When was the last time you experienced strong feelings in your classroom? Probably every day. Working with children is demanding and can bring up a lot of strong feelings.
Are you considering your own self-regulation needs as well as those of the children you’re working with? How can we process all of what we're feeling so we can move through challenging moments and make a difference for each child in our classrooms?
What would the perfect day look like in your classroom? When was the last time you spent time thinking about that? When was the last time you talked with your teaching team about creating a shared classroom vision? Those are big questions, and you may be wondering how to answer them. Today’s guest may be able to help.
Today, you’ll hear from Deidre Harris. Deidre serves as an educational coach for the Pyramid Model Consortium. Deidre’s worked in the early childhood field for over 25 years and has a special focus on teaching teams. Listen in to hear what she has to say about how she began to focus on teaching teams, what to do when conflict happens, and why you should write down team agreements.
Chazz Lewis is an educational specialist who “teaches teachers to teach” in a chain of child development centers. He works closely with schools, teachers, and children. He earned his master’s in executive leadership at American University. Mr. Chazz envisions a world where most people wake up every day, enjoying the process of becoming the best versions of themselves. He’s also well known on TikTok, Instagram, and his own podcast.
In today’s episode, Mr. Chazz explains how he got into teaching, why he decided to teach young children, and what kept him teaching. He also talks about building a community in the classroom and being the community you want to build.
As part of our Teacher Spotlight series, we recently asked the CLASS Learning Community to nominate a Head Start teacher who made the most of meaningful interactions. Our winner, Likaa Mohamad, has been teaching at All Kids Academy/Casa de Oro Head Start since 2019. Likaa immigrated to the United States in 2012 and went to school to get a master’s in Autopsy and worked in the field for about two years. Upon reflection, she felt a pull to the early education field and changed her major. She began working at All Kids Academy in 2019 and got her bachelor’s degree in Education in May.
