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At the center of my values as an educator is seeing the “whole child.”  For me this means starting with building a connection and getting to know students as individuals before working with them to help them grow in both academics and maturity.  Regardless where they start, I want my students to see their academic growth while also developing life-long qualities like curiosity, thoughtfulness, and kindness.  Given that, it’s not surprising that the aspect I find most frustrating about education is the boiling down of all this important information into two or three standardized test scores each year.  So often school systems attempt to congratulate, blame, and make decisions knowing nothing about the individual other than these scores.  To me, it’s always felt as if we’re turning them into “just a number” even though it’s the last thing we want to be thought of ourselves.  Despite my frustration, we live in a world of standardized testing.  I need to work hard with my students to help them meet their goals, but I also need to work hard with my district to help decision-makers see the human beings behind the numbers.

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Looking at my list of values, I didn't have any that I was surprised about. I think part of this is because in my Family and Consumer Ed classes SEL is part of the curriculm and I have been teaching a long time. I tend to be a rule follower so even if I don't like something, I still do it. I want to show the same love, respect and grace to my students and staff both inside the classroom and how I live my life. I have found that I have become more flexible about letting the students have control and imput into their assignments but I think that comes with time and experience and teaching at the high school level. I love what I teach and it allows me to build realtionships , community and teach students life skills. I would like to be able to do more of that and help them apply those skills to their lives as high schoolers and for the future.

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Nothing really surprised me about what I do and do not value. I think that I have felt this way about what I do/don't value for a long time and I feel like I have been aware of them so I don't feel surprised.
I feel like I am able to act on a lot of my values. I value things like student choice, building respect for each other, doing hands on activities, and following the expectations I have for the class. The only other one that I wish I could act on more is the need for play/free time. I think we put a lot of pressure on students to complete everything we need to get done and that leave little time for them to just be kids.
I could really only think of one thing I don't value and that is standardized testing. Obviously I am asked to do this every year and quite often throughout the year. I just believe that students all learn and show their learning in different ways and standardized testing may not be a great way for every student to show their knowledge.
I think that my own aptitudes and interests align with my values.
If I could find more time in the day, I would like some time for students to just unwind from all that we are asking them to do (although that may be hard).

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Looking at my list, there was nothing very surprising about my values. They have been things that I have reflected on for a good while. I also feel very fortunate that, being a music teacher, I am very much left alone to do what I feel is right. I am also fortunate that my colleagues have very similar values as me. I am able to focus on SEL when I want to. I feel that I am able to deliver a meaningful curriculum, although I am constantly tweaking lessons to make them better. As far as my aptitudes and interests, I feel like my classroom allows my personality to show in my values. When I looked at my values, I did see that music history was important to me and is something that I would like to share more with my students.

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Looking at my list I was not surprised by my values. They tend to focus on the social emotional well being of my students. I find things like trust, relationships and  student centered learning to be the most critical in my teaching. As a kindergarten teacher, I feel like I am able to act on these values often. I think that, at least for me, learning in kindergarten should focus on the social emotional needs of our learners first and foremost. I think that is why I love teaching this grade level so much. I  know the SEL needs of students is important in every  grade but it is more expected in kindergarten so it is easier to make that my focus. I don't feel like I need to explain why that is so important to me.  The things I don't value, like boxed curriculum,  standardized testing and data collection, seem to follow the trend of compartmentalizing my learners. I struggle with anything that assumes all my learners are at the same place developmentally and academically.  I prefer to see all my students as individuals, with individual strengths and needs. And also, I am not much a a rule follower. When what I believe differs from an administrative mandate, I tend to just shut my door and do what is best for my class.
I am currently working my way through a new, boxed curriculum with my class. We were told to teach the entire thing exactly as it is presented. This is super hard for me. I have had many moments of " shutting my door" and working around some curriculum. The connections I see between my aptitudes and what I value and teach are pretty simple. I value kindness, trust, curiosity and relationships. These values are less likely to come in a box or a test. They appear when we really focus on the social emotional well being of our class. I also think working with some of the new growth mindset ideas will be something I value. Loving the process of learning is what I hope to deliver to my students.

