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My Teaching Philosophy

Progressivism is the philosophy that education should center on the child as a entirety,

not on substance or instructors. This teaching philosophy emphasizes that students ought to test

their thoughts through dynamic experimentation. Learning is rooted within the questions learners

have as they experience the world. A major objective of progressive education is to provide

students with hands-on learning experiences, moreover known as “learning by doing”. Also

known as experiential learning, this strategy includes active student participation in hands-on

projects. Teachers act as facilitators within the classroom and students explore their physical,

mental, ethical and social development. Common sights in progressive classrooms incorporate

small discussion groups, customized activities, and learning stations. This can be related to my

own as I developed ideas from this philosophy. My teaching philosophy is that all students

deserve an education in which they develop skills that can be used in the real world along with

actually learning and understanding the material.

In my philosophy, I believe education should be provided in certain ways: methods,

academic expectations, and classrooms should be filled with individuals instead of one collective

group. Education is provided in several different ways as most teachers have a preferred method

of teaching. Students can learn in three different ways: visual, auditory, and physical - “learn by

doing”. In my experience, I have been a physical and a visual learner. This means that I can not

comprehend information just by listening as I tend to disengage, but when I can see a picture or

am able to participate, I'm able to actually learn and be able to pass this information to my daily

life. Students can interpret things differently when listening, one student can think you're talking

about the color blue and another think you're talking about red. For example, the lesson of
photosynthesis, explaining it with an image of the cycle showing the steps with pictures so the

students can see the process and also do an activity in which it relates to the topic. This is

convenient for the student as they have equal opportunities to understand the topic. Setting

academic expectations for each individual student gives them the chance to be able to achieve

their goal. For instance, telling your second grade classroom to each be able to spell each

spelling word or they can’t have a pizza party is hindering because it pits the students against

each other as they might not but also some students may struggle with this topic. Spelling may

not be a student's strong suit in which you're not encouraging them, you're giving them anxiety.

By doing individual meetings and goals, you are giving the student time to work on what they

struggle with the most and allowing the student to want to reach their goal as it is reasonable.

Doing this you will see the positive results of motivation and productivity as it is not destroying

their confidence. This goes along with not seeing your classroom as a collective group but as

individuals. Hence, you see that every student is at a different level. Having one on one time is

important for your classroom, even though it might be difficult to do, but it is necessary as it one

shows the student that you care about their education and it gives them something that is

reasonable to work up to.

Education should include classes that teach basic adult tasks and structure. In our school

system, we have several students not knowing how to do basic tasks in the real world. When I

graduated highschool, I had no idea how to do taxes, cook, money management, etc. These

classes are available in schools but I didn't even know these classes existed and I'm sure many

others did not either. Now the argument is that parents are the ones to teach those things, but as

teachers it is our job to give information to our students where they can apply it elsewhere. These

classes, economics and home ect., should be pushed harder and even make it a requirement to
graduate highschool as it benefits students more than being able to solve calculus problems.

Structure is one thing that is missed from many classrooms. Having organization and class

schedule helps students be prepared for the day as they know what is coming next. Structure

allows both the student and teacher to quickly accomplish day to day tasks and they also promote

smoother transitions which depletes class disruption. This will allow the students maximum time

to learn and the teacher maximum time to fit in lesson plans.

Changes I would make in my classroom would be set in schedule breaks, rewards, and

promoting positive peer relationships. Most might see that taking breaks is an excuse to stop

working but actually does the opposite. Giving your students breaks to drink water and use the

restroom and talk to friends, allows their brain to relax so when it is time to move on to a

different section, they are more focused. Pushing hydration in your classroom is a great way to

get better results. Poor hydration affects learning ability by reducing the brain's ability to

transmit and receive information including memory. Another change I would make would be

rewards but no punishments. In my service learning, I watched classrooms for all ages. I watched

the responses between rewards and punishments. Rewards push students to be able to get

something they want in return for putting extra work into a subject or goal. On the other hand,

punishments destroy confidence and make students not want to work. To illustrate, in a 3rd grade

classroom, the teacher used clips to go up or down a scale to reflect their actions. The people

who moved up continued to do well throughout the day, but the students who were told to move

down were moody and rambunctious for the rest of the day. An argument to that would be their

just bad students. On the contrary, students/kids need encouragement and positive reinforcement

to gain confidence and be able to do things they haven’t done before without feeling shameful.
An issue that goes against my philosophy would be an incident that happened with a

teacher and social media. Mrs. Sible posted on her social media, Facebook, thinking only her

friends and family would see her post. In that post, she used inappropriate name calling

describing the children as "germ bags" and the parents "arrogant." By doing this, she has lost the

trust of her students, parents, and faculty. I learned that when something is posted on social

media, it will be out there forever. Mrs. Sible believed that her friends and family would only see

this without realizing her account was public. Her students read the post which is how it got

circulated. Her actions brought the consequences of having to resign from her position, and

losing her livelihood. This confirmed that no matter the anger or stress a teacher or myself,

should never be voiced publicly and especially not on social media. Mrs. Sible called this post a

joke after it was published. In a classroom, when a teacher hears a child calling another child an

inappropriate name but calls it a joke still does not make the child's actions okay. The child

would still face the consequences accordingly. In my classroom, this will not be tolerated by

myself, my students, or my co workers. The day will never go so bad, the alternative is to shame

his or her students.

One teacher that inspired a lot of my philosophy is Jahana Hayes who was rewarded with

teacher of the year. The promise of being able to make a difference in the world. That is the

greatest gift of being a teacher. That child will remember you for the rest of your life. I know I

remember mine. In a youtube video, Hayes gave a speech, she explains she herself looked up to

her teachers for guidance and support, "Despite being surrounded by abject poverty, drugs and

violence, my teachers made me believe that I was college material and planted a seed of hope."

As a teacher it is our responsibility to be educators but also help children grow and become

adults. They need support from several different outlets and parents can't fill them all.
Sometimes parents arent even in the picture and they look to their teachers because they feel

comfortable to learn. To make a difference, you have to invest in every child and make sure their

needs are met. This is how I thought of treating your classroom as individuals. Her speech taught

me that as teachers we can have feelings and build emotional connections with students, it's

human nature but there always is a line. But before that line, we can promote good decision

making, patience, responsibility, honesty, peace, and kindness all in our classroom. "As a teacher

I am so emotionally invested in the success of my students that I sometimes forget that I deserve

the respect and dignity of being a professional," Hayes told the delegates. This quote

demonstrates how involved Hayes is with her students that she forgets that she also has a career

and life to be successful at. Now there needs to be boundaries because you always need to come

first, but we can have so many roles for our students.

We can play such a huge part in their lives, they will remember you for the rest of their

life. I know I remember the teachers that I looked up to dating back to first grade. I can provide a

positive environment to encourage fellow workers to use the same techniques and methods so

that their students may also be helped in other ways. My philosophy states that all students

deserve an education in which they develop skills that can be used in the real world along with

actually learning and understanding the material. They don’t just deserve education, they have

earned the right to an education.

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