Afternoon Pages:

“This I (Now) Believe…”

I still believe that love and enjoyment should be back in the classroom. We as a being get used to what we are comfortable with and in most cases that are thinking, acting, being with other people who share those thoughts. It is causing a major gap in the way we are teaching and educating. We are used to what we, as the teacher, should be addressed in school. Which is clearly not working, it is leaving gaps and holes that no one knows how to fix. Not that I believe I have the solution to fix those but I think that by creating this feeling of love and enjoyment the children are more willing to step out of that comfort zone that normal classrooms put them in. I think especially with talking about social justice and inclusion of different cultures, we need the flexibility to enlighten the students on new situations. Help them feel comfortable enough to step out and be okay with failing because they know that we won’t hate them. I think having that love for the students and showing the students how to love and respect the other students makes them more eager to want to try. The more we read “Why We Teach Now” makes me understand that there are teachers who share this as well, but not enough teachers believe in the love that they have and so they are giving up when there is a little resistance. Like I said prior it’s uncomfortable in sharing an emotion that many have a had time even giving words to, but that’s exactly why I feel we should do it. We should lead by example showing that it is okay to break that box and create own ideas. Ideas that may fail but the failure is what we should be looking for to give them that feedback, help them dust themselves off and continue where they left off. I think to shelter kids and showing them that whatever they do, even the mundane stuff, is praised should rather be filled with showing them, prompting them that it’s okay to fail but it is going to happen, prompting them to work together as much as they hate group projects.