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After writing my list, I found it very hard to think of things I don’t value in my teaching career. None of my values revolved around tests, homework, or curriculum. As a special education teacher who teaches social skills, I do not give out tests or even grades for my students, which may differ from other teachers in this class. As a special education teacher one of the things I value most is trust. Being in the special education department it is very important to build that trust between the teacher and student, so they have someone they can rely on, especially if they don’t have that at home.

1.     The values I wrote down did not surprise me. My values are based around building that teacher-student relationship and connection. As a first-year teacher, the first thing I started working on with my students was building that relationship.

2.     Of the values I wrote down, I am able to act on regularly within my classroom. Being a special education teacher, that is the first thing you do with your students is work on building that connection so they can respect and trust you.

3.     Of the things I do not value, I don’t feel as if I am asked to do them regularly. I am very fortunate to have amazing staff and administrators that work alongside me.

4.     I do see a connection between my aptitudes, interests and values. I want students to show respect, be kind and trust me. I value being able to build these connections with students using respect, kindness and trust.

5.     I think the biggest thing for me to change is to put myself in my students’ shoes. Most of the problems they come to me with are not big problems, but as a student it might seem like the end of the world. I need to be more receptive to their emotions during those tough times to continue to build our relationship and trust between us.

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After writing my list, I can say that I wasn't really surprised by what I wrote down for my values, but one thing that stuck out to me was that they were centered around flexibility. What I value most in education is the ability to be creative and flexible with your practices and developing ideas that work best for you. I'm lucky to have admin that supports flexibility which makes for a positive work environment when there isn't unnecessary pressure. As for the things I don't value, the common thread was standardized testing. I do value assessments as a way in which to gauge learning, but the pressure that is put on teachers to make sure their students have good tests scores is a major stress inducer which I believe leads to teacher burnout to some degree. Our district has a strong push for having high test scores which that stress is passed down from each level of admin down to teachers, then in some cases, onto the students. This mindset towards testing creates a negative light towards something that could be beneficial if promoted in a more positive light. After doing this practice, my big takeaway is that my values in education mirror my values in life. Values might change over time and things you might not value at one point in your life, you find yourself valuing later. As for all the things I wrote down for not valuing, I want to find a way to make those things valuable in my classroom.

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I am proud to say that I am able to act out most of my values regularly, but that wasn’t always the case. I have a coworker, Jen, who pushes me to try new things, shares my same passion for the arts and has the same values towards education as I do. Together we are a strong team and we make things happen! But before Jen started teaching in our district I was just going along with the curriculum that was shared with me by my mentor/cooperating teacher. It was easy and I didn’t have to work very hard because it was all done for me, lessons, handouts, examples, etc.  I was starting to feel like I needed more but I didn’t have the voice/guts to put myself out there and speak up for what I needed and what the students needed. It was things like this that filled my list of things I do not value, compliance and laziness. When Jen started working in the district I was her teacher mentor/cooperating teacher. I gave the rundown of the curriculum and she complied, but only for a short time! Soon she was asking “why are we doing it this way”? I didn’t have an answer that I was proud of, I didn’t really have an answer at all. So we worked together to build a choice based curriculum that better suited the needs of students and challenged us as educators. We brought our ideas to our administrators and we were given the green light to move towards our goal. The next year we were asked to share our successes, failures and our continued goals. I was exactly what I needed-, it was what I listed on my “values” list. To be an advocate and to take risks for my students. Whenever I feel the need for a little push to take a risk or put myself out there she is the one I go to.

