Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development. As an educator, I will have the role of providing an education to students from a wide range of cultural identities, ways of being, and worldviews. It is my responsibility to offer a safe, positive, and inclusive learning environment for my students. Developing students as social beings is just as important as developing them as learners. Diversity is a strength and I aim to lean into that as an educator. Student’s development is not linear which means that it is very important to meet each student where they are at as individuals and make sure they have the resources and help they need to stay on track.
I believe that the First Peoples Principles of Learning should be engrained within standard 3. Each of these principles should be followed by all educators to make sure they are understanding student growth and development. “Learning ultimately supports the well-being of the self, the family, the community, the land, the spirits, and the ancestors,” Learning is holistic, reflexive, experiential, and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place,” and “Learning requires exploration of one’s identity” are three of the FPPL that I believe relate directly to standard 3 and attention needs to be paid to them.
I am very early into my teaching journey, but I have already noticed that best classrooms that I have been in have all made attempts at fostering safe, diverse, and inclusive environments. The implementation of IEDs is an important aspect of standard 3, as we need to understand what potential challenges students are facing. We then need to plan accordingly and work with the student and others who are supporting them to make sure they are getting adequate support. When lesson planning, we need to implement Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and provide both summative and formative assessment depending on the needs of the students. Students have diverse needs so therefore we need diverse solutions.
