You know at Thurgood Marshall we are keeping it R.E.A.L! The “L” stands for Lifelong Learner, and this is a value that we hold for both students and adults. I regularly write about the learning students are doing at TM, and I thought this time I would share a bit about the learning our adults are doing! If we value having a growth mindset and continuously improving, then adults need to keep up our learning to model this. In fact, one of the regularly recurring features in our assembly is called “Lifelong Learning,” and we ask a school adult to share something meaningful they have learned. Here’s some learning our school adults are doing:
Current Instructional Assistants, Mr. Deron and Mr. PJ, are completing their classroom teacher certifications this year. Both have secured teaching positions for next year. Mr. Deron will be teaching first grade at John Muir and Mr. PJ will be teaching Kindergarten at Kimball Elementary.
We have three additional student teachers this year—Mr. A.J., Mr. Eddings and Mr. Marowitz, completing their student teaching in kindergarten, third, and fifth grade respectively.
Ms. Haile, Ms. Gese, and Ms. Egelhoff all mentored student teachers this year. When teachers become mentors to student teachers, they have the opportunity to reflect on their own practice as they are supporting someone new.
Ms. Tionna, Ms. Drea, Mr. O, and Ms. Keisha are all in teacher education programs currently. While they already teach students every day, in just a couple of years, they will also have their own classrooms.
Mr. Hawkins, our Family Support Worker, is currently going to school to become a school counselor.
Ms. Guillermo volunteered to pilot a new Writing About Reading Program this year, receiving extra writing training to support her students. This program was such a success that it will be adopted by many third grade teachers throughout the district next year.
Ms. Reed, Ms. Bodden, and Ms. Duarte completed their third year as Math Fellows through a grant we have with Seattle University and the Gates Foundation. These three teachers have done a deep dive into teacher math and are regularly working with other teachers around the city to help each other improve. Ms. Reed had the opportunity to present with other Math Fellows at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics this year.
Ms. Egelhoff, Ms. Reddy, Ms. Miller, and Ms. Reed have been our Teacher Leader Cadre this year. This position provides additional training in data analysis and review, and it gives teachers practice in coaching their peers in a variety of ways.
Ms. Tyshler (Head Teacher), Ms. Reeves (Multilingual Teacher), and I had the opportunity to work with the Center for Educational Leadership at the University of Washington to sharpen our skills in teacher observation as we learned more about supporting and engaging our multilingual learners.
All our classified and certificated staff engage in all sorts of learning each year, in addition to what I’ve mentioned above. Some of our classified staff spend the equivalent of an extra 8 days attending workshops and classes each year. Our certificated teachers also show their value for learning by attending professional development offered through the district and around the state.
Our community is excited to continue to learn and grow. When adults stay curious, our students benefit! Thank you to our school staff for making TM a great place to be a learner—for adults and students.
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