Wk 4 Reflection

Today as I reflect on my leadership project, I recall a lot of things my grandmother told me about teaching. She is a retired Home Economics teacher and her students still greet and hug her today, years after retirement. She turned ninety this week and is still going strong. She helps young mothers in our church, holding fussy babies or giving someone a safety pin. She always has a bag with her. In those bags are tissues, either for a runny nose or to put some food away from a young person that doesn’t like a particular vegetable. She never made excuses about anything. Her mother died when she was five and her father at the age of fifteen. Her and her siblings looked after each other, finished school and all earned certificates and degrees. Her older sister became a nurse, her younger sister a teacher. Her older brothers went on to be a barber and union electrical worker. All of this without their parents for a major portion of their lives. One thing that she told me when I started studying to become an educator was “Say what you mean and mean what you say”. In the classroom I have found this to be the most valuable resource. If I tell my students that we will be discussing a video, I better have that video cued up when they walk in the room. They expect it. In fact they demand it.

This leadership project has forced me to hold myself accountable for what I do for my students. I try to model for them what I expect from them. It’s challenging, but rewarding when I see them leading out in projects or taking charge for warm ups.