We have touched on many issues this past week. I found both the counselor and paraprofessional panels to be particularly interesting. Having never worked with a counselor and a paraprofessional, I found these sessions to be quite informative. Prior to the para discussion, I didn’t really have a very clear idea of what a para was or what they did. It is reassuring to know that teacher’s have such valuable help as counselors and paras available to them. I will definitely make use these sources of support when I am teaching. Having another person to talk to and bounce ideas off of will be so nice, especially during the first year of teaching. Both counselors and paras interact with the students in a different way than I, as a teacher, will. So having their advice and help will be great. They will have a different perspective on my students and the learning environment.
I think the issue of sex ed will be a difficult one for me to tackle. I believe strongly that human sexuality is a sacred gift from God and as such, we ought to respect it. Also, I believe that kids should be allowed some degree of innocence. We don’t need to teach young kids (grade school) everything about human sexuality in order to protect them from sexual abuse or harassment. What we should be teaching kids is that all people deserve respect; we need to teach them that every person is unique and has an innate dignity just because of who they are. Each person has value and worth, not based on what they can do, what they think, or how they dress, etc. If kids perceive themselves and those around them as individuals with dignity who deserve respect, they will be less likely to get involved in harmful activities. We also need to teach kids how to control their actions. Self-control is possible for children; it just takes a lot of practice. If you raise the bar, kids will rise to the occasion. When we make excuses such as, “well, they’re just going to do it anyway”, we send kids the unspoken message that they can’t do any better. We are telling them that we don’t trust them. This message needs to change. Kids are capable of controlling themselves.
I was in the same boat as you with the experience I have had with paras. I knew they were like teacher's aide's, but I didn't realize the extend of their position. My high school never had paras, so I think it would be interesting to see the change in dynamics with another adult in the room.
ReplyDeleteAs for the self control issue, I agree that we need to push our students to have good self control. This can be taught as simply as not letting them speak out in class. They must control themselves to raise their hand and wait to be called on. As the get older, we need to give them more tasks to practice their self control. This could be enabling the students with your procedures so that when you leave the classroom, they have the self control not to yell and scream, but to stay on task and get to work. I think if we keep building their self control up, that will result in self control in other areas.