I am grateful that I was placed at Jacob Hiatt for my student-teaching experience.  From my very first day of professional development in the Jacob Hiatt community, I felt welcomed as a valued member of a team.  One of the things that I have enjoyed the most about my time at Jacob Hiatt is the sense of community and collaboration that permeates every aspect of teaching and learning.  The section of the Jacob Hiatt Action Plan titled A Safe, Respectful, and Collegial Climate for Teachers, Students, and Families, illustrates how all school employees work together to ensure the best possible learning outcomes for students.  It states that “staff and administration cultivate supportive relationships among each other, with students, and with families to meet social emotional needs and build a positive school culture and climate.”  I have seen this philosophy operate both on the large scale, through plenty of professional development trainings and staff-wide meetings to discuss school concerns, as well as on the small scale, through the interactions that I have had with other teachers, particularly my mentor, Ann.  From the start of the year, Ann and I have put a focus on co-teaching; when she is leading a lesson, I take on the responsibility of monitoring the chat, encouraging student participation, and developing further inquiry, and when I am leading the lesson, she does the same for me. We consult each other when grading, lesson planning, and discovering new resources, in order to maximize our separate banks of knowledge and experiences for our mutual benefit and the benefit of our students.  I know that I can turn to Ann and the other teachers and administrators at Jacob Hiatt for support when I am frustrated, and that we can look for solutions together and work to achieve common goals.  I anticipate developing partnerships with teachers and staff throughout my career, as I have learned at Jacob Hiatt, in order to continue the growth of my own practice and skill.

The collaborative environment at Jacob Hiatt has been particularly beneficial due to the experience of the teachers in the community.  In the school, it is a common phrase to say that the “teachers who work at Jacob Hiatt stay at Jacob Hiatt.”  My mentor, Ann, has over 20 years of experience in the school, and she is not unusual in that aspect.  I was surrounded by educators with decades of experience who were all willing to coach me and give me advice.  But even though I am a new, first year student-teacher, my input is still valued as much as anyone else’s suggestions.  I cannot place enough emphasis on how much I value the consistent support from these experienced professionals, and appreciate that they value my own contributions as well.

Jacob Hiatt is very focused on encouraging critical thinking rather than the “empty vessel” method of teaching, which is when students are simply given information that should “fill” their brains like water in a vessel.  At Jacob Hiatt, the teaching strategy of metacognition is imperative to every lesson and activity; the intent is not solely to provide students with information, but to get them to engage with the world around them as well as their own thoughts and preconceptions, then ask questions, and come to conclusions on their own.  And the students know it, too — it is so wonderful to hear young students not only use the world “metacognition” as casually as they might say “pencil” or “book” in a school environment, but to also put the strategy into practice by approaching the subjects they are learning with maturity and depth in order to fully understand the concept instead of engaging with the material in a superficial way.  I will certainly take the metacognitive teaching strategies I have learned at Jacob Hiatt beyond my student-teaching year and use them throughout my career.