PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING
Growing up, I learned that the purpose of education was to get good grades. I internalized this with the help of my traditional Filipino parents. For them, good grades were precursors to a successful college career. Good grades meant I was studious. Good grades meant I was well-behaved. Good grades meant I was smart enough to do well in higher institutions. I internalized early on that the purpose of education was to prepare me for college. Though I still do believe that education should prepare students for higher institutions, I now understand that there are more dimensions to the purpose of education.
I believe that part of education’s purpose is to dunk students into a reservoir of perennial knowledge. I believe that there are certain enduring truths that all students should know. A prime example of an enduring truth is that focus is not a natural ability; that focus is a skill which must be sharpened, practiced, tested, developed further, and then practiced again. It is a truth that all tasks require certain levels of focus and without focus, completing tasks would be nearly impossible. There are many other enduring truths to be taught in education and I believe teaching them is a necessity because another aspect of education’s purpose is to prepare students to be functional members of society; not just as employees in the globalized market, but as critically-thinking, moral human beings. I believe the ultimate goal of education is to use academic channels to develop students into higher-order thinking individuals so they may contribute to the betterment of society.
However, fulfilling this purpose requires immense work on the part of an educator. As an English teacher, I’ll have the opportunity to show kids the complexities of society through masterful literary works. I believe that part of my role will be to help kids analyze the truths so oftentimes covertly buried in text. Truths extrapolated from good literature function as mirrors. Through figurative and literal language, those truths reflect the positive and negative aspects of society, but they can also reflect possibilities. Ultimately, my role as an educator is to use these truths to broaden the perceptions of students so that they may view the world critically enough to want to contribute to it.
Of course, this view about my role is optimistic and the pessimist in me reminds me: not all students will have the same level of understanding with regards to what I’m teaching. Every student has a different learning style and sometimes not using different modalities could dictate whether or not someone wants to learn at all. Knowing this, it will be my obligation to address the different learning styles of my students. I must use a wide array of teaching strategies; I need to employ hands-on activities; get students pairing up; get them cooperatively learning; have them interact with visuals, etc. It will be a necessity for me to incorporate a wide range of teaching strategies to reach as many students as possible.
I suppose, in the end, reaching as many students as possible is all a good teacher can really hope to accomplish. I realize this essay is a mere fragment of my dreams as an educator; that what I think of education’s purpose; what I believe of my role as a teacher; how I plan to address my students’ diversity; they are all standards or ideals that I dream to meet. Perhaps one day I’ll actually meet them. One day. One day.
--Meta
I believe that part of education’s purpose is to dunk students into a reservoir of perennial knowledge. I believe that there are certain enduring truths that all students should know. A prime example of an enduring truth is that focus is not a natural ability; that focus is a skill which must be sharpened, practiced, tested, developed further, and then practiced again. It is a truth that all tasks require certain levels of focus and without focus, completing tasks would be nearly impossible. There are many other enduring truths to be taught in education and I believe teaching them is a necessity because another aspect of education’s purpose is to prepare students to be functional members of society; not just as employees in the globalized market, but as critically-thinking, moral human beings. I believe the ultimate goal of education is to use academic channels to develop students into higher-order thinking individuals so they may contribute to the betterment of society.
However, fulfilling this purpose requires immense work on the part of an educator. As an English teacher, I’ll have the opportunity to show kids the complexities of society through masterful literary works. I believe that part of my role will be to help kids analyze the truths so oftentimes covertly buried in text. Truths extrapolated from good literature function as mirrors. Through figurative and literal language, those truths reflect the positive and negative aspects of society, but they can also reflect possibilities. Ultimately, my role as an educator is to use these truths to broaden the perceptions of students so that they may view the world critically enough to want to contribute to it.
Of course, this view about my role is optimistic and the pessimist in me reminds me: not all students will have the same level of understanding with regards to what I’m teaching. Every student has a different learning style and sometimes not using different modalities could dictate whether or not someone wants to learn at all. Knowing this, it will be my obligation to address the different learning styles of my students. I must use a wide array of teaching strategies; I need to employ hands-on activities; get students pairing up; get them cooperatively learning; have them interact with visuals, etc. It will be a necessity for me to incorporate a wide range of teaching strategies to reach as many students as possible.
I suppose, in the end, reaching as many students as possible is all a good teacher can really hope to accomplish. I realize this essay is a mere fragment of my dreams as an educator; that what I think of education’s purpose; what I believe of my role as a teacher; how I plan to address my students’ diversity; they are all standards or ideals that I dream to meet. Perhaps one day I’ll actually meet them. One day. One day.
--Meta