I’ve been thinking….
What’s the one thing I really need to communicate to my students? The thing that everything else stands on and revolves around. The thing I can always go back to whether I am planning, evaluating, reacting or even treading water.
My students are important to me.
More important than the curriculum, the grading system, the behavior point system, the school’s reputation, the department’s success record, than anything else I can think of in the educational venue.
Because of that, my classes are important to me.
Each student is part of a class. Each class has its own chemistry and behaviors that not only affect the students in it, but also is created by the students in it.
So I put a great deal of importance on how we interact in each class.
I want to set up each class so that it is clear what we are doing, and why.
What are we doing?
We are interacting, using the Spanish language whenever possible, so that we can know and understand the world better, starting with each other.
Why?
Language acquisition happens when the language is comprehensible, the message has value, and the people involved know that they matter.
Oh wait. That isn’t in the right order.
I want my students to know that they matter, that the world they live in matters, and that we can use more than one language to explore and appreciate those things.
And I only have a few precious minutes every day to do that.
with love,
Laurie