I had a difficult time putting into words my philosophy of education. I know that there are certain things that I value as an educator. I value community. I value academic appreciation. I value diversity and culutre. I value the students. I value a safe learning environment. I value success. I value hard work and effort. To actually get started and write all of this out in a meaningful way really stumped me.
I asked a few people around me what they thought about who I was and what I brought to the classroom. My EA described me as caring and compassionate, firm but not strict. She said that I was someone who was easy to get along with but not one that was easy to pull something over. My Vice-Principal described me as caring and creative. She said that I was hard-working and responsible. She said that I was responsive too; someone who can 'roll with the punches' so to speak. My husband said that I have changed who I am as a teacher since he's known me (14 years). He said that I care much more about the emotional education of the child now than I did when I first started. He thought that perhaps, I now have a language for it and a means to teach emotion labelling. Though I cared about my students' well-being earlier in my career, I probably concentrated more on being effective at lesson planning and classroom management skills. Through the years as I have gotten a handle on the basics of teaching, I'm able to delve deeper into educating the whole child, not just meeting the academic needs of the child. He said that he thought I was probably a very good teacher, though he's never had the opportunity to see me teach in the classroom.
This caused me to think about those before me who I consider to be a 'good' teacher. What kinds of characteristics do they have in common? What message do they send, simply by being the educator that they are. I thought about Sandy, a kindergarten teacher I volunteered with before I was a teacher myself. She was patient, kind, firm and very positive. I thought about Sue, a grade 4 teacher at a school I once worked with who was encouraging and again, very positive. I thought about Heather, a resource teacher I worked with in an inner city school. She was extremely patient, encouraging and empathetic. I thought about JoAnn, another grade 4 colleague who refused to give up on any student, no matter how challenging they may be. I started to see a pattern and I started to see how I've taken cues from these women and implemented them into my own personal style of teaching. I strive to be like them: positive and caring, patient and determined, encouraging and empathetic. I can look back now and see how these values have affected who I am as an educator, enabling me to define my own philosophy.
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