Sharing the Season and Our Stories: Building Bonds in Education
by Joann Taylor, Chief TxCEE Officer
I love the holidays! Some of my very best memories come from this time of year. I remember as a child, my mom, dad, brother, and I would bundle up and go to Aunt Na’s house for the family gathering (“Na” is short for “Naomi” because as little kids we couldn’t say Naomi that well). The get-together ranged in size from year to year, so sometimes it was small with as few as 15 people, and sometimes it was very crowded with up to 40 people.
After the buzz and excitement of secret Santa and too much food, everyone would make their way to their cars and leave. We would stay until it was dark and then would load up in two cars to go look at the lights. Every time, my dad’s car would “get lost” while we were out looking so that he could sneak home to help Santa put out gifts. We’d make our way to the Midwestern State University campus to see the Fantasy of Lights (I helped raise money for the Little Engine That Could display) and then we’d drive through various neighborhoods to see how people had decorated (this was long ago before the days of synchronized light shows and blow-ups.) Afterwards, we would head home to discover that Santa had indeed visited!
Nothing can compare with those memories of excitement and wonder, and such memories influence how I share the joy of the holidays with my staff.
Telling our stories as educators matters. Sharing your story with your students helps build deeper relationships, and research tells us that students who are connected with their teachers and classmates are more engaged and more successful in school (Pandolpho, 2018). Sharing what we do and how we impact our students and colleagues allows those not in education to have a better understanding of what we do each day.
How should we share our stories? Newsletters, social media posts, and presentations are useful avenues, but we can also share in less formal ways. At TxCEE, we share educator stories through spotlights on our website and through our newsletters. Check out their stories to see how their work is impacting their colleagues and students. Currently we are recruiting for our MS CLASS project to grow middle school teacher leaders and students’ literacy skills. If you are interested in being a part of that story, we’d love to hear from you.
We encourage you to share with us your own stories about the great things happening in your school and the areas where you would like to improve – we are here to help. We here at TxCEE wish you all a lovely and joy-filled holiday, and hope you share and create many stories with your friends and family!
References
Pandolpho, B. (2018, January 24). The power of sharing your story with students. Eduphoria. https://www.edutopia.org/article/power-sharing-your-story-students/