Darcy Townley

Competency 6: Becoming a Professional

Becoming a professional means knowing your ethical
responsibilities to children, families, and coworkers and to the
community in which you teach. Not only should we know these ethical
responsibilities but everything we do should uphold them. We should
also learn continuously and if we are doing our jobs right we will. We
will take the feedback our children give us as we teach them. We will
learn from the other professionals around us. We will in return share
our knowledge with others and work together to make the most
positive learning environment we can.
When reading about this competency part of it really stood out to
me. This competency speaks about collaborating with other
professionals in the field. In CHD 119: Introduction to Reading
Methods, I was asked to collaborate with a reading specialist or
elementary school teacher. This was such a helpful assignment. I was
fortunate enough to collaborate with a reading specialist whose
daughter was in my classroom. She has been a professional in the
education field for many years and was so passionate about her work.
Her passion was so inspirational to me. She has completed her
Masters Degree and has worked in the field for many years. We talked
about how she teaches children to learn to read, how she assesses
them, how she feels like individualized attention aids struggling
readers.
This assignment really resonated with me because I saw a
professional who took her love of reading and shared it in a productive
way with others. She really loves going to work each and every day.
She teaches workshops to other professionals and I was fortunate
enough to attend 2 as well as interview her. Although my primary
experience lies with infants, I do have 2 elementary age daughters.
Her knowledge has been so helpful while teaching my own children to
read. She has taught me different activities to do at home with them
and given me resources to use that she uses in her own classroom. To
me, she is a true professional and Im lucky that my work led me to
her.