Personal+Teaching+Philosophy

media type="file" key="Why I became a teacher.m4v" width="300" height="300"WORK IN PROGRESS

My personal opinions and beliefs are constantly evolving as I progress and learn more over the years. What I believed when I started and what I believe now are strikingly different. When I started teaching I was unaware of the difficulties in store for me. I expected everything to be smooth and perfect. I was an idealist, expecting to "Fred Jones" and "Madeline Hunter" all of my lessons. The rose colored glasses were quickly tossed aside as I was presented with my first classroom of 20 kindergarten and first grade students. It truly was survival of the fittest, but I survived. I not only survived but I thrived and found a new vigor for teaching. I felt a challenge to help every single student find their success.

The evolution to where I am now was a natural path for me. I never had a moment of "what am I doing?" I found that my life experiences brought me to teaching. My strengths as a giving person keep me motivated to work hard for every student and coworker. My enjoyment of technology has helped me to develop a leadership role with it for my coworkers. I am not afraid to try new things, and find that being successful in light of being a "newbie" to the grade level or curriculum I am faced with is thrilling. I look forward to many new experiences ad education itself evolves.

When it comes to my philosophy reguarding education I find the following to be true:

All students have a right to experience success. To do so means they need to know exactly where they are beginning and what they are reaching for. To fullfil this with my students I assess them and am not afraid to tell them what their scores are. They deserve to know if they are performing at a below grade level proficiency. I believe in creating individualized goals to help them reach their potential.

Not every student learns using the same modalities or prior knowledge, and that is okay. My role as an educator is to find out what their modalities are and use them to my advantage when designing and implementing lessons. The students who lack certain prior experiences need me to expose them to everything I can so that they can perform.

Teachers manuals are guides, I am the teacher. I am not afraid to create my own lessons. Teachers manuals are useful tools but they are not the only way to teach. I look through them, pick the parts I like and substitute the parts I do not like. Similliarily plan books from previous years of teaching are no more than documentation of what I have already done. I do not need them to tell me what to teach, I need my standards, my students, and my personality; from there I can create some thought provoking and motivating lessons of my own.

Parents play just as important role as I do in their child's education. They must be included in my decisions, discussions, and lessons. Sometimes it takes my personal time to include parents, but if I do not I can not suceed in creating life long learners from my students. I need parents support and the only way to get it is by asking for it,

I have a lot more to say on this topic so stay tuned.

MORE COMING SOON!