Teacher Presence: How Our Daily Impact Shapes Students

0:23 Hello, everyone, and welcome back. This is the road to an effective classroom environment, and I am your host, Lashonta. This is episode seven, and the focus is on teacher presence. I encourage you to go back to the other six episodes and have a listen to the topics that we have discussed thus far. But today we're going to look at teacher presence. What is teacher presence? And before I get into my own definition or what I think teacher presence looks like, sounds like think about a salad. A salad consists of different vegetables, and for those of us that like a little bit of fruit, but it can consist of different components.

1:15 I like to think of teacher presence as the lettuce because it's a big portion of the salad. So let's talk about that. What is teacher presence? Teacher presence is how you establish your existence in your classroom. It's your persona, it's who you are when you're in that room and how you are.

1:57 And if you went into the class feeling that way, what are the chances that your lesson started off with those feelings? What are the chances that you allowed your feelings to come into that classroom and be a part of that lesson? Now, this would be awesome if you're talking about characterization or you're acting out different plots or looking at different components of some historical piece, if it's actually a part of the lesson itself, bringing feelings into the lesson gives it more imagery. But what I'm talking about here is when you come in with how you're feeling that day or at that moment, and you bring it in, how does that impact our children?

2:54 How does it impact those students as they are trying to learn what it is that you are trying to teach? And I can remember during my teaching career when I would go to work and I may have a bad morning because I'm trying to get my kids ready for school. And let's say that we just had all kinds of things going on. And I'm in my household, we had fun, but we also had our times in which our mornings were not always smooth. Um, then there were times I can remember being sad and going in and my students, I and I was the type I never wanted my students to see me cry, but I can remember two specific times in which my students saw me crying.

3:45 And I have looked back on different aspects of my career and said, How did how I was feeling that day, how did it impact my students? How did it impact them? Did it impact them in a positive way or a negative way? Or was there no impact? So I'm always contemplating and thinking about how I go into a school, how I go into an office, how I go into a classroom, and how I'm feeling for that day. Because we have to be cognizant of that. We have to be cognizant of what we are feeling going in and who we're talking to when we have those feelings going on.

4:32 Now imagine teachers who go in every day with those feelings, not once in a blue moon, not once a week, but imagine those teachers who go into a classroom every day with those feelings: anger, tired, frustration.

4:54 What does that classroom environment look like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like? And for many of us, we don't have to imagine what that looks like or sounds like or feels like, but we because we can see it across the hall from us or down the hall, upstairs, or downstairs. We can see it in other buildings that we may go in, and unfortunately, sometimes we may see it in ourselves. So, how can our presence in the classroom impact our students? I have had the wonderful opportunity in this journey in education to be surrounded by so many wonderful teachers, custodians, cafeteria workers, media specialists, guidance counselors, instructional aides.

5:54 I've been surrounded by many people in my 20 years in education who have had a positive impact on my life. And there's one in particular who has been in education for over 40 years, and her name is Mrs. Juanita Wilson. And I had an opportunity to talk with her and ask her, how important is teacher presence in the classroom? And I asked her to share her thoughts with me, and this is what she said. Teacher presence in the classroom is of utmost importance. As a teacher, I am determined to command my room.

6:34 I strive to hold my students spellbound, willing, and ready to focus on learning. I believe that much of a teacher's presence in the classroom, the thing that students intuitively respond to, is composed of actions teachers can take that can be taught, practiced, and mastered. From tone of voice, body language, and physical space surrounding them, teachers can learn to manage themselves and their environment for the benefit of their students and serve as models of self-respect and self-discipline in the process.

7:16 Thus, a teacher's physical appearance in the classroom conveys powerful messages to students. What an awesome summation of how we impact our students. Our tone, our body language, our candor, everything that we do when we step into the classroom, when we step into the building to be positive and purposeful. Catherine Lovewell of Teacher Sanctuary had this to say about teacher presence. A mindful teacher is fully present in the moment, paying attention to the students, and is non-judgmental and compassionate.

8:10 Some of the key words there are paying attention, present in the moment, non-judgmental, compassionate. And these are things that we talked about in some earlier episodes, and again, it's still being discussed here in teacher presence.

8:33 Consistently keeping teacher presence in the forefront of your thoughts will make you a better educator. Not forgetting that your classroom is a stage and you are a conductor to that symphony. You can create beautiful mosaic music or intentional chaos. Intentional chaos is the result of walking onto your stage with any emotion other than excitement and passion. Excitement and passion are our vehicles to success with our students. Sometimes we are very quick to talk about the baggage that our students bring each day when they come into our classrooms.

9:31 But what about our own baggage? Do we know how to leave it at the door, as we sometimes tell our children?

9:42 So, why do we expect our students to come in perfect and without baggage if we ourselves bring in our own? That will be another episode. What I want to encourage you to do is to get caught up in your passion, get caught up in your lesson, and get caught up in your symphony.

10:14 Go into your classrooms confident, move around the room, use different voice types to gain different responses from your students. Go in poised. Go in ready for an adventure every day.

10:42 This has been Teacher Presence, and I hope you have enjoyed our discussion. And I want to leave you with a quote from a soon-to-be doctor, and that is Wendy Platt. Leave you with a quote If it doesn't feel like home, the students will roam.

11:16 Until next time, be blessed.