#IWishMyTeacherKnew

As I was writing about my views on education and updating my blog, I came across this relevant and significant news story on Buzzfeed, which you can find here. Basically, Kyle Schwartz, an elementary school teacher in Denver, asked her students to write down something they were keeping secret or something they wanted their teacher to know. She did this in order to connect with her students, to learn more about their lives, and to build a "community in the classroom". The results were truly remarkable because they revealed the truths about students' lives and how they may be struggling at home.

I think this only puts more emphasis on the important relationship between the child and the school, especially between the child and their teacher. For some children, their teacher is the only adult they can turn to for help and for others, school is their safe and consistent sanctuary. Schwartz posted some of the notes on Twitter, where the hashtag #IWishMyTeacherKnew went viral, encouraging other educators to do the project in their own classrooms.

I would love to complete this project in my classroom as a way to get closer to my students. After knowing about some of the struggles that my students may be dealing with, I could adapt my teaching to help them out in any way I can. Reading about this idea and making a mental note of it is helping me progress in Competency 7, which is about adapting teaching to the needs of students. If this project were to be implemented in a bigger way, like with the entire school, it could be a really remarkable community building initiative. I think it could be done with all of the members of the school community, including the teaching team, school staff, parents and even partners in the community. These partners could contribute to the well-being of the students and could even respond to some of the needs of students, such as their lack of school supplies. If all members of the teaching team got together and made this kind of project happen, I think it would be a beautiful and memorable project. I feel as though this is helping me develop Competency 9 and 10 because I'm reflecting on ways to cooperate with the school community and teaching staff in a significant way, which isn't always easy to do. The results of the project could even be posted on social media, like people are already doing with the hashtag #IWishMyTeacherKnew.

In my future classroom, I would love to use this kind of project to bring my students closer together and to foster the relationship between myself and them. Therefore, one of my goals is to find ways to connect with my students on a more intimate level, and I think this project could be the first step in doing so.

#MELSCompetency7 #MELSCompetency9 #MELSCompetency10