Principle 12

Principle 12: The educator (a) recognizes multiple influences on students inside and outside the school and (b) accesses appropriate systems of support for students

principle 11

Principle 11: The educator works as a team member and establishes collaborative relationships with school colleagues, parents, agencies and others in the boarder community to support students’ learning and well-being, and to implement the school’s and articulated curriculum. (Vermont Standards Board, 2001)

Teaching Toward Democracy EDU: 3440 reflection

Before I enrolled in Teaching Toward Democracy EDU: 3440 I had no idea what Colleagueship and Advocacy meant. My first definition was students working together to finish a project. I knew how important it was to teach as a team I didn’t know it had a name. I observed a classroom during my high school at an elementary school. I did ten hours, the whole time I always wondered why the other teachers didn’t talk to each other. I observed another classroom when I was in college at another elementary school. I put in 120 hours and on the first day I witnessed the teachers communicating on what their week was going to look like. They didn’t do this just for show they do this every week. I am determined I want to be a part of a team like this.

Colleagueship

Colleagueship as a personal definition from me is the teamwork from one or more individuals between each other to get the best results. It could be teachers working together to give children the best education. It could be teammates working together to score. It could be any group of people using teamwork to succeed. Growing up my coaches ­­­­have always told us there is no I in TEAM. I today tell my Lacrosse players the same thing. I ask them do they want to win? They reply yes, I tell them work together to do it. Teamwork is important in any sport or work. Every day before a game my players are required to run together up a hill with a huge incline. Once they get to the top captains fill the other player in on what is expect from them in order to win as a team. The first time the player ran the hill I watched as space was created between the faster and slower players. They came to the bottom I told them they would do it again and that this time run together as a team. One unit climbed the hill together again and when they returned they had a better connection with each other and ended up winning the game as a team. Every player had a moment where they assisted the other members of their team. Teaching is the same, most classrooms have a door leading into the neighboring classrooms. Using it makes you have colleagueship for the school and the community. 

Advocacy
            Children will be coming from all backgrounds. Children will be under feed, abused, overprotected, over feed, spoiled and so on. The public school system allows all children from every family style and family morals to attend. As teachers we need to know when to speak out for our students. Our students need our Advocacy if they have no support system at home.