Teaching Philosophy

I have always been a volunteer in my daughter’s classes within the public school system. I found it very rewarding and often heartbreaking helping those children who had difficulties reading or understanding basic school work. As my daughter has progressed through elementary school I enjoyed connecting on a personal level with the students I assisted. As a result of my volunteer work, I decided to go into substitute teaching and found the students to be very receptive to my approach in the classroom. A few months into working as a substitute, a teacher asked when I was going to pursue my teaching credential. After thinking about her question I knew going into the teaching profession would be the right fit for me.


Halfway through my first year as a substitute teacher I had an opportunity to substitute in my daughter’s sixth grade math class. It was my first experience subbing for a middle school class. As the day progressed I found myself excited about the subject I was teaching and felt my lesson was engaging to the students. After that day I knew middle school would be the level I wanted to teach. Prior to subbing in middle school, most of my experiences were at the elementary school level. Although I enjoyed being around the students in elementary school, I found in the middle school student there was a maturity which I felt was interesting. I also thought the subject matter was more challenging for me to teach, thus allowing me to be more passionate about the subject matter. After receiving my teaching credential, it is my goal to obtain a science and math teaching position at a middle school.

In this paper I will give my philosophy of schooling, learning, and teaching. Specific examples and experiences will be given on how I plan to achieve this philosophy while I am a teacher. I believe my personal philosophy will create an excellent environment for students to learn. In my recent studies, I have found I am combination of two types of educational philosophies, experimentalism and essentialism. The experimentalism approach to teaching is what I want to achieve with my students whereas the essentialism approach is my background as a student from elementary through high school. As stated in Learning to Teach to Everyone’s Children, by Grant and Gillette, the essentialist philosophy is difficult for teachers to evade. Since standards need to be achieved by the students, integrating the text book or guidelines provided by the school as the primary source of curriculum will allow them to attain the levels needed on assessments. However, it has been found with the essentialism philosophy, the student tends to memorize information instead of drawing conclusions from information that has been discussed or read. With my college education in science, I would like to integrate what I have learned about the scientific method in to my lessons. I believe this knowledge will help me move away from the essentialist philosophy toward the experimental philosophy.

I can visualize my philosophy of teaching as an experience in my evolution as a teacher, allowing me to become an effective teacher. In the beginning of my teaching career, my style of teaching would incorporate essentialism philosophy. As I become more fluid with my teaching style, I will be able to incorporate more of an experimentalism approach. I believe this would allow students to learn by doing rather than only being lectured to, which would lead to an enhanced experience for the student.

In order to be an effective teacher, I believe knowledge presented to the students should come in many forms. For example a text book, newspaper article, journal article, movie and even a personal experience are all forms of where knowledge can be gained. In a classroom setting information that the students need to learn should come from a combination of these forms. I can recall my own experiences as a student and always found that reading from a text book was boring, many times I would need to reread a paragraph because I would find my mind wandering. On the other hand watching a movie or reading a magazine article made the information I was studying come to life. As a teacher, I need to be aware of the different learning styles students have. By providing different opportunities to experience the subject matter, I hope to reach a variety of students so they will understand and excel with my curriculum.

An example of this was shown to me by a teacher I had interviewed. She had stated she always wanted to make her class memorable to her students. She is a social studies teacher in middle school and after every section on ancient history she would have a theme day for that particular lesson, for example Egypt day. The students dress up in the attire of the ancient people, bring in food the ancient people ate, and played games from that time in history. Afterwards she would put up poster with pictures of that day for the students to remember the event by. Recently, I had substituted on her Egypt day for another teacher she teams with. I had firsthand experience of how the day went for the students. Most of the students came to class dressed up in Egyptian attire with full make up, some chose to keep it simple. The students were very excited for the day’s events and my conversations with the students were about how much fun they were having. In my opinion the teacher made that day as well as her lessons very memorable for the students.

I would like to abide by her motto of make it memorable to the student. In science depending on what information is being taught, I believe the students could pose a question about information that had been presented to them in a scientific movie. I could take the students outside to gather data. Afterwards we could discuss what was found and students could draw their own conclusions about the data. This experiment can then be tied back into the lesson from the text book. Another way to make the lessons memorable for students is to go on field trips to zoos, aquariums or museums. These activities are always hands on, which will make the lesson being taught, come to life. As for teaching math as a memorable subject I would need to incorporate information from daily life. I remember my experience with math as uninteresting and I always had that thought, when will I ever use this information. By incorporating examples I believe I can evade the question of why do I need to know this. For instance when teaching how to add decimals, I could have the students bring in receipts and show them how the decimals need to line up in order to come to the correct amount. Or when teaching the Pythagorean Theorem, have a building contractor come into class and talk about how they have used the theorem to lay out a new building project. By adding memorable experiences to my lesson plan, I believe my class will be more interesting which may allow for greater retention.

