced almost from out of nowhere or with little explanation for why we need them or the reasoning behind them. We also have a tendency to start the constructivist process but then leap forward without really reflecting on it and improving it. My example for this is our new storm program that 8th grade helped to develop and pilot last year that kinda felt forced upon the other grades before we as a grade level were able to really figure out the kinks and adjust; and without the other grade levels really having a say in wanting to try it out. I think to become more constructivist as a building, we need to have more opportunities to develop initiatives and revisit them with teacher input and more communication with why we are doing things. I think, we as a school also tend to like to claim we do all the things, but we do them all very superficially instead of doing a few things really great.

My action research and the process going through it will include a lot of explanation for why we are doing the reading of the novels as well as student feedback on how what we are doing is helping them. I'm trying something new to help my students build their content knowledge and comprehension skills.