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This doesn’t really answer any of the prompts, but as I made the list of my values I realized how much more in tune I am with my values as an educator than I was even 5 years ago. I think that this is due in part to an effort to really get to know myself as an educator and determine what I truly believe and value, versus what I have been told to believe and value by others. By creating a list of things that I do not value at school, I have drawn the conclusion that many of the items on that list may have once been on my list of values. For example, I once valued compliance, which I used to see as good classroom management. Now that I know better, I see compliance as an imbalanced relationship between teachers and students, and a lack of student engagement. Now, student engagement is at the top of my values list. I think that there has definitely been a shift in mindset for me in this area. Of all the aspects of teaching I would say that classroom management has been the element that gives me the most anxiety, so I tended to have more of a fixed mindset in that area. What I realized in the last several years of teaching is that no one is perfect with managing behavior and there are many strategies that I can use to become more confident with that skill - that I can get better through practice and taking risks and trying new things. By opening my mind and doing the work to implement innovative ways to engage my students, I really don’t have to worry a ton about student behavior. I also noticed that most of my values would fall into the social-emotional category, which affirms the learning that I am doing here in this class. I can see myself keeping this list and coming back to it throughout the year to make sure that what I’m doing matches with the values I hold as most important as a teacher.

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I actually had a hard time thinking of things that I do not value in my current teaching situation, which I suppose is a good thing. I feel that I may be in a unique situation compared to some other educators in this group due to the fact that I teach special education and do not have to deal with assigned curriculums, certain tests, etc. I feel the thing I do not value is my time spent doing paperwork.  I think what frustrating is when special education paperwork starts to pile up and my lesson planning, curriculum searching, and interactions with my students and coworkers weaken because of it. What I do value is positive student and staff interactions. Putting a smile on the face of those around me. Doing someting for a student or a coworker that they wouldn't expect. I value the idea that my students who have special needs, are given the same opportunities that their peers are given. I value the freedom to be creative in developing my own curriculum and constantly being able to learn and grow. I value the support of those around me and my administration.

1.My values did not really suprise me, except for reflecting on how my non value of paperwork time effects the other aspects of my job and the values I have.

2.I feel that I am able to act on my values very regularly, which I appreciate about the school I work for.

3. I am asked to do paperwork reguraly. I understand the importance of a lot of it and a lot of it has value for my students. There just isn't always enough time to do it all and maintain the things I do value. Thats when it becomes frustrating.

4. I think I have always wanted to make people happy and feel comfortable around me. That reflects in my values of wanting that for my students and my colleagues. I think it is so important for my students to enjoy being in my small groups in order to better focus, learn, and build a value for their schooling.

5. I think the one thing I could act on is staying on top of my paperwork, not letting things pile up so that I do have the time to focus on the things I value. I think I could use my time more wisely outside of school, sacrificing an hour or two here and there of my personal life to catch up on paper work so that when I am at school, I am focused on my students and their learning for that day.

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1. I really appreciated the opportunity to think about my values at school and write them down on a sheet of paper and was not really surprised with the ones I valued most.
2. Here are the values I feel are most important for me and which I am able to implement at school: Creating purposeful lessons involving as much movement and choice as possible, allowing students to be themselves and giving them the space to do so through play, building meaningful relationships with students and families and developing a community of learners by celebrating our differences together.
3. When I think about the things I do not value and of which I am asked to do, the main one that comes to mind is testing students on a regular basis. This is hard because I do not think it helps allow students to develop a growth mindset. However, I do my best at implementing authentic assessments through projects as much as I can.
4. I do see a connection between my aptitudes and interests and my values. I am a person who very much enjoys being active and having fun. However, I like to understand the “why” behind most things I do. Therefore, I think this helps me create purposeful lessons for my students. I also really enjoy learning about different cultures and traveling which allows me to bring light to cultural differences in the classroom.
5. I hope to continue to practice teaching with my values at the for front! I am excited to use this list of values to refer to at the beginning, middle and end of each year. I feel that this is just another way I can keep myself accountable.

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Like many other people posting so far, there are few surprises to my list of values.  I have a strong leaning towards curiosity, skepticism and creativity - which I associate most strongly with my chosen subject that I teach, science.  These core values I try to weave into our daily interactions so that students get to live and feel these values in action.  I also have a strong draw towards growth/change - which I associate with lifelong learning and empowerment for students.  The other core value I chose was a veneration or wonderment for the natural world.  Here I try and let my students experience the immense sense of perspective in their lives (an example would be staring up at the night sky and feeling small and tiny in a vast ocean of stars).
I'm also lucky to not have too many of my non-values forced upon me in my current job. Most of my non-values were the reciprocals of my core values.  Mindless conformity, close mindedness, nonreflectiveness - these can rear their ugly heads in any system.  Being aware of my values and taking periodic self assessments of them is integral to the healthy life of a teacher.  If our beliefs and values don't align with our actions it creates discord within us.  We begin to lose our enthusiasm and become jaded to the profession (something we've read about already in the Onward text).  Misalignment leads to stagnation, cynicism, and burnout.  We, as educators, must be intentional about our actions.  And our actions flow forth from our internal teacher "moral" compass.

