Joe Burke - philosophy of teaching

I have wanted to be a teacher for my entire life, and I look forward to every aspect of the job. There are, however, a few specific things that carry a disproportionately large level of importance in my heart when it comes to teaching. ne can be summed up very nicely by a !uote from the "#s television show $Boy %eets &orld.' %r. (eeny, wise old teacher to the young main characters, answers a !uestion about his love for teaching by saying, $it would be very easy for me to tell you that I have dedicated the last thirty eight years of my life to several thousand young minds, and that is my chief joy and reason for getting up in the morning. )*cept it isn+t. I teach because I like it, and because it+s fun for me' ,Boy %eets &orld, -"".-/###0. &hile I do relate to (eeny+s comments, this is not to say that I have no interest in the e*trinsic fulfillment of enriching the lives of children, but I also have a great deal of intrinsic motivation. Teaching is $fun for me.' 1s mentioned, there is another specific idea that is highly significant for me. bviously a big part of teaching is being able to cater your instruction to the assortment of students who come through your door. I have always tried to predict, and thoughtfully consider, the way someone will receive what I present. It follows that, in a successful classroom, there must be a communicative effort on the part of both the teacher and the student. In an )nglish classroom, specifically, we need to educate students to be aware of shifting goals and changing perspectives, and we need to train them to be adaptable during such movements. )nglish education provides this 2training+ through a study of the past, and the world of creating new te*ts. f course, there is more than that. In the )nglish discipline, literacy is connected to an abundance of concepts. In a prescriptive sense, students need to be able to comprehend the )nglish language as it is spoken and as it is written. 3ikewise, students need to be able to produce the language through speech and writing. n the other hand, a student who is literate in )nglish also has to be able to appreciate concepts for what they mean to him or herself, not just for what they are prescribed to be. 1nd a teacher must make sure students are predisposed to do just that. This will naturally encompass the idea of fluctuating perspectives. In her book, Language and Reflection: An Integrated Approach to Teaching English, 1nne 4ere tries to answer the !uestion $why do we teach )nglish5' 6he lists many reasons, none of which fully answer the !uestion or clear up the conundrum that permeates her entire book, that $the various goals 7of )nglish education8 recur across time, though their relative prominence is constantly shifting' ,4ere, /90. 1s mentioned above, I believe that this $shifting' is precisely the reason we must teach )nglish. 6he also writes that $literacy implies the ability to operate effectively in our comple* society' ,4ere, /.0. This means that we must all be able to adapt to the ever-changing comple*ities of the world. These are the kinds of ideas I hold dear, and will always try to keep in the front of my mind as I teach. )nglish, like no other subject in school ,e*cept, perhaps, philosophy, but that isn+t often taught in middle:high school0, carries the responsibility of fostering and maintaining a socially-aware student body, one that can adapt to the myriad of changes which undoubtedly will occur during their lives. I want to teach )nglish like it is philosophy. But it is not that I want all of my students to adopt the stance that te*ts are gauged and ranked based on the clarity of the window into the human condition they provide. %ore important is the idea that te*ts do something. 1esthetic awareness deals with students+ individual appreciation ,entertainment, beauty0 of a te*t ,6magorinsky, ;.0< in my class, students will understand the concept of aesthetics and be able to formulate opinions and arguments about te*ts based on that concept.