Educational Philosophy

I believe one purpose of education is to teach students about certain subject areas, including math, science, english, and history. Although these skills are essential, I believe the greater purpose of education is to teach students the skills to be a successful in life. Some of these skills that I believe are important for success include communication, working with others, and being able to think for yourself. I believe as a teacher it is important to teach students about the certain core subjects, but I believe it is much more important to teach them other skills that will help them to be successful in life. The purpose of education is produce citizens who are well educated and can think for themselves. If an education of a student does not teach them the skills to be successful, then the purpose of education has not been achieved.
The definition of learning to me is being taught knowledge you did not know before. Learning is more than just memorizing facts. Truly learning something requires someone not only to know something, but also how to apply that knowledge to real life situations. I want my students to not only learn the things I teach them, I also want them to remember those things. Many teachers just require students to “regurgitate” information back to them. When this happens a teacher teaches students something and only requires students to know the information long enough to pass a test covering the information. Rather than learning and retaining information this teaching information only requires students to know information for a short time and therefore information is not truly learned. I want to use teaching methods that require students to not only learn the information I teach them, but I also want my students to be able to retain the information.
A teacher has many roles and is one of the most important influences in the life of a child who is growing up. While a student is in school, they will be around their teachers more than their parents, so it is important that teachers have a positive influence on the lives of their students. The primary role of a teacher is to teach their students. Many teachers I had in high school either did not enjoy their job and did not want to teach and other teachers I had did not challenge their students. Teaching is something I am really passionate about and is something I really want to do. I think to be a good teacher you must love your job, because if you hate your job you probably will not be as good of a teacher and you will be cheating your students out of a good education. Another role of a teacher is to be someone who cares about their students. The best teachers I have had are teachers that not only challenged me, but also the ones that truly cared about me as a person. As a teacher, I want to make sure I challenge my students in the classroom and make sure they learn.
I believe that students should learn things like math, science, english, and history in school. I believe it is more important though for a student to learn the essential skills to be a good person. I want to make sure I teach my students right from wrong and teach them to help others in need.
I believe that a teacher and student should not have a “best friends” type of relationship, but rather more of a student/parent relationship. If a teacher tries too hard to be friends with their students, they will most likely be too lenient with their students and will not be offering the type of relationship that the student needs. I believe that a good teacher feels for one of their students like they are their own child. A good teacher cares about all of their students tries to offer as much help to them as they can. When I become a teacher I will care about all of my students and will offer them help with whatever problems they may have.
There are many ways that teachers choose to assess learning and each teacher has their own opinion on which methods work best. I think the best way to assess learning is to use a variety of methods. It is true that each student is different and that each student learns a different way and requires different methods of teaching to learn. The same is true that different students show what they have learned in different ways. Some students may be better at taking written tests over information they have learned. This will probably be the primary testing method I use, because I feel it is one of the best methods to assess learning. Another method I will use to assess learning is having classroom discussions. Some students might be better at communicating things they have learned through dialogue than through a written test. With having class dialogues to assess learning it also encourages students to develop greater communication skills.
All of the beliefs that I have will hopefully translate into a classroom that encourages learning. My classes will probably include a lecture over the readings assigned from the night before and sometimes a class discussion. If I find that all my students do not learn from my style of teaching, I will adapt to make it easier for my students to learn. I will use alternative teaching methods to reach all of my different children.