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One connection that I have had as a student that relates to the Graduation Profile is the Resilient Learner attribute.  As a high school student, I transferred from one school to another at the end of my Sophomore year. It was a big change for me but I was able to adapt to that change.

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As a school counselor an attribute that can naturally be brought to life through classroom lessons or group activities is the personally and socially responsible aspect. As a school counselor, many of my lessons are focused on Social Emotional Learning and being personally and socially responsible correlate with SEL.

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Being personally and socially responsible is a social-emotional skill that will contribute to students' growth in relation to the graduate profile.

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One attribute of the graduate profile that presents an opportunity for professional growth is the cross culturally competent.  As a school counselor it is my responsibility to remain culturally aware and competent when working with diverse groups, this includes students, parents, and other faculty and staff members.

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Cross-cultural competency has become even more crucial recently as the current unrest in our country is drawing more attention to the marginalization of minority groups in our nation. I have been considering how the music field has been contributing to this, and the ways that the music classroom can be designed to actively combat marginalization. I am only beginning this journey, but as a first step, I plan to start moving my repertoire choice away from a "musical tourism" model into something more meaningful. I would also like to increase input from individuals in our community with varied musical experiences, so that students can connect real people with the music they are learning, and understand that the people who create the music can best explain its meaning and its performance practice.

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Social Emotional Learning was one of the major things that brought joy to me in choir class as a student, and I continue to believe it is a foundation in the ensemble experience. As a choir student, I learned to cooperate with others, to lead and to follow at the right times, to be supportive and encouraging of all members, even those who struggled with the necessary skills to perform well. These kinds of skills are crucial to a functional performing group, and among other things, these skills help develop resilient learners. Without the safety of a supportive environment, students will never be willing to accept challenges in choir, because they will fear ridicule. Without a class culture of accepting failure, they will never over come their failures and improve. In an environment of students with strong social-emotional skills, everyone encourages each other to try, fail and eventually succeed, seeing each part as equally important.

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I think the whole point of the characteristics outlined in the graduate profile is that they are valuable lifelong skills, and of course good educators would be committed to furthering all of them personally. To focus on a specific though, lately I have been dedicating more time to cultural competency and social responsibility. One of the key components of cultural competency is the mindset that you are always a learner when it comes to other cultures and points of view. It is so easy to make assumptions about others based on prejudices that you don't even realize you have. I have been working to identify and reduce those assumptions in my own interactions.

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As a student, I had an experience that ended up cementing my dedication to social responsibility, particularly integrity, honesty and empathy. Entering high school I thought I was pretty good at withstanding peer pressure, but I hadn't really considered the effect that normalizing unethical behavior can have. After observing nearly everyone I knew cheating on tests whenever it suited them, eventually the practice didn't seem quite so bad to me. Thankfully, I was caught cheating on a final exam not long after I began. The disappointment I brought to my parents through that action convinced me that no gain is worth the price of my integrity.

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Katrina K. , 8th Grade English and Social Studies

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Katrina K. , 8th Grade English and Social Studies

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I think the one that stands out to me in the profile is balance. When I was in high school back in the dark ages, our school had a "smoke hole" an area outside, between doors, where students and teachers could go to smoke. Even though I did not smoke, I had to run this gauntlet when changing classes. I thought then that it is hard to convince students to pursue a healthy lifestyle while providing safe spaces to indulge in such an unsafe practice.

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Katrina K. 8th grade English and Social Studies

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Katrina K. 8th grade English and Social Studies

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Because I teach Civics, I believe that personally and socially responsible is a piece that naturally fits into the course work. We encourage students to begin to be active in the events of their communities and to be ready as soon as they can, to become informed voters.

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Katrina K. 8th grade English and Social Studies

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Katrina K. 8th grade English and Social Studies

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I believe that self-awareness and self-control will help my students in the area of resiliency. My students will come from varied backgrounds and it will be necessary for them to learn how to control their own feelings and emotions so that they are able to face their circumstances and continue to learn. They need to learn that failure is not fatal!

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Katrina K.  8th grade English and Social Studies

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Katrina K.  8th grade English and Social Studies

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As a teacher, I believe that communication and collaboration skills are always necessary.  It is an area that needs constant attention to foster growth and improvement.  If I do not possess and nurture these skills, I will be less effective of a teacher than what my students need.