Shop by Topic
Shop by Product
ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues
<< Previous Issue
| View Past Issues | | Next Issue >> 
Teaching is About Relationships
January 7, 2008
You can only go into the unknown when you have made friends with yourself.
-Pema Chodrin
-Pema Chodrin
"Teaching is about relationships. The journey of becoming and being a teacher is unique for each teacher and yet depends on others. It involves seeking, constructing, and reconstructing meanings about our individuality as human beings and how this is expressed in our work and lives as teachers. This process calls on us to know our personal and professional identities. It is about developing our personal and professional identities, which we know are both real and true for us.
"To be a teacher, then, is about building authentic connections with oneself, both as a teacher and as a person �" that is, nurturing what we call intra-connectedness. But it also involves developing authentic inter-connectedness with others such as students and parents, with the world around us, and with our personal place and presence in time."
Our Manager's Tool Kit is now on sale on our web site. Included in the kit are...
• The Art of Leadership: Managing Early Childhood Organizations
• Managing Money: A Center Director’s Guidebook
• Stick Your Neck Out �" A Street-Smart Guide to Creating Change in Your Community and Beyond
• 250 Management Success Stories from Child Care Directors
• Exchange Article CD Collection #9: Taking Stock �" Evaluation Tools for Program, Teacher, and Director
• Exchange Article CD Collection #5: Supervising Staff
ExchangeEveryDay
Delivered five days a week containing news, success stories, solutions, trend reports, and much more.
What is ExchangeEveryDay?
ExchangeEveryDay is the official electronic newsletter for Exchange Press. It is delivered five days a week containing news stories, success stories, solutions, trend reports, and much more.
Enhanced Childcare Fee Management
Combine your family & child information with a powerful fee management system to maintain a complete history of all family charges, deposits and payments. This includes features like cash receipts; the ability to handle simple or variable rates (based on schedules, actual attendance, or both); and complete audit trails and detailed financial reports help you make the right business decisions. Take a Test Drive: Get a free trial version of EZ-CARE2 Center Management Software!
Combine your family & child information with a powerful fee management system to maintain a complete history of all family charges, deposits and payments. This includes features like cash receipts; the ability to handle simple or variable rates (based on schedules, actual attendance, or both); and complete audit trails and detailed financial reports help you make the right business decisions. Take a Test Drive: Get a free trial version of EZ-CARE2 Center Management Software!
Comments (4)
Displaying All 4 CommentsMini University Inc.
Dayton, Ohio, United States
Thirty years ago I began my journey of becoming and being a teacher and each year was unique. This article speaks to true teachers.
beltsville, md, United States
I was just reflecting my own thought about this important facter of building relationships. Seems to me our own interconnceted ness and the level and intensity of it assists us it developing an intra connectedness to thers , the kind that can withstand daily setbacks, difficulties in other areas of connecting such as a harsh parent, a judgemental supervisor, an unresposive child etc. etc.
My thrust is to reach out to the caregivers at a personal level to renew their own self each day so they can carve out one stroke at a time to build relationship with the children they are providing care.
Ofcourse, there are always exceptions! Some caregivers are born angels be they 18 or 58 yrs old ! Relationship? Its a piece of cake.
Could it be sodme are genetically inclined for building better relationship? Could it be their own personal experiences has already made them so?
it is a question I am still trying to fifnd answer for.
Dare to Affirm
Pitman, NJ, United States
Relationships are about authenticity - being a REAL person as the term implies. They are also about respecting what is REAL in another individual. My campaign, DARE to AFFIRM: Catch Them Doing Something Right is about developing these responsive respectful reciprocal relationships EVERY DAY in EVERY WAY. We need to value and affirm ourselves, our colleagues and the children and families. We don't always have to focus on the complexity of understandings but we need to pay attention to everyday occurrences and make them important!! THANK YOU, I appreciate your doing that, a smile or a hug...the gentle times that say to someone "I notice what you have done and I value it."
People won't often remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel.
Barak Obama is talking about HOPE and UNITY - if we build relationships with gentleness and nurturing, one person at a time, we can all make a difference.
http://daretoaffirm.blogspot.com
Rider University
Lawrenceville, New Jersey, United States
This is pretty much what I am rwiting about in my next book, which will be published by RedLeaf Press in June:
"Don't Get So Upset! Help Young Children Manage Their Feelings by Understanding Your Own."
http://www.redleafpress.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1260
Such an important topic!
Post a Comment