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None of my values really surprised me. Most of my values revolved around my students and how the feel in my classroom. I value that my students are growing each and everyday and that they feel cared for. I also value the relationships I have with my students and their parents. I feel that I am able to act on all of these values each and every day they are in the classroom. The biggest one on my do not value list was standardized testing and I feel there is a lot of pressure on me as a teacher with standardized testing. I teach 3rd grade, which is the first year students take the MCA test. I remember not sleeping the nights prior to my students taking the MCA test and constantly checking my computer to see their scores after they had taken the test. I feel my district puts a lot of pressure on teachers for their students to do well. Each year my building has a data meeting to discuss the data from these tests and figure out what we can do better. Last year I remember feeling deflated as I left that meeting because the 3rd and 4th grade math teachers were put on the spot because our scores were not good enough. I value that my students do well on the test, but I do not value the score that they get. It is more important to me that they do their best than get a high test score. I want to continue to stress to my students that it does not matter what score they get as long as they try their best. That is my motto in my classroom, do your best that is all I can ask of you!

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I enjoyed getting my values down on a sheet a paper. This will be something nice to reference throughout the year. None of my values really surprised me. I feel like my main values, relationships with students and engagement in class through movement and group work I am able to implement in my class. However, my school district does apply some pressure to teachers for standardized test scores. Test scores are something I do not value as a teacher. I did put rigor in learning for a value, but I think our school district overemphasizes the importance of our MCA and NWEA test scores. The pressure the school district puts on teachers can lead me astray from my values at times. I strongly believe that for learning to occur students need to feel respected and safe in the classroom. If I can form a relationship with students then I believe learning can be done. I would say my values reflect this. I did not put "high test scores" but rather centered my values around relationships and a safe learning community. I believe that learning will come if I can achieve those things. I also put flexibility down as one of my values. I think I could let loose some of the restrictions I place in my classroom for 8th grade students. Something I may add to achieve this is by giving the students more choice on assessments in my room.

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1. Nothing really surprised me about my values in teaching. My top values are being able to develop and teach meaningful and developmentally appropriate curriculum, allowing students to have choice in their learning, letting students have free choice play and play during learning as well, making sure every child feels loved and seen, teaching students about other cultures/traditions, and having strong teamwork between school and home. I don’t value being forced to teach like every other teacher. I believe we all have strengths, and taking away our individuality isn’t best for students. I also don’t value being forced to teach boring, scripted, and not best practice curriculum. I believe teachers should be trusted to create fun and engaging lesson plans, and scripted curriculum takes away my joy and creativity from teaching. The final thing I don’t value is only focusing on the test score. I believe we should look at, and celebrate, students’ growth throughout the year/unit.

2. Thankfully I feel like I am allowed to act on almost all of my values regularly at work. During the last five years I’ve been allowed to add stories, science projects, and math games into the curriculum. My students have had free choice every day, and that only adds to the joy they have in schools. I hope that I’m still able to be an individual, bring in relevant and exciting materials, and teach my students in the best way possible this upcoming year.

3. I feel fortunate to not be asked to do things that go against my values regularly. However, during Distance Learning we were told we all had to be the same. This was difficult for me because I had to give up fun projects that I did on top of the basic learning. I’m hoping that if we go to Distance Learning again next year, I can include some of the fun activities that my students and families are used to.

4. I believe my aptitudes, interests, and values all align. I know I’m a highly qualified teacher that is successful in teaching young students. I’m interested in what’s developmentally appropriate for kindergarten students, science, engaging literacy stories, and helping students become kind and inclusive individuals. I value being able to create creative and engaging lessons that teach students about the world. I also value being able to decide and implement what is best for my students.

