All good teachers:
1. Genuinely like children and enjoy being around them. Just like parents with their own kids, they take pleasure and pride in their students’ growth and development.
2. Genuinely enjoy teaching, too. This is a critical factor because teaching is essentially a modeling process and students learn much more readily when their teachers exhibit joy in what they’re doing. And as a result, good teachers feel energized at the end of the day, not drained.
3. Are openhearted. They care about their students’ lives, present and future, and they address their students’ shortcomings and transgressions compassionately, not judgmentally.
4. Recognize that teaching isn’t something they do to or for children; rather it’s a reciprocal exchange of energy within a relationship. Good teachers also realize they are continually learning from their students too.
5. Trust in the innate wisdom of the learning process and in their students’ intrinsic desire to learn. They don’t try to force learning to happen by resorting to extrinsic motivators like rewards and punishments.
6. Are authoritative, not authoritarian. Authoritarian teachers are highly controlling,consider their authority non-negotiable, and maintain their control with punitive discipline. They feel threatened by a child’s expressions of independence and individuality. Authoritative adults set firm, consistent limits on out-of-bounds behavior, but don’t hem students in with restrictions. They maintain their natural adult authority while at the same time respecting the child’s point of view and encouraging verbal give and take. As their students grow more responsible, they extend them increasing levels of independence.
7. Understand the fundamental role that emotions play in a child’s complete development. They are emotionally self-aware and make sure the environment is welcoming and safe so that their students feel comfortable being themselves and don’t feel they have to hide their vulnerabilities.
8. Continue to work on their own personal and professional development, because as Joseph Chilton Pearce once said, “Teachers teach who they are.” Good teachers realize they can’t guide their students to places they haven’t already been themselves.
9. Are facilitators of learning, not taskmasters. “Facilitate” literally means “to make easier,” and the most fundamental purpose of teaching is to help the student learn how to learn with ease and efficiency.
10. Acknowledge the individuality of their students and don’t expect them all to be interested in the same things at the same time, or to learn in the same way.
11. Assume it’s their responsibility to present things in a way that every individual learner can understand, and not the learner’s job to adapt to the teacher’s methods. Good teachers continue to try different approaches until they find the key that unlocks the door to the learner’s understanding.
12. Are good communicators. They speak clearly, with honesty and respect; and they make sure that their criticism is constructive and always based on “I” messages. And then they listen carefully to what their students have to say, encourage them to speak freely, and value their opinions.
13. Understand that learning doesn’t happen under duress. They make sure that anxiety and stress have no place in the learning environment.
14. Are flexible. Aware that a lot of important learning is serendipitous and synchronistic, they are able to shift gears quickly in order to stay in synch with their students’ shifting moods and interests.
15. Know how important it is for children to take responsibility for their own education and their own actions, and so they share initiative, power, and control with them.
16. Respect a child’s inalienable right to say “no.” They don’t force their students to do things they aren’t ready or willing to do.
17. Build strong relationships with each and every student. They also facilitate students doing the same with one another.
18. Recognize the deep developmental value of play. They provide ample free play opportunities for their students, and they also make sure there’s enough play in their own lives because they know how much play re-energizes and restores them.
19. Understand that experience is the best teacher. They minimize the amount of instruction they do by creating a rich, resource-filled environment—with abundant connections to the outside world—that enables students to learn by doing and discovering.
20. Consider teaching to be a calling. They view their work as an authentic sharing of themselves and a way to make the world a better place, not a professional role that confers them status and a paycheck.
CUNY Researcher Seeks Participants For Study In NYC Area
I am conducting a research study on the experiences of students with disabilities in alternative education settings, and I am currently recruiting young people ages 13-25 in the New York City Metropolitan Area. I am looking for students and recent graduates or participants ages 13-25 who participate in group programming for self-directed learning such as unschooling cooperatives, homeschooling resource centers, democratic free schools, Sudbury Valley schools, and other alternative education programs. This research study is focused on learning about students with disabilities and their experiences in alternative education programs with inclusion, accessibility, interactions, and disability identity. For more information, please email me at emily.brooks@spsmail.cuny.edu.
Brooklyn Free School Seeks Volunteers
Our volunteer program is a great way to learn about the schoolʼs unique philosophy and participate in the school community. Volunteers have the opportunity to observe and participate directly in the daily life of the school, share their interests and passions with a community of learners, and form deep and meaningful relationships with students of all ages.
Successful volunteers are dependable, reliable, flexible, organized, creative, supportive of the schoolʼs mission, and interested in children/education; they have had previous experience with children, relate well to children of all ages, and are excited about learning for themselves and others. Communication skills, punctuality, consistency, and commitment are essential to being a volunteer at Brooklyn Free School.
Apply to this program if you can commit to volunteering for a full day each week, for a minimum of a semester or if you can offer a class at a regular time each week. Applicants are encouraged to participate in the program for the full experience of a complete year at a free school.
