Jordan J. Walters
JORDAN WALTERS
Writings and Reflections
of an Evolving Educator
Dear Guest,
Welcome to my vision of holistic education stimulated and nurtured by deep and reflective studies in Oklahoma State University's Teaching, Learning, and Leadership Master's Program and put into practice in an elementary school in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Our children deserve an inclusive education fostering emotional and intellectual growth from a teacher who can perceptively, creatively, and compassionately respond to their diverse needs. What follows are writings, reflections, and discussions that reflect my evolution as an educator and the solidification and clarity of purpose that are the fruits of my continued learning. In this writing, fellow mindful educators will find companionship and inspiration.
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With peace and love,
Jordan Walters
First Grade Teacher, Council Oak Elementary
Tulsa, Oklahoma
The Path to Purpose
I’m not being hyperbolic when I tell you I found salvation in a first-grade classroom. Teaching rescued me from my self-absorbed disillusionment and fruitless and unfulfilling attempts at professional corporate life. Being an educator fills the void that my previous life left unquenched and forced a critical examination of selfhood that birthed an awakened sense of presence, purpose, and compassion that guides my conscious care for children. From my first year of panic-stricken and frenzied floundering to an enlightenment of the power and possibilities of responsive pedagogy that eschews traditionalism to embrace the whole child, teaching and learning about teaching have evolved my consciousness where the enactments of presence, compassion, justice, nonviolence, and equity are the substances of my practice.
My commitment to sharpening and maintaining critical self-awareness has awakened the higher consciousness that meaningful and transformative teaching demands. Through my evolution as an educator and graduate student, I hope to convey the ways that mindful classroom management, restorative practices, and pedagogy grounded in inquiry and creativity offer hope and illuminate a path forward that compassionately reaches toward justice, equity, peace, and fulfilled personhood.
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Only a self-aware, regulated, and critically perceptive adult is worthy of the enormity of this task.
The Dawning of Awakened Teaching
After my first year of teaching kindergarten, my graduate studies commenced in the summer of 2022. Coinciding with a nascent meditative practice, my first class on elementary classroom management delved into and reinforced my fledgling intention to educate mindfully.
Frequently, in my kindergarten classroom, like a small boat tossed about a raging sea, I was at the mercy of the moment. Far from calm and collected, my anxiety often turned to anger as I insensitively snapped at students --five-year-olds! I knew I needed an anchor, something to ground me amid the swelling chaos. My meditative practice suggested I take three mindful breaths in times of turmoil. Taking three full breaths to reestablish a mind-body connection put me back in the driver's seat, allowing me to reassert control over the present moment. Only then did I realize how out-of-control my habitual classroom behavior was.
It is painful yet instructive to look back at the instances in which my punitive reactivity may have harmed students' fragile emotional states. Because they're Hanging on my every word and absorbing and processing every microexpression and bodily gesture, I've gained a heightened awareness of students' sensitivities and the necessity of my self-regulation.
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​Individual Writing Prompt, CIED-5373-43729, June 2022
Beyond the self-work required to become a mindful educator, insights gleaned from trauma-informed approaches to classroom design were particularly illuminating.
As a kindergarten teacher, I found Sorrels' recommendations for organizing a trauma-informed classroom particularly insightful and inspirational. She awakened me to the therapeutic possibilities of intentionally designed play spaces where there's an invitation for healing. Previously, I had overlooked the symbolic significance of play and was unattuned to the rich lessons it could teach me about a child's psyche and development. Not dialed into the right station, the classroom brimmed with a broadcast I couldn't access.
With this realization, I can carefully observe, interact with, and study the child at play to curate and design a classroom with materials and spaces that can heal and transform. Blocks are no longer blocks but objects through which children construct meaning and restore order to an otherwise disordered life. Through art, the traumatized child can process their pain, and as a mindful teacher, I will seek to understand what they're communicating. Aware that "well-chosen stories can inspire courage and new ways of thinking and behaving," read-alouds will be consciously selected to "plant the seed of hope in a struggling child's heart." Through cause-and-effect experiments in Science, traumatized students can form the "foundation of a moral conscience," and investigations of the natural world foster gentility and a reverence for life. Building a trauma-informed classroom is essential to any SEL-informed classroom, which means every classroom.
Individual Writing Prompt, CIED-5373-43729, June 2022
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Source: Sorrels, B. (2015). Reaching and teaching children exposed to trauma. Gryphon House Incorporated.
On Restorative Practices
Mindfulness, or critical self-awareness, was the gateway to my ever-evolving understanding of the fragility of the classroom ecosystem, children's impressionability, and the necessity of prioritizing cultivating a culture of inclusivity, compassion, and love that can be achieved and maintained through restorative practices.
On Curriculum
Only after establishing a classroom climate of inclusivity and care can an educator enact a responsive and meaningful curriculum to meet the needs of all learners.
Art in Education
Responding to children's infinite creative energy, educators can use art to relate concepts where traditional methods fail.
Connecting creatively
During the pandemic, when Tulsa Public Schools shifted to distance learning, I assembled a band to write, record, and shoot a weekly music video celebrating student birthdays. As The Lepperdz (a reference to our school mascot, a leopard), we composed an original song and video each week, which I shot and edited.
Council Oak students and families eagerly awaited each week's video, for hearing and seeing their names on screen brought them tremendous joy. "Those videos got us through the pandemic," one mother remarked. With a palpable sense of humor, fun, and love, our videos showcase the transcendent power of heartfelt collaboration to creatively connect with the school community during a bleak time of uncertainty and disconnection.
Online Discussions
The critical conversations with classmates and professors allowed me to wrestle with and process new theories and perspectives, offer experiential advice, receive support, and deepen my understanding of teaching's inherent complexities and challenges.