My teaching philosophy

Becoming a teacher has huge commitments linked to it. Ultimately, a teacher’s teaching philosophy is an essential component to becoming an educator. It is essential as this is your personal way of teaching, it is one’s approach of applying the curriculum with a personal and special touch to it all. If all our teaching philosophies were the same, it would make for a bland education system where there was no diversity. 

There are many different aspects to your philosophy and there is always room for change and improvement within it. My philosophy will entail my views on values, the role of academia and the influence of one’s characteristics/personality traits has on the role of a teacher in my eyes. There are two philosophers that helped me solidify my view on the education system and one’s approach to teaching. Those two philosophers are named John Dewey and Nel Nodding’s. John Dewey’s approach included hands on teaching within different environments as well as the belief that the curriculum should not just be about hardcore theory. Moreover, Nodding’s is an important connection to my philosophy as her theory of education revolved around care ethics. 

In short, I strongly believe teachers should teach values over rules. The idea of rules means that there is an infinite number you can put on it. A student will disobey and another rule will be created. The idea of values should be enforced from a young age to serve children well later down the road when rules as an adult are less applicable. Furthermore, it is not just anyone that can be a teacher. It takes a distinct set of characteristics and personality traits to build up a good teacher. Mastery of teaching takes years to master. Even at that, no one is perfect and everyone has a margin to improve. A teacher should be trusting, caring, adaptable, patient and have strong communication skills, etc.. Those are only to list a few, however, it gives you an idea that it takes someone with great passion to execute the job of an educator. Academia has its place in my philosophy as it is important to understand that just because some prospect teachers thrive academically in University, it does not mean they are going to make good teachers. It is important to understand social intelligence as students need to be able to connect with the teacher. An educators job goes far beyond applying academic theory. 

My goal is for students to walk away from my teaching with great aspirations in life and not dreading the years of educational theory ahead of them. Teaching should be fun, we want our students to want to learn and it is up to us as educators to take on the complex task. 

My philosophy surrounds the objective of providing an equal and equitable classroom to all. Every student is entitled to the same experience, I want my students to be accepting and open. It is important to understand that the former philosophy of "one size fits all" no longer fits our society. It should have never been followed in the curriculum of education as every child is unique to themselves and will not learn precisely to one another. Differentiated instruction in my class will be of great importance. I want to teach in order to obtain maximal comprehension amongst all as I understand that it is not one teaching approach that will work for all. Students will walk into my classroom exited to learn and not disappointed to be at school.