Drew Zailik's Educational Portfolio
Educational Leader
An educational leader provides school-based leadership, serves as a mentor, and engages in educational research.
Student teaching has provided me with a number of opportunities to become an educational leader. Professionally, these include:
- Attending all department meetings
- Meeting with and interviewing the administrative staff
- Collaborating with experienced teachers
More importantly, my opportunity to show myself as a leader embodied itself through my work with the students. These include:
- Attending Varsity Soccer games, where 5 of my students were on the team. My motivation is simple: I want to be able to congratulate the students on their playing the next day when I see them. Attending these games also made me realize how much I want to coach a high school sport when I teach.
- Writing individual letters to all my students in an attempt to develop an early rapport with them.
- Meeting with students 1 on 1, and writing them encouraging letters to help them deal with the high levels of high-school stress.
- Attending a “March of Dimes” event outside of my high school, in which 6 of my students were participating in a walk-a-thon, so I could show my support for them.
- Playing in a charity volleyball tournament with two of my students after school.
While I wasn’t able to attend everything I wanted to attend, these few opportunities really allowed me to make a special “connection” to some of my students. I showed them that I cared about their personal lives as well as their lives inside the classroom, and it really benefited me as a teacher.
Here are some personalized sample letters I wrote to students in response to what they had written to me:
Sample Letter 1Here is an introduction sheet I designed to get to know my students better.
© Drew D. Zailik 2007