Blog Entry 5

The most important role a teacher plays

I believe that the most important role that a teacher plays is as a role model. Children watch and notice and often imitate what they see and hear, so I believe that we, as educators, need to be as positive, as professional, as compassionate, and as fair as we can be. Children are watching us and learning from our behavior even when we don't see it happening.

The children that I've observed in classroom settings and on playgrounds are looking for traits in others that they can emulate, and even try on for size, to see if that trait suits them. Some children seem to have a great sense of who they are from a young age, but often they are just beginning to discover who they are and who they want to become. For these reasons, I think that we need to show the children we teach characteristics that are positive so that they might be able to draw form them as they grow.

Having said that, I also want to state that I believe that it's very important for children to see us as human beings, capable of making mistakes and also admitting to those mistakes. I think that it's okay for children to see us as human beings who don't just live at the school and wait for them to show up so we can teach them. The teacher that I observed in an autism unit was a great example of all of these characteristics. He was fair, professional, compassionate, and also a little crazy and entertaining in order to keep the children's attention while he was teaching them. We are going to be a role model for the children we teach, so I believe that we should be a good one.