Day 15 - Strengths as an Educator

Today's challenge is to name 5 strengths I have as an educator.  Not always the easiest subject but I will give it a go!

My 5 strengths as an educator:

• Relationships - building good relationships with students, whanau (family), and other teachers.
  It is so important me to me to know who the students are and their whanau.  As well as who the people I work with as people and professionals - this is why I believe I build strong teams.
• Organised - not only having an organised classroom where all resources are easily accessiable by all students, lessons, paper work, activities etc.
• Procedures and expectations - Paul, my second year mentor teacher, taught me: without procedures in place and high expectations no learning can happen.  This is something I take with me and how I set up my team/class each year, ensuring we're all on the same page.
• Open - I consider myself to be an open person to talk to whether it is a problem they are having or need advice, or to try new initiatives
• Questioning - this is a forever evolving skill, that everyone should work on, which I am yet to master.  However, I do believe I have gotten better at questioning the students to get more from them.
  I also apply these skills when unpacking things with the staff which I work with.

As teachers we all have to have multiple skills and abilities.  It is something that is always changing and it is part of why I love this job!