Blog Challenge: Day 15

Name three strengths you have as an educator. 

This is hard. Not because I think I'm the best at everything (I'm not) and not because I think I suck at everything (no professional should feel this way), but because it's hard for me to pinpoint exactly what I think I'm good at and what makes me succeed at my job.

#1: I love these kids. 

You can't be a teacher and hate kids. If you do, you need to find another profession. Regardless of age, the students are literally the entire reason you are in the building with the job of teaching them how to grow, learn about life, and one day graduate. It's a pretty darn important job.

Of course, there are tons of kids that drive me crazy. There are kids that exhaust me every single day and that I could complain about for far to long. But for every one of those kids is another kid who adores you, loves your class, and wants to confide in you. Sometimes its really hard to tell what a kid thinks of you, so I try to make sure every kid feels recognized and important in my class. You never know what will turn their day around. At the same time, I never know what a kid is going to do to turn MY day around.

I feel like I am genuinely invested not just in them learning science, but in them growing up and becoming little adults. I think it is one of the things that my students appreciate about me and its one of the things I love most about my job.

#2: I get crazy ideas.

I am the crazy person that will be taking a shower and get an awesome idea for a new lab and I will jump out and quickly write it down so I don't forget (this actually happens, my husband can vouch for it). Unlike most teachers, I love the planning and creating part of my job. I am rarely satisfied with using something from someone else. I always want to make sure that what we are doing in class is easy for my students to understand and meaningful. I completely love coming up with new "lightbulb" moments for my kids in class. Sure, not every single idea is like this and sometimes I get ideas for things that I never even get to use, but I feel like my creativity and planning is one of my best attributes as an educator.

#3: I speak up 

Staff meetings and instructional team meetings can be so frustrating sometimes. Some people want to rush through everything so they can go home and the meeting feels forced and unproductive. Other people want to give a million anecdotes and pull the whole meeting off-topic. It can be frustrating for sure. I'm a pretty laid back person, so I usually sit and quietly take notes, but when there is something I feel really strongly about, I definitely speak up.

This is especially true for areas I feel passionate about, particularly science literacy and writing. I volunteer and provide ideas for classroom literacy as often as I can because I feel its extremely important. In the two short years I have been at my current school, I have been able to create a niche for myself that the administration is definitely noticing. I am becoming the go-to person for questions about science writing and I absolutely love it. It is always nice to feel necessary, especially in a huge school like mine, but it is even more rewarding to feel necessary to something you feel so strongly about. That never would have happened if I had never spoken up and made my thoughts known from the very beginning.