Category: teacher value

Linda Markley

Champions

calling to make a difference, Passion, professional development, Purpose, Spirit of teaching, Teacher Appreciation, teacher hero, teacher mental health, teacher self-care, teacher struggles, teacher support, teacher value, teacher well-being, teachers as role models, Wholehearted teaching

It is that designated time of year again when we are to celebrate teachers with “Teacher Appreciation Week”.

So, I thought I would remind everyone what exactly a teacher is and why they deserve to be celebrated.

When we think of the word “champion”, we usually think of it in terms of athletes and sporting events (which, by the way, too many children idolize and want to be winning athletes who become famous and make ridiculous amounts of money! That’s another topic for another day for sure!)

When I think of champions, I am reminded of teachers and the powerful Ted Talk that Rita Pierson gave entitled “Every Child Needs a Champion”.

You can watch it here.  

Teachers ARE champions and should be celebrated and appreciated and compensated as such!

As a noun, the word “champion” is from Latin campus meaning field (of combat), which came to mean someone who is a “combatant in a field”.

As a verb, champion means “to fight for, defend, protect, maintain or support by contest or challenge”.

Many teachers feel like the classroom is a “field of combat” anymore because of all the accusations, allegations, instigations that are happening to them via parents, students and even admin and colleagues sometimes.

Teaching is hard…no doubt about it!

But I would like to share a different perspective that might inspire and give hope to teachers (and no, it is not toxic positivity, so don’t even go there!)

I thought of how a field is also where we can wander, explore and even grow food or flowers for sustenance or enjoyment.

What kind of field of “dreams” are we creating everyday in the classroom?

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Linda Markley

Relationships

calling to make a difference, communication, creating community, making connections, Maslow before Blooms, Purpose, Resources, Strategies, teacher behavior, teacher choices, teacher hero, teacher mental health, teacher resources, teacher support, teacher value, teachers as role models, Wholehearted teaching

I was recently watching some episodes of the 2006-2011 TV series Friday Night Lights.

If you are not familiar with it, you can check out more about it here.

The main characters are Eric, a high school football coach, and his wife, Tammy who is a high school guidance counselor.

There are, of course, many themes that play throughout the show related to football, high school, education and life in general.

The thing I love the most is the theme of relationships and how building relationships and nurturing them is a key element to success both in and out of school.

Both Eric and Tammy understand that making connections and investing in the relationships with students are the most essential ingredients to creating a positive and thriving school environment and culture.

It is not about test scores, blue ribbons, trophies on the shelf or rankings on a list.

It is about being role models, showing up for kids, believing in them and walking beside them as they make their way on the path of life.

This is what we do as educators every single day in the classroom.

And with every single teacher I have ever spoken to, the greatest reward and the fondest memories and what keeps them going as an educator come from the relationships they have created and nurtured with their students.

It is understandably tough to reach out, be vulnerable and make connections with students.

It is sometimes a painful, energy and time sucking process, but the payoff is priceless, timeless and energizing.

What are some things we can do to create a classroom culture of 

nurturing relationships with our students and also, among our students?

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Linda Markley

Place Value

calling to make a difference, Spirit of teaching, Teacher Appreciation, teacher support, teacher value

Teacher Appreciation Week was just celebrated last week.

What did you do for a teacher to show them how much you appreciate and value what they do?

What value do you place on education and the educators that do so much to make a difference in the life of a child, and therefore, this world in which we all live?

To explore this very critical topic a little, I want to play around a little with these two words:  PLACE and VALUE.

In Math, place value refers to the value of a digit based on its position in a number.

For example, in the number 463,  the digit 4 has a place value of 400 because it is in the hundreds place. The digit 3 has a place value of 3 because it is in the ones column.

Sometime I think about place value in terms of how we rate, rank and value teachers in the education profession.

I could change the syntax of the words and ask “what VALUE do we PLACE” on teachers?

This totally changes the meaning, doesn’t it?

When we place a value on a teacher based on their student test scores, it seems like we are just ranking them and putting them in a place among other numbers and digits.

So, a teacher whose student test scores are ranked 26th out of 30 schools in the district will not have much value placed on what they have done and on who they are as a teacher.

There are so many mitigating circumstances and uncontrollable variables that can affect those scores, and therefore, that ranking. 

Zero is the absence of value, and is just a placeholder. 

YET, it can seem to add great value to a number.

For example, 5…50…500…and so on.

Which has more value?

It seems to me that the more zeros, the more value???

Wait, what???

That’s not how math works!

The more zeros a student has, the more value?

Hmmmmm, I say, scratching my head!

What do I mean by all this? (more…)

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