5. The implications of this activity is that I’m more determined to continue following my values to help all my students succeed. I’m going to continue to advocate for my students and what I know is the best developmentally appropriate activities.

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I was not very surprised about the values that relate to education. Most of my values that I wrote down can all be traced back to creating  a safe and supportive classroom built around relationships. This did not surprise me because I live these values everyday. I work everyday to create this environment for my students. Sometimes I do not always find the best solution, but I continue to strive to work towards that. Most of my values I act on regularly due to how I hold them in high regard.

On the values that I do not value, I found that I am asked to work on these a lot regularly. I do not value standardized testing and those scores. Luckily, those only come around about 3 times a year. Although, at conferences I am expected to show that I value testing, the importance of it, and educate parents about what the scores mean. Every other day of the year, I do not think about their scores, I do not hold any value to them.

I find that my aptitudes, interests, and values all align. The things that I found are my values and typically the areas that I am interested in and am constantly focused on improving.

There are not too many implications for action since the areas that I value are areas I tend to focus and improve on. The only area for action I think is intentionally being positive about the items that I do not value. There will always be some of those items, so I just need to check myself and my attitude of how I react and handle those situations.

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What surprised me about my values:
I can't say I was completely surprised by my values, they are something that I hold near and dear to my heart and preach daily in my job and as the parent of an ADHDer.  I think what surprised me the most is the emotional change I had between the two lists.  As I was writing the list of things I value in education I felt strength and pride in the list and peace around them.  As I was writing the list of things I do not value in education, that feeling was replaced with frustration and anger towards what I feel are injustices in our educational system.  I was amazed at how strong that feeling was with just writing a list.

How many values do you feel you are able to act on:
I feel so blessed to work in the school district I work in because I feel as if the values I have in education, they have as well.  I feel as if we, as teachers, are given permission and support to discover our values and act on them.  I think the values I enact the most are the value of positive relationships with my students and families, implementing research based approaches for instruction and intervention, and meeting kids where they are at.

Do not value:
Of the things I do not value, I think that society asks me to meet the expected threshold of MCA testing and scores.  I also feel as if the required paperwork for students in special education and intervention is also asked of me often which pulls me away from the reason I went into teaching.  At times, as an interventionist, I feel as if there is a push from teachers that I work with to put kids into a box instead of creating space for all kids to learn and meet their needs in any unique way possible.
Connection to aptitude and interests:
My interest and passion as an educator is empowerment.  I want to empower my students, no matter their age, to be able to advocate for themselves and get their needs met in a positive and productive way.  I want to empower teachers to ask for help and be willing to try something outside the box.  I want to empower families to be advocates for their children in a way that makes them feel heard but fosters positive relationships with the school.  Because of this I feel as if my values are right inline with my interests and aptitude.

Things to change:
I think the biggest take away and call for change to me was to have more of an awareness of my emotional reaction to the positive and negatives I listed.  I think this will be important for me to be aware of because I know what I value is not always what others may value and if I am not able to respond to the emotional response I feel, it could negatively affect my ability to have a productive two way conversation about them.

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The top three values that I wrote down as they relate to education are hard work ethic, empathy, and critical thinking.  As I reflect on why these three came to my mind first, I believe because these are the values that I also feel are necessary for life outside of school.  As I am approaching a my mid-career, I am starting to find that I have the life experience to say that these three qualities are necessary in every job and in every stage of life.  Life is hard and we need to teach our students that working hard is important to succeeding at work and at home and in relationships.  Empathy is also a valuable skill.  The older I get, the more I see people disagree with each other and get angry with each other.  I want to teach my students to be empathetic so they can relate to others around them.  And I also want to develop critical thinkers.  I am a high school math teacher and I tell my students all the time, "I would rather have you be good at thinking than be good at math".  I know that many of my students won't need the concepts that I teach them in their every day lives.  But I believe they will need to think critically every day of their life.  These are the three most important values to me.

