The Statement Of Teaching Philosophy

As a future educator, it is the my job to educate all students through means of teaching that enable students to be successful in health, fitness, leadership, character development, and accountability for their regular lives outside of school.

Deciding that I wanted to be a teacher didn’t take much effort; deciding what kind of teacher I want to be however, takes much more thought. There are numerous educational philosophies, most of which can be traced back to one of four major perspectives: idealism, realism, pragmatism, and existentialism. All of these philosophical systems have an impact on educational thought; however, I find it hard to choose

An educational philosophy is a personal statement of a teacher’s goals or belief. A teacher comes to the classroom with a distinctive set of principles and ideals that affect how a student learns and expand the child’s potential in his or her venture into knowledge. I believe that education should be active, and focus on the whole child, rather than just the content or the teacher. The three (3) principles I believe that work harmoniously with my educational philosophy are the teacher acting as a facilitator to foster critical thinking, allowing the child’s natural curiosity to steer his or her learning for personal development, and

I see students as the next generations’ heroes in so many fields. In my vision, I have to inspire students and prepare them with confidence, knowledge, experience and skills. Which means I encourage, communicate, guide, teach, and assess students in order to enrich their infrastructures.

Like many others from my graduating class, I left college and headed for the fast track world of law and finance. After two years crunching numbers, juggling real estate projects and emerging from Black Monday in October 1987 relatively unscathed, I realized I hated my job. Landing a teaching position at Fessenden School became a watershed event in my life. Looking back over the past years, I fully realize that teaching is an essential part of me. Michael Thompson, once said, "There are some teachers who are effective and know why, others who aren 't effective and don 't know why, and a third are effective, but aren 't quite sure why." After five years at Fessenden, I felt like the latter. Therefore, I decided to attend graduate school in order to become a more effective educator. Theory, practicum, and research aside, graduate school was an epiphany for me. It confirmed in me that leading a school was more than a choice; it was a calling.

Upon completing the Philosophy Preference Assessment in Foundations of Curriculum and Instruction, the graph showed that my teaching beliefs are mostly Perennialist, peaking at Realist. I found the results accurate. My graph was represented best by Figure 1-6 and Figure 1-9. The former shows “strong structured (slanting down) or nonstructured (slanting up) orientation in your reported beliefs about schools”; the latter suggests “either an eclectic philosophy or a person only beginning to study his or her own philosophy.” While I agree with the assessment of my educational philosophies, I do not believe I subscribe strongly to any of the five philosophies, but, rather, I will employ certain elements from each.

I believe that each child is a unique individual who needs a secure, caring, and stimulating atmosphere in which to grow and mature emotionally, intellectually, physically, and socially.

After completing this teacher interview activity, I am beyond excited to become a teacher. I feel this way not only because Heather strongly agrees that teaching is an optimal choice of a young person today but due to the passion she possesses for her job. As Heather described her classroom and what it is like to spend all day with children, I just cannot wait until I am teaching. Children have this undeniable excitement about them; everyday is a good day, as they do not have a care in the world. I hope this positive outlook on life with fill my body everyday just as it has there’s. Ultimately, what I am most excited to do is make an impact on a child’s life. There is no greater feel in the world that knowing that that you have helped someone. I hope that I will make an impact on every student I have so that they can think back and say, that teacher changed my life. I know that this profession is not going to be all fun and games or that everyday will be a good day but I am up for the challenge. Impacting the lives of our nations youth is completely and totally worth it.

My motivation for teaching is setting the goal to make a difference in a students life. The feeling of teaching a child a lesson, and them understanding it, is a rewarding experience for a teacher. I have also been a babysitter for about 6 years, and being around children makes me happy and I love the relationships that I have built with all the kids I have cared for in the past. What really motivated me to go back to school for teaching, was this past summer after having the opportunity to be a camp counselor. While working at that day camp, the relationships and bonds that formed throughout the summer, are ones that I am never going to forget about.

Upon graduation, I aspire to become an elementary teacher. In order to do so, I have to complete my Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education. Within this major, creative thinking and problem solving is necessary. I have set out several academic goal while attending my university.

As a student teacher I have been challenged to examine these goals in light of my personal experience in the classroom with real students. As a result of this self-examination and evaluation I find my primary motivation for becoming a teacher has not changed. It is my desire to make a positive impact on my student’s lives by helping them see that the challenge of learning can be fun. I hope to share my own love of learning and science by appealing to my student’s natural curiosity about the world around them. Creating challenging lesson plans that engage student’s on every level allows me to utilize my own creative talents and fan the creative spark in their minds and create a positive attitude toward learning that will help carry them successfully through their own academic

Throughout education there are six main philosophies to take into consideration, and they are as followed. From a teacher centered classroom approach they include Essentialism, Behaviorism, and lastly Positivism. In a student centered classroom approach they are Progressivism, Humanism, and Constructivism. What do these terms mean? Essentialism is and educational philosophy that there is a common core of information and skills that an educated person must have. Behaviorism is a psychological theory and educational philosophy that asserts that behaviors represent the essence of a person and that all behaviors can be explained. A person acts the way they do for a reason. Finally positivism is a social theory and educational philosophy that limits truth and knowledge to what is observed and measured. These are all important for a teacher to take into consideration. Progressivism is an educational philosophy that emphasizes that ideas should be tested by experiments and that learning is better developed in questions developed by the learner. Humanism is an

There are two educational philosophies that influence the way I want to teach in my own classroom. Essentialism and progressivism correspond to my beliefs. They both represent the values that I hold important when coming to running my future class. These philosophies interconnect to form the view of the best educational philosophy for me.

Every teacher has a different method of teaching. The teachers that I have had in my school career have been no exception. In this way, each teacher has set an example for me, as a future teacher, to follow or not to follow as I see fit. With the examples from my teachers and in continuing my education, I am developing my own method of teaching. I plan to use a combination of teaching methods in my own classroom. My method will be an eclectic approach because I will be using components of more than one philosophy. I will be using essentialism, behaviorism, progressivism, and existentialism.

After reviewing these teaching philosophies and educational theories, many of them reflect my own personal educational philosophy and my instructional practices and choice of classroom curriculum. The four that I found the most appealing are: Realism, Pragmatism, existentialism and progressivism. I find the combination of the three very complementary.