SCHOOL VOLUNTEERS – ONE FULL DAY PER WEEK
Under supervision of a staff Advisor:
- Participate in academic activities and informal play
- Help chaperone school trips
- Observe conflict resolution and peer mediation with young students
- Participate in school meetings and other forms of the schoolʼs democratic process
- Assist students at lunchtime
- Help with general school maintenance and upkeep
Occasionally individuals with specific skills or subject expertise volunteer for the specific period of time required to teach a class in that skill or subject. Student interest must first be determined, as well as scheduling and resource availability. Examples of past classes taught by volunteer teachers include animation, improv, philosophy, and video game design.
ADMINISTRATIVE VOLUNTEERS
Under supervision of our administrative staff:
Observe and aid in different aspects of running a nonprofit organization and alternative school
Past volunteers have earned college credit when their specific program accepts BFS as a program placement.
Direct your inquiries to Kathy at volunteering@brooklynfreeschool.org or 718-499-2707.
Report from Nuestra Escuela On Puerto Rico Recovery
Dear Friends:
Today I want to share with you a recount of the efforts our school has been implementing to contribute to the recovery of Puerto Rico following the passage of Hurricane Maria.
Status of our Staff
Immediately after the passing of Hurricane Maria, we generated an official chat so that each member of our staff could report how it was. It was a challenge due to problems with telecommunications, but in the end, we all were able to communicate our status after the hurricane. In this way, coordinators, principals, and directors of the organization were summoned to a meeting scheduled for the 26th of September in which the plan of action to be followed was presented. There we decided to go out to find the people who still did not know anything (both staff and students) to accompany us at the official meeting of the community on October 3, 2017, in the new headquarters of our school in Caguas.
Community meeting of our school
On October 3 Our community met almost entirely in order to know the personal and family situation of each one, to share experiences and to determine the alternatives that existed to begin to provide service, in addition to what would be the position of the Organization after this atmospheric event that inevitably changed our situation as a country. The decisions resulting from this meeting were:
-Start work on Wednesday 4 October in our centers of Caguas and Loíza.
-To assemble a communal canteen to offer food to students and their families as well as to our staff, making it extensive to neighbors in the area who need it.
-Restructure the transportation service that we usually offer to our students, adapting it to the new reality and their particular needs.
-Going out to find the staff and students we still had no information about.
After the meeting, I moved to Guayama with two members of the NE staff to go to the house of the last companion of whom we had no news. For us it was very important to know that he was well and to support him in need of some help.
“I was surprised because I had not had any communication with the school. I had searched the radio to see if I was hearing information … I did not expect it. I was playing cards with my family and suddenly Ana Yris arrived. They risked and arrived at my house in Guayama, that is very valuable. It’s an act of love that I value very much. ”
~ Fitzroy McGregor, Agriculture Facilitator at Nuestra Escuela.
Likewise, both teachers and social workers from Caguas and Loíza went in search of students of whom we still did not know anything, as was the case of Limarie Roldán, science facilitator and mentor at our center in Caguas, who visited the house of his student Anthony Santana and spoke with his dad, who was surprised to see it and thanked him for getting there.
“He told me that Anthony wants to stay in Puerto Rico. They do not want to go to the United States like they had planned after the hurricane. He wants to stay in Nuestra Escuela. Dad was very happy to see me. “Let Anthony know that you came here!” He said.
~ Limarie Roldán, Science Facilitator and Mentor at Nuestra Escuela.
For an educational organization like ours is very important the welfare of our and our students. It gives us great joy to know that you are pleased to be part of this community and that you feel loved and respected. It is our greatest reward.
“I was happy when I learned that Limarie went to my house and that we would start classes again … It is that in Nuestra Escuela they attach great importance to the student. I would be here every day. I have many friends and I do not want to go to the United States because I would feel as if I would abandon them. ”
~ Anthony Santana, Student at Our Caguas School.
A new beginning
Upon restarting work, the students met with their mentors to resume and adapt their different projects to the new reality of the school and the country. It was they who decided what they are going to be doing in the next 3 weeks. Their efforts are focused on the recovery of their communities and the well-being of their neighbors. They are:
At Nuestra Escuela, we are very grateful for all the approaches and support we have received. At the moment the main need is to sustain our community dining room that allows us to bring happiness to our young people and their families by offering a hot meal a day and that serves as support in these critical moments that our island lives. If you want to help with food or drinking water do not hesitate to contact us at:info@nuestraescuela.org. Every donation is well received!
With your help, we will raise this country, one day at a time.
Big hug!
Ana Yris Guzmán Torres
Executive President
Nuestra Escuela
Donations to support the work of AERO sustaining member Nuestra Escuela can be sent here. We will send 100% to the school.