The top two on the list of things I do not value are arriving at the correct answer quickly and students being more concerned about their grade than their learning. I do find value in quick thinking and there is a time and a place for that, but I do not value it so much because there was no struggle for that student and that means there was no reason for me to ask them that question in the first place. There is no deep thinking if they can respond very quickly. The other quality that I do not find valuable is the desire for students to get good grades but are more concerned about that than their learning. As I wrote this down, I realized that I described myself in high school and college. That is one of my biggest regrets in school is that I didn't learn for the sake of learning. I want to impress that on my students that knowledge is way more important than a grade.

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Most of the values I listed revolve around creating an inclusive and supportive classroom environment. This includes increased representation in curriculum and class materials. I was not surprised that my values align strongly with my personal interests. I am passionate about ensuring that all students, especially LGBTQ, feel safe and welcomed to be themselves in my classroom. Additionally, it is time to diversify content and include marginalized voices that are not often centered in our current activities/textbooks. This is an action that I can commit to moving forward. I will continue to be reflective on the content being taught in my class and  consider who it was originally developed for. While my values undeniably take considerable time to cultivate, I feel like I can regularly take small actions to help develop them.

A majority of what I identified as components I do not value relate to a focus on grading and assessment practices. I tend to concern myself with building strong relationships with students above all else. Yet, I am repeatedly asked to consider how a student’s overall grade is determined in my class. My school is also currently prioritizing standards based grading. While these are important conversations to have, it is not what I value most about teaching. Having this awareness may allow me to better prepare for these conversations in the future, as they will likely take more energy and concentration on my part.

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One of the core values I hold for my life at school centers on relevance. I want to make sure that what I am teaching applies to their current learning, but also teach them skills that they can use throughout their school years and beyond. I think part of this stems from being a teacher in a "special area" that is often overlooked by administration and teaching colleagues, so I am constantly aware of proving the "worth" of my class. I would just want to make sure now that I have become aware of that value that it remains focused on the relevance for students (with the relevance to adults as a lesser focus).  This core value of relevance definitely ties into my connectedness strengths...I can see how concepts and people are connected, and would want to teach connected concepts that will serve students well into the future.
As far as what I learned from listing what I do NOT value, a lot of it was centered on activities that happen in my school by other adults, not students. So I think that is a another awareness piece for me to stay focused on the students and not get bogged down by some of the adult-to-adult struggles.

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My list of educational values matches not only the reasons why I entered teaching but also the things I love about teaching. I became a teacher because I was helped so much by my teachers. I wanted to help students like that, pay it forward. I had opportunities to watch children learn and be involved in teaching them even before I decided to go to college and major in education. It was those experiences that influenced me greatly.  I have also come to realize that the position I teach is perfect because through it I am able to live out my values on a daily basis. I get to help students, explore, inquiry, question, discuss and observe the wonders around them. There are days that are tough but overall I am very happy with what and where I teach.  This is in large part because my values are present in how I am able to teach.

Of the things I do not value, I would say I run into several of them everyday.  The thing that is most dissatisfying in regards to my job is the pressure of time. I am being asked to teach way too much in way too little time. Many times I am not able to teach to full understanding for most students. Those that have better background knowledge, and are quicker learners get the most out of the go, go, go necessity. The ones that need more help or just more time to process are at a disadvantage.

Moving forward, I feel that it is important to continue helping students explore and having discussions. I need to find ways to highlight the most important information for all. Then provide opportunities for students to explore independently. By providing focused choices for students. This I would hope will free up some of my time during the teaching hour to help students more one on one or in small groups while others are working. I can support all students at their current learning level, whether its below, on or above grade level.

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Did anything surprise you about your values?

My educational values include:

--hard work + success (for both myself and my students),

--using CARES (cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility,

empathy, and self-control)

--positivity + kindness

--support + encouragement

--opportunities + collaboration

I noticed that a lot of what I hold near and dear to my heart are the same beliefs and values when comparing my personal values versus my educational values.

How many of your values do you feel you are able to act on regularly in your work?

I feel that I am able to incorporate all of my values into my work as

an educator at least some way, every day. For example, my biggest value of hard work can be seen in my dedication to my students’ success. I also demonstrate my kindness and positivity with my colleagues. I receive support and encouragement from my fellow third grade teachers. Lastly, I seek out learning opportunities to discuss acts of CARES in my classroom.

