Kaitlyn Lankford

ELM-490
9/25/19
Ellen Hilt
Professional Dispositions Statement
Being an educator comes with many different responsibilities. These range from the
ability to respect others to the expectations you are setting for your students. Along with this
comes the relationships of student and teacher. In that relationship, there should be trust, honesty
and respect.
As the teacher, I should be the largest advocate for my student and be there when they
need someone to rely on. I truly believe I can do this by being their friend and their teacher.
Students want to get along with their teacher and feel comfortable around them. I will do this by
listening to them, talking to them and doing my best to understand them. In my opinion, it is
good to remember that our students are just as much human as us, they’re just still learning right
from wrong. I have seen some teachers who treat their students with disrespect but demand
respect from the students solely because they are the superior. While I do believe children need
to understand that they need to listen to their superiors, they should not have to be disrespected in
the process.
Sometimes in my disciplining, I find myself thinking that I may have upset the students.
Although, I have come to learn that children forgive easily, and they are more likely to learn
from the discipline than to hold a grudge against me for the action I took. This is how I know
that I am not disrespecting my students. I have come to learn that being disrespected is what
causes us to shut down from the person who disrespected us. Thus far, I have not caused my
students to shut down. This is a perfect example that my philosophy of being a friend and a
teacher can be a positive and successful strategy.
Over the past 4 years I have learned so much from the variety of classroom environments
I have worked in and observed. Some good and some rather bad; I have been able to explore
many techniques and strategies and learn what I like and do not like. One teacher I worked with
was constantly very angry with her students and she also seemed uninterested in learning a lot
about her students or even having fun with them. The classroom seemed to be a bit dull in my
opinion for third grade and I didn’t feel like I ever had the opportunity to talk to the students. In
comparison to my CT, who play music to initiate transitions in her classroom, that teacher had a
very boring classroom management style.
I currently struggle most with my timing in the classroom and getting all lessons done in
one day that I need to get done. My CT recently suggested setting a timer and if I have to just
stop even if we got cut off, sometimes that is how it has to be. I am going to start doing this
regularly starting tomorrow to ensure I am learning the feeling of how long my lessons should
be.