My philosophy of education has been that every child should be entitled with the right to learn and acquire a better and quality education. This is in line with my current classroom objective which has been to challenge my students with real-life situations as I watch them reach their full potentials. My aim is to take my students through different levels of their personal growth that will ensure their individual benefits and betterment of the future society. I have realized that group work is detrimental towards having and establishing a successful class that ensures the involvement of all students. This is in consideration that through group work, students get to help one another in their points of weaknesses and can bring greater transformations and significant changes in the learning atmosphere and even to the entire classroom.
I want every student in my classroom to enjoy a sense of freedom that can allow them to freely express themselves and further enhance their creativity. Having freedom can enable students to realize their strengths and weaknesses by experimenting on some of their likes and dislikes. After developing this foundation, I teach the curriculum in a manner that ties and connects to the learning styles of every student in my class.
I encourage my students to be open to instruction however, I also provide them with an opportunity of growing and expanding on their individual levels. At the start of every school year, it is only fair that my students discuss lessons in my presence. As I guide them through this process I slowly encourage them to pose their own questions and provide support when needed. As the year progresses they rely less on me. This is because I strongly feel that it is beneficial to allow students to work for the answers on their own instead of giving them everything as this can greatly stretch and expand their knowledge in different ways. This also enables them to work together thereby building their teamwork capability which is a key factor in their completion of different class projects. It is essential that as an educator, I should not only be of help to my students by teaching them but also through giving them direction and further encouraging them to be of help to others.
My past classroom, training as well as life experiences over the past years has significantly shaped my position and life as an educator. These experiences have greatly influenced my philosophy of education in quite a number of ways that have contributed to a solid foundation of my philosophy. Following this, I often focus on the three significant factors that act as drivers to my instruction to my students. These fundamental factors include creating a safe and conducive classroom environment that is essential for learning; the necessity of thoughtful planning and preparation of lessons; as well as self-reflection and student evaluation which I believe contribute to an ideal learning environment.
My fundamental obligation as an educator involves creating a safe, nurturing and loving environment where all students feel respected and valued thus prompting them to strive to do their best. Apart from guiding my students through discussions during the first few weeks of school, I believe that creating an environment or classroom climate that enables students to spend a greater portion of their day learning is essential and significant. This I achieve through establishing daily routines that guide the students throughout the day since they will be aware of what is expected of them at all levels. Some of the activities that are entailed in these daily routines include morning greetings, clean up or sitting down songs, language arts or math rotations as well as dismissal among others. These routine activities can make students comfortable and have the feeling of safety and calmness in conditions which at times may be chaotic. Besides I further intend to enforce the norm and sense of community, family and mutual respect among my students so that they can be reflective of their daily actions thus being more careful in whatever they do. I teach my students quite a number of virtues and morals such as loyalty, integrity, respect, and empathy as well as being compassionate and taking care of one another.
I am strongly convinced that this kind of classroom environment will enable my students to not only learn and excel academically but also develop into responsible and caring individuals in society. I encourage my students to know one another through developing strong bonds amongst them not only for the shorter period they will be learning but also for longer-term associations where they will be of greater help to one another in different situations apart from their academic journey. This is in line with my personal objective of ensuring that my students love, care for, and respect one another including their peers. I believe that creating a loving and nurturing classroom environment can enable students to feel safe and comfortable learning especially when they know they will receive support.
During planning and developing of my lesson schedules, I often consider and make up for 19 learners after which I take a review of the district curriculum. In my lessons, I incorporate quite a number of activities which includes class discussions, music moment, exercise sessions, higher level thinking as well as individual activities among others. I am a strong believer that students can grasp concepts through movements, practices and critical reflections on what has been taught in the classroom. My students get time to learn and share amongst themselves and as a result, their confidence levels improve thus enabling even the shy students to share their views without fear. I plan several activities at the end of every unit which gives my students an opportunity to further explore the topic. I often encourage my students to explore through various activities and student-centered games considering that learning is best achieved when students’ conduct further research and explore more on their own.
Furthermore, I believe that technology can greatly play an important role in the field of education and thus I try as much as possible to incorporate technology in the learning process through daily routines. I consider the use of technology especially during math and language arts. I often ensure that I get updated with the latest technological trends in the contemporary world. This enables me to provide my students with many technological resources so that they are not left behind. Nevertheless, regardless of the difficulties associated with planning, I consider every student as unique on their own and have differences in terms of knowledge acquisition thus I often make accommodations that can fit all my students.
Moreover, I have learned that self-reflection is an important and fundamental part of growing and learning as an educator. I often reflect after every lesson on a daily basis where I think about how certain situations or lessons can be handled differently to ensure student improvement. During this reflection, I evaluate myself through examining several questions, especially on areas that need to improve. These reflections are often very essential considering that they usually help me realize some of the areas where my students need improvement and call for necessary changes. As an educator, I have learned that self-reflection can be an important tool of professional growth since it enables one to identify the points of weakness, strengths and opportunities that can guide myself and my students to success. In addition, I have learned that assessing and evaluating students is a significant factor towards ensuring success and helping leaners excel academically. I normally apply different assessment methods for my students which includes the application of district and unit assessment which in turn help me in ensuring that the course objectives are successfully met and that every student realizes their full potentials.
