Fiona Worcester

Educational Philosophy

May 26, 2011

 

An effective educator is a life-long learner. She takes advantage of the inherent opportunities in the educational process for teachers and students to exchange ideas, to experience mutual revelations, and to expand their knowledge together. Both teachers and students should gain a sense of personal growth and accomplishment from being a part of the classroom, school community, and the community at large.

 

In creating a healthy classroom community, a successful educator recognizes that her students often differ from her in many critical ways; a student may have a different profile of strengths or weaknesses, a different cultural background, a different notion of gender roles, and/or a different history of school experiences. Similarly, she is sensitive to each student’s emotional, social, and intellectual maturity levels. By being aware of these differences, an educator can select and implement appropriate curriculum, classroom management, and instructional behaviors, making individual as well as class-wide modifications to ensure optimal learning conditions for her students.

 

Classroom management comes first; without effective classroom procedures and rules, there can be no learning. A good teacher bases her rules on the idea that students want to be successful, and that it is the teacher’s role to help provide students with the skills necessary to attain success. In her rules, she recognizes the teacher’s right to teach and the students’ right to learn. Rather than “punishments” for behaviors, there are “consequences”, a perspective that places the responsibility for good or bad outcomes squarely on the students’ shoulders. Most importantly, however, an effective educator knows that the best defense is a good offense – in the form of interesting and engaging curriculum.

 

As the essentialist educational philosophers correctly note, students are not aware of what they need to know; the district and school necessarily decide what educational standards students should meet, and educators teach toward these standards. While rigid goals and standards are necessary for an education to take place, they are far from sufficient. Many kids are not intrinsically motivated to learn, and teachers cannot force them to do so. We must bring the proverbial horse to the water and then, make the act of drinking water look – if not fun or exciting – like the only sensible thing to do.

 

While lectures and independent work is often necessary, a more progressive approach to lesson planning can be particularly effective with many of today’s students. An effective educator does their best to develop and implement engaging units that include opportunities for students to engage in fact-finding and exploration through experiential and project-based components. Students often pay rapt attention during classroom activities with real-life implications, such as when participating in mock-trials or translating Shakespeare into modern vernacular. Such experiential lessons are more interesting to students because they build directly on what students need to know for success in life. As a result, these lessons are also better remembered and used later in life. A good education prepares students to be effective citizens of society, who can apply their learning to novel real-life situations.

 

Report cards are a necessary evil. Whenever possible, assessment should be rubric-based and informative, providing useful feedback, rather than consist of punitive grading. Students learn very little when told something is “incorrect” – this leaves a world of possible “correct” answers. To help students learn from assessments, teachers must both explain the process toward improvement and provide opportunities for improvement. This places the responsibility for improvement squarely upon the shoulders of the students. Whenever pertinent, teachers should present anonymous student work samples and assess their strengths and weaknesses using the rubrics, providing students with achievable models for their own work. Finally, as with B.F. Skinner’s mice, students learn much more when they receive feedback promptly; assessments and grading should be prompt. If students receive feedback weeks later, they may not care anymore or may have already internalized improper information.

 

When teachers create exciting curriculum and have high expectations of their students, it helps students think of themselves as individually important, part of a caring community. Teens are in a stage of development in which they are trying to figure out who they are. They regularly experience confusion and frustration centered on their individual values, priorities, and roles in society. In my English classes, I not only want to teach my students to be more effective writers and more passionate readers, I also want them to learn to be more imaginative, about their own lives and the lives of those around them; to become more empathetic and less cynical at an age where apathy is a high risk. If they feel that I am personally invested in them, they will hopefully want to learn from me.

 

In my curriculum and my demeanor, I want to aid my students directly in forming and navigating their roles in society. I want my students to understand the English language not simply as letters on a page, but as the way we communicate, written and read, spoken and listened. Ideally, I hope to emphasize the development of the language and social skills necessary to help them connect with and relate to whomever they wish to in the community, to put on whatever shoes they would like and be able to skip around in them comfortably.

 

Finally, what is most important for a new teacher is her earnest efforts toward improving her craft. As a teacher, it is my duty to address problems and seek out constructive criticism to improve my curriculum and classroom management; to work with other teachers, not only when I am struggling, but as a professional habit. As a new and idealistic teacher, it is important for me to be patient, celebrating successes while noting areas for improvement, with the recognition that brilliant teachers bloom on the timescale of years.