Philosophy

• Literacy Philosophy

As a teacher of English Language Arts, I accept the responsibility of providing a map to guide my young students’ learning and the bearings for the acquisition of essential language and communication skills. In seeking the mastery of language skills, they will obtain the fundamentals which will help them to build a greater understanding of their environment. Through enriching this understanding of language and by encouraging its proficient use, we equip them with tools that will enable them to understand concepts, communicate their ideas, and markedly transform their lives.

Students share a common course through secondary schools where teachers must prepare them to face the future expectations of a rapidly-shrinking globe. The importance of a broad base of knowledge should be emphasized and taught in order for students to comprehend this increasingly-competitive world. Practice with Language Arts can help them to achieve this by improving the fluency of their communication skills and diversifying their cultural awareness to interact with and appeal to a global community. Teaching with linguistic and cultural literacy in mind can help to prepare students for the next level.
It is important to integrate lessons for the development of literacy skills into every aspect of education – not just English class. There is an unfortunately-prevalent misconception that literacy has only to do with the reading and writing of literature. While language fluency that is learned through these practices is certainly a significant part of what constitutes a person’s literacy, the much-overlooked fact is that language only the beginning of one’s journey.

Similarly unfortunate is an equally-prevalent belief that reading and writing should be confined to language arts classrooms. Literacy represents not only the depth of a person’s familiarity with a concept, but the breadth of that which they know and can understand. It is simply not enough for a person to be proficient in a certain subject area or to be skilled in a particular trade, yet lack enthusiasm for and understanding about it. The idea of literacy extends to a person’s knowledge and skill in a multitude of subject fields including physical education, music, and art.  It is as much a teacher’s duty as it is his students’ responsibility to feed this as members of an educational community.

I enjoy working with students. In the classrooms that I have observed and taught in, when I am not actively giving instruction to the students, I am circulating and offering help on an individual or small-group basis. Delivery of information need not be limited to lectures given to classes as a collective. Students are able to come to new realizations and draw conclusions that can lead to their learning simply through offering guidance instead of direct explanation of concepts. There will naturally be a need to introduce new concepts using the more narrow set of presentation methods, but students’ discovery ultimately plays an important part in their learning processes. There are a plethora of styles with which the vast array of students are best able to learn, and it is our duty as teachers to ensure that the lessons we teach can be catered to them.

It is because of these many learning styles and multiple intelligence types that teachers’ responsibilities extend beyond what is written down in a lesson plan. With consideration toward these many ways of learning and understanding, classroom management becomes an increasingly more important element of teaching. Classroom management should never simply be a teacher’s way of administering discipline to troublemakers and ensuring that students remain on-task. It is just as important to manage the classroom in such a way that fosters the growth not only of individual students, but their interpersonal communication skills that will help to create a community in which everybody can learn.

I have faith in the power of learning communities and the immense roles they can play in fostering a person’s growth and understanding. I was approached one day by a former writing professor of mine, who complimented me on my skill as a writer. We later sat and we spoke at some length about the future of my writing pursuits. This is when he learned for the first time about my desire to become an English teacher. I told him that this did not mean that I would stop writing, of course, and that I one day hoped to have the time to do so more regularly.
“The best advice that I can give you,” he said to me, “is to surround yourself with a community of writers.” His advice was accompanied by my simultaneous feelings of remembrance and discovery. The communities of writers I had been a part of in the past had been conducive to my development as a writer. Keeping the company of different thinkers with similar goals fostered the growth of my writing skills through practice, observation, and discussion. Before joining the staff of a campus newspaper, I knew little about formal news-writing, but by observing other journalists, I was able to use their experience as a foundation of knowledge on which to build my own understanding of that which constitutes journalism, from formatting and grammar to responsibilities and ethics. Not only did being a member of this community help to present material in a multitude of different ways, but the interpersonal relationships that I had developed with my peers helped to reinforce what I was learning.
Learning communities are an increasingly-popular method of learning. One popular example of utilizing learning communities to enrich an educational experience is with learning foreign languages through immersion. The main argument for learning in this type of context is that immersion reflects the way that people naturally learn language. At its core, this idea applies to all facets of learning, from language arts and mathematics to music and dance. With this method, a learner is immersed in an environment where their skills are learned and built upon by discovery and use through modeled practice. I very strongly support this type of community-building within schools; creating these like-minded communities in our classrooms with shared sets of goals enables students to take the helm of their learning, to build upon the knowledge and experience of their peers, and to help them reach that final destination.

