| My Teaching Philosophy |
| When I think of how my
philosophy of teaching has been formed and reformed I think of
bubbles. There are these pink and blue glassine bubbles that are
floating around and as they pop next to my ear they whisper epiphanies
to me. I am continuously thinking and changing my thoughts in
relation to my teaching practices. It seems as though there is no
way to pinpoint my feelings and where they came from, but within this I
will attempt to. An important man, Louis Pasteur, once said, “When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments: tenderness for what he is and respect for what he may become.” I find this to be a line that I strive to live by and I feel is crucial for all humans. It is important to me to treat my students with respect for who they are and to acknowledge that they are people and will become what they choose someday. I feel that it is important to give the students the respect they deserve as humans and to give them the power and tools to choose their future. Within this it is important to incorporate parents because they are apart of the child, as well as the child’s community, culture, and language. To deny the child any of those pieces is to deny the child. The beginning of Louis Pasteur’s quote should not be ignored, because it is important to acknowledge that children do inspire. I think that if I ever find that I am no longer inspired by my students then I am not doing my job as a teacher and a human. Another inspiration comes from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Avonlea. When asked how her first day of teaching went, Anne’s response was: Ask me that a month later and I may be able to tell you. I can’t now…I don’t know myself…I’m too near it. My thoughts feel as if they had been all stirred up until they were thick and muddy. The only thing I feel really sure of having accomplished today is that I taught Cliffie Wright that A is A. He never knew it before. Isn’t it something to have started a soul along a path that may end in Shakespeare and Paradise Lost? (270) This quote touched me and I saw myself in it. When I come home from teaching I am never really sure of what is accomplished and whether or not I really was able to help my students. But I have learned to take every day one at a time and follow Anne’s philosophy of everyday being a new day. I also have learned that although you may feel as though you have gotten nowhere, anywhere is somewhere. You are putting your students onto a path. You are to guide them on the path, not walk it for them. Then at the end of the year, hopefully, you feel that you have given them all that you can to help them be able to walk their path independently, and to look for their own bubbles. References: Montgomery, Lucy Maud. (1985). Anne of Avonlea. New York. Avenel Books. Smith, Deborah Deutsch. (2004). Introduction to Special Education. Pg. 201. New York, Pearson |