Synopsis
As Barrow (2015) stresses, caring in teaching is a complicated relationship because it involves the students, teacher, and the institution where the teacher is working. Referring to Bronfenbrenner’s (1989) Ecological theory, I would also parents and grandparents to that list, since they are children’s first teachers, as well as contexts that the children are influenced by such as their neighborhood, information from programs that they are watching, a church that they are attending, a sport that they are playing, etc. After reflecting on teaching for many years, I realized that first-year teachers play the most important part in life, especially mine. I did not go to kindergarten because it was not compulsory, but my first-year teacher stayed with us for 3 years, which helped her to establish a very strong relationship with students that was very beneficial. I now realize that those years really made the foundation for the rest of my life. For most of my professional life, I taught at universities, and often my students also identified their first teachers as inspirations to become teachers. I often reflect on Krystyna Spaczynska-Holts, my first year’s teacher, and my other teachers…… and I see how they helped me and other children in post-war Poland. I was born 10 years after WW II ended when Poland was still in the process of rebuilding. I look back and remember my childhood. I loved my home, antiques, my grandmother Zosia, and her stories. I loved my uncles Janek and Wladyslaw living with us and taking me to ballet, art lessons, and the opera. Going to school when I turned 7 years old was very exciting, especially playing with children. Those days we did not have television or computer games. I imagined stories, played with my sister, my bear, my dollhouse, I drew, I listened to classical music on the radio… I was happy but also bored.
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