Personal Teaching Philosophy Essay

Education is defined as the lifelong process of acquiring knowledge, skills, and values through either formal means, such as schooling, or informal means, such as firsthand experiences or vicarious experiences gained through reading books or discussions. Every person that is or wants to be a teacher has his or her own educational philosophy. We all have our own views, methods, and curriculum that we were taught when growing up. A lot of people may have the same teachers in school, but all of them learn different things from that teacher.

Like a good business plan, every teacher should have a personal educational philosophy in place. Witcher, Sewall, Arnold, and Travers in Teaching, leading and learning: It’s all about philosophy (2001) say that a

I believe that teaching is one of the most important professions in the world today. From the very beginning, until present time, teaching has been around. The book of Genesis speaks of God walking and talking with Adam in The Garden of Eden, God was teaching Adam. I will be proud to, one day, be a part of this great calling.

I see students as the next generations’ heroes in so many fields. In my vision, I have to inspire students and prepare them with confidence, knowledge, experience and skills. Which means I encourage, communicate, guide, teach, and assess students in order to enrich their infrastructures.

Every teacher has a different method of teaching. The teachers that I have had in my school career have been no exception. In this way, each teacher has set an example for me, as a future teacher, to follow or not to follow as I see fit. With the examples from my teachers and in continuing my education, I am developing my own method of teaching. I plan to use a combination of teaching methods in my own classroom. My method will be an eclectic approach because I will be using components of more than one philosophy. I will be using essentialism, behaviorism, progressivism, and existentialism.

My philosophy of teaching is rather simple- teach how to multiply. But I do not only mean how to multiply numbers in mathematics. My philosophy of multiplication looks like teaching others to teach others how to teach others. As the saying goes, we are life-long learners. For this to be true, we must also mean that we are life-long teachers. To learn, we must be taught. We are all teachers and we are all learners, the only differing variable in this equation are the passions that guide our teaching and learning. We need one another to teach and learn effectively because we all have unique passions and abilities. This simple fact is what inspires me to teach. We are all in this together. I want to teach in a way that encourages life-long learning. I want to teach in a way that inspires others to teach. I want to teach with humility and with an understanding that my students will teach me far more than I could ever wish to teach them.

I believe that education extends far beyond the classroom walls, and involves many more people than students and teachers. People should be learning wherever they go, and should continue learning long after they’ve graduated from high school or college. Education isn’t something that can be quantified with tests or report cards, but is instead something that people carry with them. It’s a survival pack for life, and some people are better equipped in certain areas than in others. People with a solid education are prepared for nearly anything, as they will be able to provide for their own physical, emotional, and aesthetic needs.

For me, the decision to become a teacher is more of a way of life than a career. I have always loved school, practicing at being school marm from a young age, and voraciously devouring every shred of education offered me in my career as a student. If it were possible, I would be a student for the rest of my life. And then I still would not have learned enough. As a teacher, I hope to instill this appetite for knowledge in secondary students. They are, after all, the future leaders of the world, and what better place to expand the minds of the generations to come than here in Appalachia where education programs, especially the sciences, which I plan to teach, are poorly funded and children’s dreams

I think my teaching philosophy is best defined as a combination of progressivism and social reconstructionism. David Sadker, author of "Teachers Schools and Society", defines the progressive educator as someone who, "(…) facilitates learning by helping students formulate meaningful questions and devise strategies to answer those questions", while social reconstructionism emphasizes cooperation, less conflict, and a better quality of life. These two teaching philosophies in combination seem to both fit my view on how learning should be facilitated and how it should be based.

My goals as a teacher are to help students communicate effectively and foster a desire to learn. I believe these two characteristics are important for students to have because despite what problems they encounter or what situation they are in, the ability to communicate effectively will help them in working with others and the desire to learn will motivate them to make positive changes in their life. As a teacher, I want my students to become interested in learning, both in school and in their personal lives. With these two goals in mind, my role as a teacher is to help them acquire these skills and values. However, effective communication is one of the hardest tasks for teachers because we all communicate in

In the field of education there could arise many philosophical ideas of each individual teacher. Many of the past philosophies have been and still are used in today’s education programs, such as the Socratic method. My philosophy will also contain some of the many philosophies of the past and possibly the future. I will state the nature of students, the nature of knowledge, the purpose of public education, method, and curriculum according to my own philosophies, which also may be based the philosophical ideas of previous individuals.

Education is the process of learning that can take place anywhere and at any time. I believe that creativity and activity as well as books and lessons are essential to the learning process. As a teacher, I hope to instill in the children a sense of knowledge and self-worth that will remain with them throughout their lives.

Identify the 6 elements of a personal teaching philosophy. Then, using the six elements, draft your own personal philosophy of teaching (Look at page 27 and identify the elements of a personal teaching philosophy and then write what you think is important about each of them).

Many people in history, as well as my mentors, have influenced my personal learning philosophy about early childhood learning.

The purpose of education is to transmit both knowledge and skills needed to live in our modern world. Learning, such as critical thinking, should light a flame within the students that is a desire to learn, instead of smothering this desire through rote memorization. Just as Plato proposed that people must emerge from their caves of their own reality, students need to be brought forth out of their caves and into the sunlight by their guides who are teachers. Education is the process by which students learn more about themselves and about the world around them. Aristotle proposed that the purpose of education should be to help a person reach his or her potential. Without education, learners may not reach their full potential; they may