I CHALLENGE YOU! #Beliefs into Action

Hi Everyone! 

I just love that Whitney at With Love From Texas, thought of this blog hop to do! What a perfect way to get my brain ready for school and centered on the kids! 

While in college, I was introduced to a quote that I just LOVE. Haim Ginott was a Israeli teacher that studied how to speak to children. He wrote a book called Between Parent and Child. His communication approach is amazing!!! Here are his ideas:

• Never deny or ignore a child's feelings. 
• Only behavior is treated as unacceptable, not the child. 
• Depersonalize negative interactions by mentioning only the problem. "I see a messy room." 
• Attach rules to things, e.g., "Little sisters are not for hitting." Dependence breeds hostility. 
• Let children do for themselves what they can. Children need to learn to choose, but within the safety of limits. "Would you like to wear this blue shirt or this red one?" 
• Limit criticism to a specific event—don't say "never", "always", as in: "You never listen," "You always manage to spill things", etc. 
• Refrain from using words that you would not want the child to repeat.

How true is this!? So, my favorite quote from him really drives my beliefs. 

So, let me back up... When I was a freshman in high school, my cousin had a little boy. Immediately they knew something was different and immediately took him for testing. He was diagnosed with Down syndrome. The diagnosis was crippling and deafening for a lot of my family. I felt bad for my cousin as she thought she was carrying a perfectly healthy baby. The joyous revelation that they had another son was quickly ripped from them when she looked at him and saw that he didn't look 'normal.' It was heartbreaking to watch. I immediately knew that I wanted to help families dealing with anything that came with a child that had a disability. He is the reason I went into Special Education. He is THE most amazing kid in the world!  

I quickly learned my first year teaching Resource how true this quote was. My kids could tell how I was feeling, how stressed I was, how inadequate I felt, and more times than not, our time together was NOT beneficial AT ALL! How scary is that?! Looking back, there is no telling how many kids I screwed up or didn't teach them all I could because I let my crap get in the way of their learning! I believe ALL kids deserve an education and with a teacher that WANTS to be there and is always striving to be better. Hence my education beliefs were born and they are what I try and put into action daily in my classroom: general education or special education. 



I also believe that, we as teachers, must realize that we teach far more than standards. We teach compassion, tolerance, manners, etc. and most of the time we don't teach with our mouth; we teach with our actions. Kids are watching us AT ALL TIMES and we need to be cognizant of this and always be striving to be more.  
Well that about wraps up what I try to do and be as a teacher and why. Hop on over to  Stevie Kampakou at Power Teaching to read her beliefs and how she puts them in action in  GREECE!