Teaching Philosophy Statement

The teachers profiled in “Unforgettable Miss Bessie”, “My Favorite Teacher”, and “And the Orchestra Played On” are remembered and admired by the narrators. Miss Bessie, Miss Hattie, and Mr. K. possessed significant qualities that made them remarkable educators. They inspired and encouraged students. They only wanted the best for their students and prepared them for their futures, enabling them to overcome difficulties in school. Besides the content of their subject matter these educators their taught students to believe that their lives and future all depends from themselves: whether they would choose the clean asphalt road or dirty, bumpy one.

The West Fargo Public School system is not only the fastest growing school district in the State of North Dakota, it is also one of the most innovative and creative. The district’s Mission is “Educating today’s learners for tomorrow’s world”. Teachers employed by the district take this Mission statement to heart and live it in their own lives. To them, education is a lifelong process, not just something everyone experiences between the ages of 5-17. Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that this past summer 20 elementary and secondary teachers began a 20 month educational journey by enrolling in West Fargo’s second Teacher Leadership Academy (TLA). The Academy is a collaborative effort between West Fargo Public Schools and North Dakota State University’s Educational Leadership Program. The 20 teachers began their journey this summer and will be meeting during the school year every-other Wednesday after school. At the end of five semesters they will be awarded the Masters of Education (M. Ed.) degree. Some of the unique features of the Teacher Leadership Academy are: a) rather than traveling to campus for their coursework, Academy students are taught at the district’s Leidal Education Center, b) classes are facilitated by not only university professors, but the district’s two assistant superintendents [Dr. Allen Burgad and Mrs. Beth Slette], and c) course assignments are focused around the district’s initiatives and strategic plan.

I am attending Concord College to further my education. After graduating with an Elementary Education Degree, I would like to teach in an elementary school in Southern West Virginia. Preferably, I would like to teach in a kindergarten environment. While teaching I plan to further my career with a Master’s degree. I would like to be able to reach those children that aren’t as fortunate as others. As a teacher I will not only teach the children, but they in turn, will teach me. Education is one of the most important aspects to the success of the country. It is important for everyone to feel a part of that success; therefore, I feel strongly about teaching students to succeed.

The teaching profession in public education in the United States is under examination and scrutiny more than at any time in it’s history (Odden Kelley 2002). Teachers have not matriculated well informed, academically skilled young adults, who process critical thinking powers and are equipped to lead and transform the world of the 21st century. The graduation goals from our

Dr. John Lucy is an Associate Professor of Education at Trinity Baptist College in Jacksonville. Equally important, he heads up the college’s Institutional Effectiveness Committee. In 2010, he graduated from the University of North Florida with a doctorate in educational administration and a minor in public administration. According to Dr. Lucy, a previous associate and mentor encouraged him to stop pursuing a second graduate degree and obtain a doctorate; she explained its advantages and value.

I have learned so much these past three months while student teaching at James A. Dever in Valley Stream, New York. My first placement was in a second-grade classroom. My second placement was in a fifth-grade inclusive classroom. Student teaching has given me the chance to get hands-on with the students and curriculum. As well, it has allowed me to observe how a teacher should or shouldn’t be like in a classroom. Student teaching has shown me so many examples of excellent teaching that you cannot learn from a textbook. It takes experience and a special type of teacher who is caring and warm and passionate about teaching and his or her students. As my student teaching experience is coming to an end, I can now look back at my experience and reflect

Throughout my years of school I have noticed that some teachers care more than others. I’ve had wonderful teachers and terrible teachers in every year of school. Some teachers who are very in to what they teach and some teachers who just sit in the corner on their computer while the students watch a video waiting for the bell to ring at 2:25. In this essay I am going to re-live all of those years and talk about the teachers who truly cared about their students and were not there teaching for some ulterior motive.

Henry Brooks Adams once said, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops” (NEA). In my mind, this is a very powerful line, and it hits the nail right on the head. Each individual in this country will be affected by teachers at least until they reach the age of sixteen, so it is important for teachers to shape our future generations. In this paper, I will first discuss what the purpose of education is, and why it is so important in this world. Then, I will talk about what my philosophy of education is, as well as some sources to explain it. Next, I will talk about what motivated me to become a teacher, which was a turning point in my life. Finally, I will talk about the vision of CIA in education,

Education encircles teaching and learning skills by imparting of knowledge, judgement and wisdom for future generations. Fullan (2016) defines change as “being imposed on us by (natural events or deliberate reform) or because we voluntarily participate or initiate change when we find dissatisfaction, and inconsistency in our current situation” (p. 19). Fullan (2016) explains that “how we seek change on our own terms, but rather how we handle it when it inevitably occurs.” (p. 21).

