A good sauce will not save a bad noodle
I’ve really been reflecting on my teaching lately. As a teacher I am always learning. Reflecting. Asking myself how can I get better. I always think that as educators, the last thing we want to do is to turn learners OFF of learning. I have a bad feeling that this might be the case in some schools, or with some teachers. In fact, to be brutally honest, although I had many great teachers, I do remember the poor ones almost as much as the best ones. The ones where we copied stuff off the overhead or chalkboard. Im not playing the blame game, but what I can take away from that experience many years ago is that this is NOT the teacher I want to or will be.
I think we all need to stop and reflect. Is what we are teaching really worth learning? Do we dress up content that we hope our learner might need to know and gloss over information that the students need to know?
Are we coating content to a one size fits all without addressing the deeper understandings and connections?
A good sauce……………well you know the rest.
The Learning Journey 
So true Jay! Fortunately many teachers nowaday understand the value of differentiation and teaching to create better understanding of the central idea rather than ‘One size fits all’. Bless them and their students!
Here is what I like to do:
Every morning, before I start my learning journey in my early childhood class, I remind myself of the following:
Whatever I share with the students today (e.g. a skill, a concept, an attitude) should be something they can start using today and should be valuable for the rest of their lives.
My end of the day reflection normally includes thoughts about how the students are using what I have shared with them at home and wondering how they will be using this when they are in MS or when they are adults.
The great thing about teaching the youngest children in the school is that they are often brought to school by their parents. Their daily feedback about what happened at home is valuable information. From the information I have shared in my ‘New Unit of Inquiry Parent Information Morning’ together with details about learning engagements I have shared on the classblog it is easy to link their observations with what we have been doing in class.
Getting parents involved is so important isnt it. That connection with parents is often lost as the learner gets older, in my opinion, and that can only lessen the connection between student, parent and teacher.
Nice post, I agree. One of the best experiences for educators is to sit in a workshop or PD session and compare it to their teaching. (good or bad).
Too often many of us forget what it is like to sit through lessons day after day, with different expectations, different objectives, different teaching styles. It is tough being a student, anything educators can do to help make the students day easier will result in improved learning outcomes.
Thanks for the comment
Yes, collaboration is just so important, we need to remember when we went to school, empathize with the students. You are correct, if the students are unhappy, learning can be impaired.