Context
Part 1 - The beginning of a new adventure
I am fresh blood in the Education Industry. I have just started my 6th year and an Elementary PE teacher located in Billings Montana. Being a PE teacher I am shared amongst two schools. For this TLI Journey I am focusing my attention on my home school. After reaching out to our Executive Director I was able to find this information out about our students at my school.
Based on on the 2019-2020 school year, my school demographics were :
American Indian/Alaskan Native 5%;
Black/African American: 3%;
White: 82%,
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: <1%;
Hispanic/Latino: 9%
Free and Reduced: 39.23% qualifying
Before receiving this information, I would have described my school as a middle class school. We have a great mix of families which help students learn diversity within the school walls. We have families who are very successful business owners, lawyers, who serve on the school/hospital boards, professors at the collegiate level and doctors. We then have families at our school who don't work, struggle to pay rent, work late hour jobs or multiple jobs to make ends meet, some are even homeless.
My current role is guiding kindergartners through 5th graders on a journey to identify life skills and behaviors that affect health and wellness. A common problem I see in this is that behaviors play a huge role in having total wellness (Physical, Mental, Emotional). For example, in a simple game played in the gym we might make bad choices, rage quit and have poor sportsmanship. Which in the end hinders the experience of others in learning. My goal is to teach these children how to win with grace and lose with dignity and provide a tool for my colleagues to do the same.
Part 2 - Self Assessment
Self assessment has been my hardest thing to over come throughout this process. I had skipped past this question in Module 2 as I couldn't answer it. I had it in my head that the only main type of diversity is race. After completing our face to face meetings and our monthly zooms I have been able to see things differently. Diversity can be so many things -- It can be Cultural, Racial, Age, Sexuality, Religion, Disability, Geographical and so many more. I b American Indian/Alaskan Native 5%; Black/African American: 3%; White: 82%, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: <1%; language barriers, who has only been teaching a short amount of time, I am white but came from a family who survived on government funding, One of my biological parents was incarcerated, I am divorced, I have a child out of wedlock... As I reflect on what has made me, ME I wouldn't change any of this. It has given me the exposure to life that allows me to create meaningful relationships professionally and personally.
The two overarching competencies that I chose were Communication (emerging/developing) and Continuing Learning and Education (developing). I chose Communication because this is a competency that I wish to strengthen and focus on throughout this process. I want to be able to articulate my thoughts and goals in ways that are presented in an effective way to various audiences. I also chose Continuing Learning and Education as I would love to be able to present quality professional development for my fellow Physical and Health Enhancement colleagues.
My TLI journey has allowed me to stop multiple times and reflect. My first goal for TLI was to provide great Professional Development for my colleagues. As time went by, my goals shifted. I can still provide PD for colleagues (Actually doing a MEA Trade class with two other PE teachers) but I also found the need for new PE teachers coming into our district. Sure we had a pacing guide that we could follow but things were in one Google folder or in a Shared Drive and where did that document go! So I decided to create a platform where our proficiency scales, year and a glance and games that align with our standards can be. In adding this new need I needed to reevaluate my competencies. I chose Group Process (Emerging/Developing) to replace Continuing Learning and Education as I would love to be seen as a mentor skillfully managing a new incoming group of PE teachers.
My foundational competency that my focus is on during my TLI journey is Collaborate Purposefully. Prior to working on my project I would have placed myself within the developing stages. I know I have dabbled into the Transforming stage as I held a Lap-A-Thon which raised $20,000 for our school. This was a showcase of working collaboratively with individuals (PTA, Teachers, Principal, Parents, Students) to have a successful event leading up to and on the day.
My instructional Leadership competency I chose to focus on more throughout my journey is Facilitating Collaborative Relationships. Prior to diving deeper into my capstone I placed myself at the developing stage. I was a positive role model in our PLC gatherings and joined our curriculum team this past school year.
Erin Sutherland-Evans approval form.pdf