Connections

How does awareness of your own biases, experiences of privilege, and personal values inform your chosen policy project?

As as educator, I continually need to be examining my own biases and experience of privilege in order to better inform my teaching, especially in regards to equity. I grew up in a family that could afford a high-quality preschool and valued education, so I grew up with a strong sense of respect for teachers and a firm educational background. However, the area has grown and the demographic has changed since my childhood, and now many can't afford to send their children to a preschool program, even if it did have any openings. This is why I chose this project - I want all children to be able to have the same educational opportunities that I had, regardless of socioeconomic status.

As the TLI program began, at which level (emerging, developing, performing, or transforming) in the progressions did you place yourself for each of your four chosen competencies?

  • Overarching Competency #1 - Interpersonal Effectiveness - Developing

Before TLI, I was involved in only one or two school committees that directly pertained to my specific classroom situation. I was starting to seek opportunities to become more effective in building relationships with colleagues, but it was hard to know where to start because of my unique situation. I was teaching with several colleagues who taught me, so I was working on transitioning from the role of student to peer.

  • Overarching Competency #2 - Group Processes - Emerging

As TLI began, I was contributing in meeting but not actively leading or even suggesting much during them, instead choosing to take the role of an observer unless something was directly asked of me.

  • Diversity-Equity-Cultural Competence selection - Explore and Challenge Inequity - Emerging

Before TLI, I was working on exploring my own identity and biases, and working on identifying inequities in my environment. Even though I grew up in the community, things had changed and I was still exploring what those changes meant for students and myself.

  • Policy Competency selection - Advocacy - Emerging

As TLI began, I was starting to research the district policies and they pertain to my instructional setting. However, I had not starting actively working to change any policies.

Describe your work with diverse stakeholders, shared learning experiences, and how you anticipate your policy mindset might evolve during the TLI process.

During the past two years, I volunteered for a variety of committees that included a wide variety of stakeholders. This included parents, administrators, teachers, paraprofessionals, board members, and students (provided they were old enough and privacy policies were in place). Together, we addressed curriculum, intervention models, behavioral issues, and other things that would directly impact the students and the community. This also involved attending conferences to learn about the latest methods in education, bringing those ideas back to the school to see how they would work in our instructional setting.

I anticipate my policy mindset might evolve in it's complexity in the upcoming year, as I am becoming a larger part of those committees and becoming even more involved with how the school is run, and why it is run that way. Before this year, I have mainly taken the role of a participant rather than a driver of change, so it will be interesting to dive deeper into the school's policies and analyze what works best for our students.

Describe how your awareness of those from different cultures, experiences, and backgrounds inform your chosen project.

Admittedly, my awareness of different cultures has been rather limited due to my upbringing in rural Montana. While I am comfortable discussing different Native American tribes and the various issues facing these students today, I am still striving to learn more about other cultures to better inform my teaching.

However, I do feel I am always aware of incorporating others experiences and backgrounds into my teaching, especially with regards to this project. In my classroom, I emphasize building on prior knowledge (experiences/background/cultural) to connect with new concepts, and have found this process helps my students retain information better as they are more engaged with the concepts. I am aware of this prior knowledge because I pride myself on building strong relationships with my students and their families. This applies to my project because, through building these relationships, I have realized that many of my students enter without the experiences necessary to make them successful in Kindergarten. I want to create a program that continues to recognize and build on students knowledge, just at a younger level.