Tashia Mossman

Ten years. That’s how long I’ve been teaching in public schools. While much has changed, much has remained the same. As a beginning teacher, I often let myself get bogged down by how things appeared from the outside. Was my classroom decorated in a way that was uplifting without being distracting? Were my students always engaged? Did I address that minor misbehavior across the room go on a few seconds too long? It took me several years to learn that the way a classroom looks can be very deceiving. I began to focus on the growth of my students and my relationship with them. Will all my classes learn the same content at the same time? No. Will all my students be excited about every assignment I give them? Nope. Will all “my” kids appreciate the time I spent coordinating my classroom posters and hanging them just so? Definitely not. What matters most is how I make my students feel each day. I ask myself, “What do they need today?” It’s very likely that they need to feel respected, encouraged. They need to feel comfortable walking into my classroom and ready to escape whatever troubles they might be dealing with outside of school. Can I immerse them in STEM topics and introduce them to things they might never have heard of in their core classes? Of course! But above all, I need to make sure they know they can do hard things, that they can learn regardless of the challenges they may be facing in their personal lives.

 

There’s a lot of talk in the media about STEM studies these days. I see advertisements about coding camps, STEM classes, programming activities. I absolutely agree that these new topics are more relevant than ever. However, what is going to help our students most in the future? Will that single programming language these kids are mastering at six years old be relevant in ten or twenty years? I doubt it. With so many advancements being made so quickly, I feel we should be focusing our efforts on teaching problem-solving. When kids are taught to face problems head-on and work through a process for solving those problems, they will be able to apply that skill in any field down the road. People change their minds about their careers so often, it seems a waste to begin training kids in such a focused area. Let’s change the focus to solving the problem by means of the coding or programming. I ask my students to come to me with a suggestion or request, rather than a complaint. Instead of “I don’t get it,” I want to hear, “Can you help me with this?” I even apply this to my own children. Rather than “I’m hungry,” ask me “May I have an apple?” What can you do to solve the problem? What a powerful feeling it is to initiate the solution! I am so fortunate to be in a position where I can show students how capable they are.

 

Education is a field that is forever evolving. As teachers, we are trained in the latest and greatest technology, curriculum, and pedagogies. The part we must never forget is that it all means nothing if our students leave our classrooms feeling incapable or ignored. We must use this powerful position we are in to inspire and lift up these students. No fancy wall poster or tablet will give them that.