Practice What You Preach

As educators you are entitled to getting through curriculum, worksheets, testing and not to mention manage 20-30 kids all at the same time, 5 days a week for 8 hours.  Some might call us robots, while others like to degrade our profession, but in the midst of all the chaos that we call "school" is the person who helps to make it all sorta work.  While a lesson or activity may succeed or fail, the one constant that can always remain the same, is your beliefs as an educator.  Just as your constantly changing things throughout the classroom, so can your philosophies, which is why it is important to constantly be reflecting upon yourself and the goals that you set.  As a future educator and current student at the University of Iowa, my philosophies will more than likely change just about the amount of times you rearrange your classroom within the first weeks.  One thing that I do know for sure is the core belief in that every single student will have a chance to learn and has the ability to learn.  Not one student is like the other in their ways of learning, which is why it is important for me to constantly remind myself that there is some way, some where, some how to teach these students.  With the continuation of my core belief, I also believe that differentiation is something that should be active throughout all types of classrooms, because that really allows for different types of learners to engage in the similar type of activities.  Last but not least, with every lesson plan and every standard that you must teach, it can be integrated within every subject in any type of way.  There is always, always, always ways to use cross curriculum in your teaching, just use the available resources to help.  With the establishment of your ideals as a teacher, it can remain the one constant in your classroom, that you can work towards no matter what type of day you are dealing with.  It is important to not only design your beliefs, but to "practice what you preach" and find ways to model and play out your beliefs, every single day, at every single hour, to every single student.