My role as a teacher is to open the door to knowledge and critical thinking as wide as needed for all to enter. While I recognize that self-direction is an important tool for learning that works well for some students, I also recognize that other students may need help and support in obtaining their educational objectives. I believe that I have a fundamental obligation to assist students who need assistance in crossing the threshold, as well as to encourage the self-directed to stay focused. To accomplish this vision and welcome all students through the doorway, I see teaching and learning as having three interwoven stages: exposing students to new concepts, facilitating understanding of the material, and developing well-supported and reasoned arguments that challenge existing thinking.

For the future educator, student teaching is the culmination of the past four or more years of life, all compressed down into two eight-week sections that are meant to give you a starting pace for when you get out into the real world of education. I am happy to say that despite how short these past sixteen weeks have felt as I have journeyed through them, I feel like I have learned more about myself and how to be an educator than I did during all my time in classes at the university. I am well aware that the foundation created at Iowa State is why that I feel like I was able to grow so much because without that foundation I would be wandering aimlessly without any guiding force. One major guiding force for me throughout my time at Iowa

By pushing me beyond my perceived limitations and showing me how much I can accomplish, these teachers helped to shape me into the successful professional that I am today. It would be a great honor and privilege to become that same inspirational factor in so many young people’s lives, being able to pay forward all the great things that I was lucky to have experienced in my education. And lucky it should not be, because I feel that my drive for excellence and for only the best would bring a much-needed resource into a system that many are not too fond of. More specifically, I refer to the stigmas that I have often encountered in my research on the public school system as well as the news about teachers in general. The reports on poorly trained or worse, un-trained instructors is a scandal at best. This, paired with my own experiences with public schools has led me to be a firm believer in the fact that these schools need teachers that are truly devoted to their responsibilities.

My greatest contribution as an instructor has been the time I have spent off the podium. There are several subjects that I may not be familiar with or maybe seen as the tougher subjects or perhaps even boring. The time that is spent preparing outside of the classroom is extremely important. As an instructor first and foremost you have to spend countless hours researching a subject, analyze it, and anticipate questions. It is not a comfortable to be in front of students and not fully knowing the subject. Not only does the material have to make sense to you, you then have to take that material and think about how to explain it so that every different Soldier from every different background can make sense of it. Practicing teaching methods using different comparisons, developing training aids all takes a lot of time outside of the duty hours to deliver the best level of instruction possible. Then there is the time spent improving on the lesson plan. The lesson plans we receive are often times missing information, they order they are in doesn’t make sense and sometimes they are completely blank a give use nothing to go off of. That means dedicating the hours outside of the class room to improve or even completely build that lesson plan. Time must be spent to ensure that every piece of information the students need is included. This is not always possible we could easily spend an entire week breaking down the components of an automatic transmission and go into

From the time I was a seven years old till the current day, as a Sophomore at Benedictine University, I have wanted to become a teacher. The four years of high school, Oswego High School, I truly become passionate to become a teacher. I took the necessary general education classes, and my elective classes learning about child development and early childhood education. Once I graduated high school, I felt confident to become a teacher, but I discovered that special education was what I truly wanted to do. From the first day or first grade up to now, I have become a success student, which I can’t wait to become teacher I want to be an aspirational teacher one day to my future students.

Being from a long line of teachers did nothing to encourage the teaching profession as a career choice of mine. I saw how hard my father, grandmother, and grandfather worked and how little recognition they were given for that work. I witnessed countless hours spent grading student work and leaving meaningful feedback. I saw my adult family members pouring over textbooks like students preparing for the next day’s lessons. I noticed that this was not a job that one is able to clock out of or leave at the office for the next day. I realized that the money while enough to live on, was not enough to do the things I wanted to be able to do in my life. From my seat as a student, I saw how the meaningful feedback that had taken hours to give was often unceremoniously dropped in the trash on the way out of class. Reviews of the lessons that had been meticulously planned were tossed around at lunch alongside phrases like “what was the point of that?”. I also witnessed the things that students put teachers through on a daily basis. These were not things that I wanted for myself.