Educators value the success of all students. Educators care for students and act in their best interests.
Initially, before beginning any real work in classrooms I read this Standard as not leaving any students behind, ensuring they are safe, and advocating for them. However, now that I have been in a school and developed connections and relationships with students and other teachers, Standard 1 is all of what I listed above and so much more. To me, Standard 1 means:
- having a deep sense of care and empathy for all students
- having an emotional and professional investment in the students social and emotional well-being
- going above and beyond for the students who need it
- advocating for students, whether it be with the school district, their peers, or even sometimes their parents to ensure the students are being given the best possible opportunities to better their ability to learn
I am sure that the list could just go on and on, but in one phrase I would say that Standard 1 means being there and being present for all students, at all times. This phrase evolves from being an obligation to a passion. The profession of education evolves from a job to a vitally integrated element of society and peoples lives.
There was one class in particular that stands out to me when I think of a teacher engaging with Standard 1 as I have outlined. The class was a grade 1 level, and even after my first experience with them I could tell right away that there was a large number of students in that class room who required additional support but did not have it. After about half an hour of a full afternoon ADST lesson I approached the classroom teacher and asked if any of her students had any sort of blocks to their learning and she proceeded to outline six separate students who required additional help, ranging from auditory impairments all the way to mental and cognitive deficiencies. Once she finished the run down of her students I asked her how many Education Assistants or other resources she had in the class to support these students, and she gave me the hard truth. She said that only one out of those six students were diagnosed and properly treated, therefore only one student could have additional support. The other students were not diagnosed which means that while they cannot hear the lesson, or they do not have the emotional ability to work in a loud or busy environment, they were left with less resources and almost no additional help to accompany their learning.
I had to sit with this information for a while because I found it difficult to comprehend that because of financial issues, parental resistance, and even simply government processing wait times these six or seven year old children were not getting the best possible education that they could through no fault of their own. So, I decided to speak with their classroom teacher again and ask her what can be done to get the ball rolling on getting these students the help and support that they need. It was at this point that she wonderfully demonstrated Standard 1 to me, because it was then that they listed out all of the efforts she had already tried or was in the process of working on to get each and every student their support. Now, this is not only impressive because she is putting in great amounts of time and effort into obtaining this support, but also because at this point the students are well into their second half of the school year, meaning that once June rolls around they will no longer be her students. I feel as though some educators might see this as “oh well, only a few more months and then I will get new students in the fall”, but she is the living embodiment of Standard 1 in the sense that she wants what is best for the students, not just for her. This teacher in particular is in constant communication with the school district and guardians as well as speaking with resource teachers within the school and attempting to get time out of them to come to her class and work with her students whenever they can.
Overall these few conversations and encounters that I had with this class were incredibly inspiring for me to be a small part of. She proved to me that to be an advocate for students goes beyond recognizing students’ struggles and enters the territory of using voice, strength, and courage to speak up for the students who need it whilst simultaneously teaching an entire curriculum and managing a classroom.
