Sharing Is Caring

There are a lot of ways that teachers and leaders can share their work. Looking at this from an Early Childhood majors perspective I think of two main outlets for sharing. The first outlet would be a social media site called Pinterest. This is a great way for teachers to demonstrate different activities they've done with their students, creative ways to incorporate classroom posters around the room, ways to organize your classroom more effectively, or even other websites that are helpful to teachers! I have already started an extensive "board", on Pinterest, with ideas and hacks that I can use as a future teacher! This may just be because I am a Pinterest addict. The second outlet that I see to be VERY helpful is TeachersPayTeachers.com. I currently work at Leggett Elementary School in Akron and all the teachers I work with their use this site quite frequently. At Leggett, they focus a great deal on Reading and Math centers. This website is a great way for teachers to share successful centers they have created. Other teachers simply sign on and can then purchase the pdf file of these centers to print and use as their own. They are all copyrighted and unable to be resold so that protects the original creator while also allowing teachers to share among each other. I see this site as a GREAT tool for teachers to connect with one another and share the success they have had doing certain activities with their students. Although these two outlets are great, it doesn't mean that they are the only ones out there. Just as well, not all sharing is only online. The teachers that I work with use these sites and then coordinate together to share what they have found. Especially the team of teachers I work with. I work with the 2nd grade team at Leggett and they use each other as an outlet just as much as the internet. This is especially true for the newer teachers. They utilize the older teachers and how they have handled certain situations a lot. I think this is a great learning tool. Mainly because when people can collaborate together they can brainstorm off of one another to make things even better.

When it comes to what to share or being concerned with being error free, I look at these two the same. I think there should be errors when it comes to sharing. I think other teacher should see when something is ineffective. This way they know not to try an activity like it. I see this on Pinterest a lot. There are tons of activities and hacks out there that work for teachers, however, every once and a while there are some activities that don't work out too well. These activities should be shared! So when it comes to an "error free" media, I don't see this as an effective method at all. We are all humans and we all make mistakes. Acting as if that is untrue merely paints the wrong image. Not only between teachers but also for students. If you are sharing information with students regardless of their age and you put on this facade that as an educator you are "error free" you are sending them the wrong impression. Students will feel more comfortable possibly making a mistake of their own if they see that their teacher is capable of a few their self. When it comes to "what not to share" I believe that sharing failures is a great thing in demonstrating how to do it the right way. However, if a teacher is sharing the failure of a student we, as educators, need to ensure we are not sharing whom that student is. Regardless if they were to ever know that we shared their failures for others to see or not, it is our job as educators to protect our students and help them grow not break them down when they do not succeed. Sharing everything helps to show the good and the bad. It helps teachers to see that not everything is going to work and that is okay. Just as well, things can also be mediocre, which can translate to other teachers taking these things and expanding on them. Brainstorming together to better them. I believe sharing everything can have a positive effect in the fact that you can gain the effect things and learn from the not so much!

This goes along with what needs to be learned "off stage" in order to build children up rather than break them down. Even if a child is is unsuccessful at a lot of things it is very important to keep building them up so that they keep their own confidence, even if they are struggling. This reminds me of a little boy I was working with in the classroom I help out in. He has quite a bit of difficulty reading and therefore his test scores mirror that. When he was taking a reading test last week the teacher asked me to read him the story and questions to see how he did comprehension wise rather than his ability to read the words on the paper. I did so, and he got a 100%. Not because I helped him along in any of the answers but simply because he knew what he was doing he just struggled being able to read the passage. This doesn't mean we aren't continually helping him with his reading skills. But when it comes to tests we're more focused on what he is capable of, rather than what he isn't. I believe this is making sure that what he is capable of doing isn't overshadowed by what he isn't able to do.

As a teacher I hope to do any and everything that I can to better my students. With this comes some downfall and I am okay with that. I encourage criticism so that I am capable of bettering what I am doing as a teacher for the children I am responsible for. This means being involved in the community where I am teaching. Knowing my students and their families. Being able to identify their problem areas and maybe where that is coming from. I want to be personally involved in my students so that if something isn't working or parents aren't seeing progress in their child, I am able to go about it a different way and fix whatever that issue may be. I hope to use all of the resources that I have discussed in this blog. I want to incorporate ideas I've found on Pinterest and from other teacher, either in my community or others a far. That way I can ensure that my students are open to whatever options they need to succeed. All in all, I see sharing as a great tool among teachers and students. Therefore, I plan to fully use sharing in my teaching career as a way to not only better my students learning, but also my own!