Another way to engage students is allowing for a democratic setting which the students to have some say in how some lessons are presented. For example, after describing a project in science, I would ask the students to share ideas on how it should be completed. The students would take a vote on the ideas and the idea with the most votes would be the way the project would run. However, I will be in charge of the students and be the ultimate decision maker, especially when it comes to discipline. The students will know and understand my classroom values and have to abide by them. If a rule is broken then a consequence will occur. For example homework is not to be turned in late. The consequence will be a score of zero in the grade book; the students cannot determine the rules. Overall, I would set the guidelines for the students but at times the students would be able to determine how some of the class work is conducted.

In my classroom the role of a student is will be one who comes to school ready to learn and actively participate. They should arrive to class prepared mentally and physically. Mentally, the student should have a desire to be in class whereas physically they should have the proper tools such as pencils and paper. This is my view of how the students should be as a learner but, I do realize reality is not perfect.

Many students are going through a time of great changes while they are in middle school. For most students they will have just moved from elementary school to middle school, for some they have had to make new friends because of the school change, and almost all students are going through or just beginning adolescence. It is also a time where they can be very self centered and care very much about their outer looks. These changes and new visions of themselves may be difficult for some to transition into. As a result of these changes, their role as a learner may not always be my ideal. Therefore I will always need to keep that in mind when I am teaching at middle school.

With so many changes occurring I feel it is important for the teacher to be understandable and dependable as well as firm with their students. This is a very critical time in many of the student’s lives and having a teacher with whom they feel comfortable will only promote their confidence as a student. I will be able to incorporate these values by allowing students to get to know who I am as a person. One way to do this is by using “an all about me” poster displayed in the classroom. Another possibility, I have observed with some middle school teachers, is to stay in the classroom at lunch time on certain days. This provides students who may need a refuge at lunch and possibly allow them to open up about a problem they may be experiencing. I would also like to use letters to students, as Stephen Gordon wrote about in Sonia Nieto’s book, Why We Teach. When a problem occurred with a student, letters were sent out to the student and a response was required. A letter could also be sent to the teacher by the student. This approach may help the teacher to be more approachable if the student prefers to not talk about a situation and allow for more effective communication.

Just as with the letters described above, I want the teaching and learning process in my classroom to be carried out in a way that is reciprocal between the student and the teacher. The student will be required to learn the information I present to the classroom. However as a teacher, I will be constantly learning how to teach from my students. Especially with math, as I have seen with my substitute teaching and tutoring experiences, all students learn with a different method of teaching. One may understand a math problem completed one way but another student may need the problem explained in a different manner. Once I am a teacher, I feel I will learn from my students how best to teach my lessons most effectively.

I would like to be able to teach in the community in which I live. As an educator I want to convey a relaxed professionalism to my students as well as to the community I serve. My conduct will always be professional but not too rigid when in the classroom or out in the community. I know as a parent I have run into a few of my daughter’s teachers around town. They have always been well mannered and have shown themselves in a good light. I will remember that I am a teacher of which young minds may look up to. I have to hold myself to a higher standard in order to make a respectable impression on my students as well as their parents in and out of class. By having this respect as a teacher it will allow for students to focus on the lessons I teach. I also believe that my personal qualities, such as being nurturing, having a positive outlook on life, and being committed to understanding my students, will encourage them to be active learners.

As a result of my philosophies of schooling, learning and teaching, I believe I will be a successful middle school teacher. I hope the connections I make with my students on a personal level, the time I put into making lessons memorable, and setting a higher standard for myself, will encourage my students to have a positive experience while in middle school. As a teacher I know I will always be concerned with making a connection with every student. I believe the students with whom I cannot reach will constantly be a source of some frustration to me. Another concern is for the students who are doing well in my class, I want to make sure I can challenge them with my curriculum. There will always be times when circumstances arise that are beyond the teacher’s control, however I sense from my past experiences with volunteering, substitute teaching, and college courses, I will be prepared for what lies ahead as a middle school teacher.