Core Dispositions Reflections
Diversity
Instilling diversity in our lesson plans for our students is a requisite if we want our students to be kind citizens in their future. We have to foster diversity in their everyday lives because we’re living in a world that needs it more than anything these days. Through diversity the student acknowledges that every single person in the world is unique. Our students should learn to respect others opinions and points of view. Everybody is different and there is nothing wrong with that. Every human being has their uniqueness and likings and that is okay. We need to teach this to the students, we want them to be able to think critically and not put them in the same train thought people has been living in for centuries. I tried hard to integrate diversity in my lesson plans every week. It was not an easy task to do so but I tried to integrate it as much as I could. Now, since I’m teaching little kids, trying to teach them diversity is not easy to do because kids like to imitate and they want to do whatever their peers are doing in order for them to feel acceptable. Which is natural in their stage but I wanted them to know that it was okay to not think like everybody else because every single person has a different opinions and not everyone has to agree on it. I had a group of girls in my classroom that always wanted to follow the steps of this other girl. I had to sit with them and tell them that they didn’t have to do everything this girl did because every one of them are different and they should not feel bad about it. It wasn’t easy trying to get them to understand that they don’t have to do the same thing their friends do but after a few examples they got the message. Teaching diversity as I mentioned before is a must these days, everyone is unique and we should celebrate it every day. We do not want to live
in a world where everything and everyone is the same, this is why we need to instill diversity in our students.
Creativity
My favorite core disposition, without a doubt, was instilling creativity in almost every one of my lesson plans. Creativity is defined as the act of presenting or forming an idea with a comical wit, bringing a new method, pattern or idea with the act of being creative. I’d liked to call this core
disposition the fun one because there are many things we can create with our hands and using our minds that it is amazing. Since I consider myself a creative person, I wanted my students to be creative as well and come up with original projects and ideas. I had to cut half of the many ideas I had when I met my group. Not because I didn’t saw them as creative students but of the fact that their economic status was going to affect many of the ideas I had for them to do. That didn’t stop me from thinking of other ways of bringing my students creativity to our classroom. I use different methods to have them use their imagination and create wonderful things. I loved seeing how my students liked whenever I brought up an activity worksheet where they had to color or whenever I put them to draw and color something about the lesson being imparted. I loved their uniqueness and originality when I saw their home works whenever I asked them bring a drawing of something. Getting to know my students from their group profile made me realize that they like to be active, that is why for my motivational activity I always used songs. They loved being around the room dancing and singing or even clapping. As teachers we need to let our students’ imagination run wild because their minds are filled with thousands of ideas just waiting to be executed. I will definitely empower the use of creativity in my curriculum as a
teacher. Creativity doesn’t mean arts and crafts, no, creativity is everywhere. It is where we write an essay or paragraph, we are using our power of expression and letting ourselves be heard. That is why I love this core disposition the most.
Leadership
As some say, the kids are the future leaders of our world. They are the ones that will work for a better future, so they should learn to lead others through the correct path. A teacher inadvertently is a leader who shapes and nurtures the student’s learning experience to his or her best. I believe a person who is a leader is responsible in acknowledging everyone and their needs. As a teacher I wanted my students to be good leaders and develop leadership, of course. It was a little hard trying to integrate leadership to my lesson plan but I did it every time I asked to get into groups. There were also times that when I was discussing the lesson and students wanted to participate, I let them do so freely because as a teacher I didn’t want to be this boss that is always bossing around. I wanted them to have their moment and be leaders from time to time and to saw me as this person that they could go to if they needed help. We’re living in a world where our leaders only care about one thing and that is power. We don’t want to teach our students that being a leader is being powerful but rather being a human being that cares about the people he or she has around. We are living in a world where money and power are what defines a leader these days, and that is not what a leader is about. As a teacher I want my students to being human about their surroundings, especially the people around them. What makes a good leader? Probably everyone has a different idea of what being a leader is, but for me a leader is a person that cares about others and helps them instead of telling what to do.
Social Transformation
Social Transformation is the action to promote change in your society by impacting it with positive and new ways. A healthy society is one where education is being respected, the children are being treated with love and adults and teenagers can interact with each other in peace regardless of gender, religion, sexual orientation or political view. This core disposition was probably the only one I found the hardest to integrate to my lesson plans. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to do it, it was the fact that I didn’t know how to integrate it with the units being studied during the semester. Fear not, I found my way to do it a couple of times. Social transformation is all about caring for the world that we live in. Now we are living in an advance era which has given us amazing results but at the same time has given us bad news for our world, contamination. I am all up for caring for our world and leave it as best as we can for future generations. That is why is important to teach our students how to care for our planet. There are many organizations out there that we need to tell our students to get involved in and give their little contribution to this planet because it is the only one we have. We need, as teacher, is our duty to promote a healthy, better society, where everyone gets along in peace and love. There is so much hatred and racism still out there that it is sad we are living in 2014 and racism still exists. I wanted to foster in my students that it doesn’t matter that everyone is unique and different we need to care, help and love each other if we want to thrive in the world. It only starts with one step towards change.