"It's easy to celebrate what we can see, hear, or taste, such as food, art, crafts, music, costumes and customs. If culture is an iceberg and only 10% of it shows above water, we may think that's all there is to it. It's the part below the water, the beliefs, values, priorities, and practices that go with them that need sensitive and respectful attention." Janet Gonzalez-Mena (from the article: Advancing Each Young Child's Potential: The Difference You Can Make)
"We must each see ourselves as developing professionals. That is, we must become lifelong students of our own teaching." Dr. Lilian G. Katz (from the article: On Teaching)
"We as professionals in the Early Childhood field have an opportunity to shape a child's life for the better."
Sandy Escobido - from the DVD: The Passion for Early Childhood
"I'm not here to save the world, I'm here to make a difference in the community I'm working in."
Raymond Hernandez MS Ed - from the DVD: The Passion for Early Childhood
"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."
- Henry Adams
"Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world."
- Maria Montessori
As teachers, we tell our students to stay motivated, keep pushing forward, and always pursue their dreams. I always told them not to stop at high school graduation, because college awaits you. After a while, I felt like a hypocrite. Here I am telling them to move forward and I’m not taking my own advice. That’s when I decided that college was not a last stop, graduate school awaited me. As Dr. Lillian Katz pointed out, I chose take the direction in my life to “be a lifelong student of my own teaching”.
ReplyDeleteI am such a visual person - I love the imagery of the iceberg to remind me that how I interact with my students is often more important than the lesson I am trying to teach. As we have said before, the environment we create will have a far greater impact than the knowledge alone.
ReplyDelete"... but I will always remember how she made me feel."
I especially enjoyed reading your quotes from Henry Adams and Raymond Hernandez. It touched me how Henry Adams said teachers affect eternity and they never know where their influence stops since my 6th grade math teacher was one of those teachers. She was amazing especially since I had a hard time in math that year. I was usually great at math but in 6th grade I went from a private school where I had been up until that point to public school. Since I did well in math at the private school I was placed in the highest math class but how they went about solving the problems was foreign to me. Everything we did at the private school was in our head and now I was expected to use a calculator. Most students would have been excited but I barely knew how to turn the thing on. Needless to say I bombed the first test and was worried about my grade. My teacher offered to come in early on test mornings so I could review the material with her since she could tell I understood it but just became nervous taking the test since it was new material to me. Several years later this teacher passed away from cancer and I wish I had taken the chance to tell her how special she made me feel by taking that extra time with me to help me earn better grades on the test. She never once complained that I was cutting into her planning time or she was having to get to school earlier just for me but instead she always greated me with an encouraging smile. I enjoyed the quote by Raymond Hernandez since I have often felt the same way. I taught in a diverse school and my goal was to make it through each day and hopefully make a difference to my students not to change the world even though by helping one student teachers are changing the world just a little bit at a time.
ReplyDeleteI love this quote by Dr. Katz! I think it is so important for any professional to continue to develop their skills and knowledge. I like to relate it to the Chinese proverb:" to teach is to learn"
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your quotes. My favorite was "It's easy to celebrate what we can see, hear, or taste, such as food, art, crafts, music, costumes and customs. If culture is an iceberg and only 10% of it shows above water, we may think that's all there is to it. It's the part below the water, the beliefs, values, priorities, and practices that go with them that need sensitive and respectful attention."
ReplyDeleteIt is so important for teachers to understand culture. It helps you to relate to your students better and to teach them the best way you can. I like how she related it to an iceberg. Culture isn't only what you can see or what you think you know.