What kind of teacher I want to be

Family Search's question for October 7th was: What valuable lessons have you learned from school that have helped you in your life?

Well the first valuable lesson I learned was to work hard, but I basically talked about that in my previous post about earning my straight A's. Another lesson I didn't recognize until years later was what kind of teacher I want to be when I am back in the classroom.

I want to be encouraging

A couple of posts ago I talked about my high school chemistry teacher and how she encouraged me to stay in her class and give chemistry a try. I want to be like that and positively encourage my students to give school a chance and work hard. I want them to know that I believe in them, and that not only do I want to help them, but I have the capabilities to help them.

I want to be a safe person

The majority of the seminary teachers at my high school were very focused on befriending the cool and popular kids. I think it was to keep them from ditching that class. There's nothing wrong with that, all students need their teachers to care about them; but sometimes it felt like other students were ignored at the expense of this focus on one particular group. Seminary especially should have been the safest place in the entire school, and unfortunately there were times where it wasn't. One semester there was a boy in my class who constantly verbally harassed me both under his breath and loud enough for the teacher to hear. The teacher never did anything about it. One day I had had enough and met with my teacher after school; he gave a bunch of excuses for the boy's behavior and wanted me to sympathize with him for his own difficulties in school. I did feel bad that boy was having a hard time, but that didn't mean he should get away with saying the things he was saying, and I was extremely disappointed and hurt that a seminary teacher would allow such language and behavior to be exhibited towards another student.

I want to be a safe person. I want my classroom to be as safe as possible. I want students to feel safe coming to me about anything. I also want to be able to stop such instances as mentioned above if they happen in  my classroom before the hurt student needs to meet with me after school. I understand that sometimes teachers miss things, they have 20-30+ students in their classroom. When I was doing my student teaching somethings I caught and took care of something right away. Some things I waited until class ended and pulled the involved students aside privately. Unfortunately, some things I did not catch, but it's something I plan to constantly work and improve on. Being a safe person, and working towards a safe classroom is very important to me.

I want my class to be survivable 

A couple of posts ago I talked about how the math department was set up so that students who weren't that great at math could still pass. I want my classroom to be similar. Not in the way homework and tests go; but the way I teach the content, and how class assignments/homework go. I want students who don't like history to walk away saying, "I don't like history, but Mrs. Ortega made it so that I could survive her class."

Obviously there are other aspects to teaching like the presentation of the content, the type of activities and lessons, etc. But outside of the actual subject matter, being encouraging, being safe, and being able to survive have always been important to me.