Social responsibility means that we as educators are living a life in front of our students that inspires them to live a successful life. It also means that we take interest in their lives and make efforts to connect with them in meaningful ways. Educators can help students live a successful life by modeling good morals, encouraging their academic achievements, helping them stay involved in school, building their confidence, informing them of societal issues so that they will care about them, teaching them to voice their opinions, foster a classroom environment that is welcoming to everyone, and teaches that every person is to be respected and valued (Bordia, 2023). We all learn every day. Some lessons that we learn are not the best lessons because they were modeled by someone who was not the best influence. Parents and teachers often find themselves having to intervene by modeling and explain better replacement behaviors to help their student make better choices.
The future sheds new light on what social responsibility means for teachers as technology brings more opportunities than ever before to the classroom and outside of the classroom. Students not only see the professional teacher they also see the online personality of their teacher which is often very different from the teacher they see in the classroom. As educators we must be cognizant of the digital footprint we leave behind (Tesler, 2021). Once we gain the respect of our students in the classroom, we cannot present a different message online. Students and their families will often search for their teachers online to check them out to see what they are up to or just to know more about them in general. Our lives as educators are public and we are role models to our students, so it is important that we live a life in and outside of the classroom that is respectful.
References:
Bordia, D. (2023). The Social Responsibility of Being a Teacher. Teachmint Blogs. https://blog.teachmint.com/the-social-responsibility-of-being-a-teacher/
Tesler, I. (2021). Social responsibility is a must for EdTech: How technology and learning environments shape each other. Intetics. https://intetics.com/blog/social-responsibility-is-a-must-for-edtech-how-technology-and-learning-environments-shape-each-other/
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