I've Got the Power {Weekly Blog}

We make decisions everyday. What sandwich do I want to take today for lunch? Which dress pants match with this sweater? What shoes won't hurt my feet? These decisions have their own difficulties but they only affect me.

Being a student teacher, my decisions affect my students. No, this is not the first time I am realizing this, but this week I had a challenge of making a decision to pick 5 of the 6 junior prepared public speakers to compete at the local area CDE competition. On Thursday, we had a "speak off" where each junior prepared speech student came into a room and gave their speech. My cooperating teacher and I were hoping this would give us clear indication on what 5 would compete. Unfortunately, the speak off did not provide as much clarity as we needed. After the speak off, my cooperating teacher and I deciphered the options. I appreciated my cooperating teacher trusting in me as the teacher of the class to make decision. She gave me her insight after I talked through my thoughts and even though we did not agree on all the students placings, we did agree on the one student who unfortunately will not be competing.

This learning experience happened all within 3 hours of each other, but I was mentored well and learned a lot from it. First, you must always be fair and give each student the same opportunity, consistency is key. Forecasting what work ethic and quality of work a student may have up to the contest in is not a fair way to choose students. Looking at work ethic, attitude, and quality of work up to this point is. As the teacher, you have to make the decision... and be able to justify it. Telling a student they cannot compete is not a glorified part of the job. In preparing to tell the student that I wrote down exactly why they did not make it and so it was clearly explained to that student.
Another real experience happened this week and I credit my cooperating teachers for mentoring me through the process. It was not fun. It was not easy. It had to be done. It is was hard not giving a student an opportunity who would have done well.

This power we are given as teachers to make decisions is constant. Can I go to the bathroom, Ms. Andrews? Can I run to my locker? Can you print this for me? My first response is, I do not know, can you go to the bathroom? The students chuckle and say, "May I go to the bathroom?" This may seem simple but  when multiple students are asking, you are ensuring one student is out at a time or if you are about to do something they cannot miss in class, these decisions are cognitively challenging. My decisions can change a student mood/attitude, experience, or mindset so being purposeful and explicit in what I decide is going to make a difference.

I am relating my quote above to decision-making because you may not always be liked after a decision is made. I always want to be that Fruit Loop because I maybe won't always make all the favorable decisions, but I want to always make the right and fair ones.