EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
I believe that the role of the teacher in the 21st century educational environment in vastly different than in the past. While once we served as conduits of information to students who were hindered by a lack of access to information, leaving much of our educational time spent on teaching skills at the lower end of Blooms Taxonomy, the computer age has made teaching information obsolete, forcing us to shift gears in the direction of teaching students how to facilitate their own learning. The future of educating students at the secondary level is in teaching students not what to learn, but how to learn. As we guide students in the exploration of their role as citizens and contributors to the development of a globally inclusive and collaborative society, the education we offer must be diverse, inclusive, and as, if not more, experiential than academic. In this process, making metacognition a focus of each learning experience will help them understand how to approach more easily subjects that are more academically challenging than those that come to them with more ease. When students genuinely turn the corner from regurgitating to generating, then we can say we have accomplished the proverbial task of “teaching a man to fish.
We as teacher’s can then model life long learning as they see us seek to know and understand as they do. While this is all true from an educational or academic standpoint, I truly believe that our focus on
Educating has got to be on the whole child. I have witnessed too many bright minds begin to atrophy as they are forced to compartmentalize their interests outside of the core subject academic arena. Students are encountering stress at a level once encountered well into adulthood as they strive to meet the demands of a testing driven academia while working to “pump up” their CV’s. They are better served when encouraged to balance their academic life with a social life as a model of what the rest of adulthood holds as they balance career and family/friends. As a final piece of the puzzle in educating the whole child, they should be given opportunity to explore their role understand as they grow into young adulthood and are expected to find a place as contributing members of society.
Educational Philosophy
I believe that any philosophy of education has to take into account that the role of the teacher in the 21st century educational environment is vastly different than in the past. While once we served as conduits of information to students who were hindered by a lack of access to information, leaving much of our educational time spent on teaching skills at the lower end of Blooms Taxonomy, the computer age has made teaching information obsolete, forcing us to shift gears in the direction of teaching students how to facilitate their own learning. The future of educating students at the secondary level is in teaching students not what to learn, but how to learn. I begin any classroom experience by grounding my students in an understanding of their own thinking processes by exposing them to Bloom's Taxonomy and sharing with them how I as an educator devise each lesson to make sure that I am challenging them to think at the highest levels of their ability. As well, I remind them of their global citizenship and responsibility to offer them learning opportunities that are diverse, inclusive, and as, if not more, experiential than academic. In this process, making metacognition a focus of each learning experience will help them understand how to approach more easily subjects that are more academically challenging than those that come to them with more ease. When students genuinely turn the corner from regurgitating to generating, then we can say we have accomplished the proverbial task of “teaching a man to fish.
We as teacher’s can then model life long learning as they see us seek to know and understand as they do. While this is all true from an educational or academic standpoint, I truly believe that our focus on Educating has got to be on the whole child. I have witnessed too many bright minds begin to atrophy as they are forced to compartmentalize their interests outside of the core subject academic arena. Students are encountering stress at a level once encountered well into adulthood as they strive to meet the demands of a testing driven academia while working to “pump up” their CV’s. They are better served when encouraged to balance their academic life with a social life as a model of what the rest of adulthood holds as they balance career and family/friends.
Personal Statement
I really believe that my contentedness with being a teacher in an international setting comes from my up bringing as the tenth of twelve children in a family that valued independence and diversity. Sometimes I feel like I was born to live “on the fly.” My father was a factory worker and we all started working at a young age, learning that flexibility, adapting to our environment, and finding contentedness in all of our circumstances were the hallmarks of being a success in a blue-collar world. As well, my parents were staunch civil rights advocates despite living in the southern part of America and that bred in me a fierce love of diversity and a drive to understand the varieties of cultures that surround me. I believe this upbringing, coupled with my early involvement in live theatre and the radically creative resourcefulness that this bread in me, all aided in helping me develop the skill set I access as a teacher in the international school setting.
This in turn helps me faciliatate the learning of my students. In the simplest sense, the overwhelming majority of humanity, not just students, learn by doing, and when not doing, by researching, discussing, and writing about topics that simulate real world situations as much as possible. Motivationally, however, I think students best learn when they believe in their ability to succeed, and when the criteria for and the path to that success is clearly understood. Additionally, I believe that they learn best when they are in an environment in which the criterion for success is based on the individual. It has become well establish practice that instruction should be differentiated and the logical and reasonable follow up to that is that the measure of success would be different for each as well. I believe that measured improvement based on the individual’s learning style and future needs should be the largest barometer of student success. As a facilitator of learning, my role is to provide students with both a confidence in the achievability of success and a clarity as to what is expected. Once that is done my job is to champion their quest by challenging them to think deeply and critically in the process. When they hit minor roadblocks, it is my job to help them find ways to overcome said challenges without providing immediate answers. I strive to make learning in my classroom student centered and student idea driven.
As a member of a professional learning community in an international setting, I would take every opportunity to learn from those with whom I'm collaborating. I am, always have been, and will until the day I die be a team player. I believe in the mutual support and communal effort toward success that comes when working in a unique collaborative environment. I thrive and grow on learning from others and believe that my background in performing arts can be beneficial to any professional learning community I am a part of because part of my job as a member of the team is I challenge my peers to investigate new levels of creativity within themselves. As well, I believe that the integration of drama across the curriculum can help students access higher level thinking skills in other subjects. I love challenging core academic subject teachers to investigate the ways that non-traditional teaching methods fostered through dramatic exploration can improve and expand their students’ knowledge.