Of the things you do not value, how many do you feel you are asked to do regularly?

I don’t feel that any of the things I do not value I am not asked to do on a regular basis.

What do you see as the connection between your aptitudes and interest and your values?

The biggest connection I have with my aptitudes, interests and values is that they all line up! My strongest aptitudes are positivity and organization; I believe these skills greatly help me as an educator. Secondly, my interest in children and their curiosity leads me to recognize how to cultivate an inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning. Finally, my values of education, hard work and encouragement allow me to be genuinely engaged with my profession, everyday.

What implications for action are there, if any, from your new awareness of your values? Is there anything you may want to start or stop doing?

My biggest takeaway from our readings and discussions is that in order to be the best version of myself, I need to take time for myself. According to the Myers Briggs results, my personality can be described as ‘the caregiver.’ Because caring for others is a task that comes naturally to me, I need to remember that I can not pour my love, dedication, and strength into my teaching, if my cup is empty.

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After analyzing my list I noticed that most of what I wrote was about the environment that I try to create in my classroom. I want students to look forward to coming to school. I want my classroom to be  non-intimidating where students feel comfortable. I want a team atmosphere where students feel support by me and their classmates. I also want them to feel valued, equal, and safe. What I don't value are standardized test and grades. I just want to see engaged students trying their best, treating others with respect and seeing them grow as students.

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I was surprised at how easy it was to create a pretty long list of values. I think one of the 'upsides' to COVID 19 is that is has made me pretty reflective about what is most important and get my values in line both in the classroom and personally. My list reflects this. I feel like I am able to act on most of my values most of the time. Professionally, I teach elective courses so I am not limited in terms of standardization and have a lot of autonomy within my classroom and curriculum. Although I am personally not asked to do things that compromise my values on a daily basis, I do see the pressures on colleagues who have standardized test and getting through material leaving little time for other things they value. My values align closely with my interest in the social sciences and many of them are related to important themes in the courses I teach. I would say more than awareness, this activity provided affirmation. I teach a unit on values in one of my courses and lead students in a similar activity each semester. I want to keep thinking about, aligning and possibly re-aligning my values to stay true to myself and best serve my students in the classroom.

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My values list was long, and a lot of them seemed to focus around Choice, Grit and Connections. These relate to both students and myself. I noticed (and kind of always knew) I'm not a fan of grading. I was surprised to realize after looking at my not valued side that I really don't like when I have a set curriculum to teach. My entire teaching career (13 years) I've never been told that I have to teach something which makes me pretty happy. Due to this I think that's why it's important to me that I allow students to have choice in the classroom too. When designing lessons I offer choices. They are able to demonstrate their learned skill and knowledge in a way of their choosing. Maybe that's why I also hate grading. I don't believe there's a one size fits all model. I will have to continue working through grade rubrics until I find something that'll work for choice and give an accurate assessment of student's skills and knowledge.

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Looking at my list I found  that I  it was quite easy to list the things I do value. It was interesting to see that these related to life-long skills. I value getting along with others, work hard, collaborate, be positive and engagement.
It surprised me how I have direct influence on these. Whereas the items I do not value were out of my control - positive reinforcement using prizes and protocol. This exercise helped me realize to not dwell on what I can not change. Appreciate what you are doing.

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When writing my list of values I found that most of the things I valued were focused around classroom environment and connection. I value student growth, connection, positive experiences, engagement, deep learning, etc. I noticed that on the things that I do not value had a lot to do with standard based testing as well as other things that districts have mandated. All of the things I value are items that I can do in my class each and every day.

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Ok this is probably going to sound terrible, but in my list of values, academics was the sixth thing on my list.  I do believe it students feel valued at all intellectual levels, learning will naturally occur.  The things that I valued the most can't be "tested" or "scored".  The things I value the most include things I CAN do everything and all throughout the day.  That part of my list that I least value, unfortunately are the things that can be tested and even published.... I am a person who values relationships and so my values align with my interests.