• Teaching Philosophy

I will strive to provide students with a positive educational experience that will help them to succeed in pursuit of their lifelong goals. Constituent of this is the establishment of a positive and well-managed classroom environment in which students are encouraged to explore their intellectual abilities by setting personal and academic goals. Students will become involved in activities modeling real-world applications of skills developed in the classroom that will help them to create and use strategies for learning and living, and to prepare them for future opportunities. As a teacher, I will develop working relationships with students that will foster mutual respect, intellectual stimulation, and personal growth by paying close attention to academic performance and behavioural conduct. This will allow me to tailor appropriate lessons for class material that will appeal to a multitude of intelligence types, learning styles, and individual educational needs. I will support my students with reasonable expectations that encourage goal-setting and enable them to strive for scholastic and lifelong excellence.

• Classroom Management Philosophy

When I stepped into the classroom for the first time as a teacher’s assistant, I felt as though classroom management would be the greatest difficulty I would face. My experience thus far has taught me that there are many facets to the successful management of a classroom; these include the furniture arrangement, teacher personality, procedures, rules, and guidelines, and consequences. The challenge of having a well-managed classroom is not in creating rules, but enforcing those rules while maintaining a positive setting that is conducive to student learning and personal development. The goal of classroom management should not be to manage the class as a group of students for whom the teacher sets goals and expectations, but to create an environment encouraging students to set personal and academic goals and to have learning expectations for themselves.

The classroom layout should lend itself to the physical management of students and the ability for students to work with one another. I favour of discussion layouts for my classrooms that have most or all of the students facing one another as they are seated at their desks. These layouts encourage students to address one another during classroom discussions, and to easily be separated into groups when called for during in-class activities. While some such layouts may be difficult to monitor from a static location in the classroom, encouraging student participation can potentially outweigh the need for closely-monitored seating arrangements.

In addition to the classroom layout, teacher personality and methods of presentation go a long way to ensure students are attentive and motivated. I feel that the teacher’s desk should be no more than a “home base” for the teacher to deposit and gather materials, grade papers, and to be available for students during preparatory and non-class hours. The teacher should move around the classroom during instruction not only to monitor students, but as a way of state-changing to keep students’ attention. My own personality is outgoing and animated, and my philosophy of teaching is in part to involve students at many stages in the learning process including discussion and small group participation.

Furniture arrangements and a positive teacher attitudes, while certainly encouraging of appropriate and productive classroom conduct, cannot correct problems by themselves. Establishment of classroom procedures, guidelines, and rules, and the consistent enforcement of those rules also rank among the most important aspects of classroom management. It is important to distinguish guidelines, procedures, and rules from one another because they are not synonymous, but instead each help to support the management of a classroom on different levels. Guidelines are behaviours that are suggested for students to follow; these can include things like common courtesy and politeness and, while encouraged, are not required. Classroom guidelines support behaviour that can create a positive environment in which students can cooperate and learn both academically and socially. Procedures represent behavioural outlines that students are expected to adhere to in the classroom, and support the classroom rules. These are the types of conduct students will need to familiarize themselves with for various in-class and school-wide activities, such as assemblies, assigned seats, how to work in small groups, and handing in homework assignments. Classroom rules are supported by guidelines and procedures in that they imply adherence to behavioural guidelines and the expectation of following established procedures. Classroom rules should be stated positively and limited to a small handful of ideas, such as “act responsibly” and “allow fellow students to learn”; these types of statements imply the adherence to guidelines and procedures and give students responsibility for their own classroom conduct.

Rules and the consequences for breaking classroom rules need to be quickly and consistently enforceable, with minimal disruption to the classroom environment. Teacher personality can play a large role in the ability to enforce rules and keep students attentive, however, it is important for the teacher to build relationships with students in order to foster mutual respect. Understanding students and communicating with them beyond the required class materials is key in establishing these important connections, and will help to enable students to take advantage of the educational and developmental opportunities provided for them.

While rules and discipline are crucial components to the preservation of a positive school setting, the combination of all other factors in our classroom environments will help to convey to students that we care about their academic and personal well-being by helping them to take responsibility for their education.