Teaching Philosphy

I have spent most of today working on a philosophy paper - one that purports to discuss which theory of education best describes my personal attitude towards teaching.

I have found it a difficult task!

I hesitate to put my unedited version out here, but perhaps one of my followers has some suggestions to make, or ideas of ways to adjust my writing; all suggestions, gratefully received!!

Here we go....

With strong beliefs of innate gifts and the importance of individual talents to share, I have some clear leanings towards the romantic ideal of what my future students can add to the class, that I believe in their past achievements and have faith in what they will bring to the future.  If adults don’t have faith and confidence in a child’s ability, why would those children have any reason to believe in themselves?  Through successes and failures, teachers need to share their confidence that even through failure, every student has the ability to learn.  As a teacher recognizes a child’s abilities, they can nurture the knowledge and ability that is already there, engage and incentivize new learning, and then build upon the experiences, always guiding, supporting, inspiring and adding new knowledge along the way.  I have seen students who live the life that others expect of them - sometimes positive, often negative.  If a teacher expects a child to fail, to be unable to learn, or to fail in life, more often or not that child will fulfill that devastating expectation.  My job as a teacher may sometimes be to believe for my students so that they can learn to believe in themselves.  Just as a parent helps their child to face hurdles and challenges with support and love, a good teacher is there to push their students and be able to catch them should they fall, encouraging them to try again and create success.

I am combine the romantic belief in inner abilities and pragmatic understanding of learning through experience, with some more traditional leanings of a perennialist.  I talk about inspiring and guiding, but I am seeing myself in that expert role, sharing the classics and helping students to create their own.  I have more knowledge and experiences than the students, and I have information to share with them, that will help them in their future lives.  Although I recognize that students have experiences that I can learn from, I have years of knowledge and background that I am there to teach them.  My own school taught me Greek history,  about different civilizations, history and the literary classics - about them, their history, how they connected to the time in which they were written, and why they were considered classics.  I learned to understand and appreciate their worth - and that is something that I plan to do with my own students.  If you don’t know what came before, how can you plan for the future?  If you can’t recognize why something was great, how can you create greatness?

With a combination of working towards finding and nurturing the best in every student, helping them to realize their own abilities and potential, while sharing knowledge and how others succeeded, I plan to be a teacher that students enjoy, trust, respect and can learn from.