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Teaching Philosophy
Purpose of Education

For the purpose of education, I believe it is to ensure that each student has the best opportunities

to succeed. This means creating, and nurturing, a positive learning environment where students

can grow into functional adults. This means they have to grow socially, emotionally, and

intellectually to reach that goal. Because of my libertarian mindset, I believe the best way for

students to grow within education is to develop their critical thinking skills, understand the world

as a whole, and understand the meaning of diversity and how they will interact with it daily. As

such, education should teach students about diversity, how to understand prejudice and biases,

how to see them, and how to work through any misgivings one may have about another group.

Within education, students will become more willing to learn once they have a positive teacher-

student relationship. These types of relationships help improve a students’ academic and social

achievements, and personal development. Therefore, the formulation of a positive teacher-

student relationship will create a positive learning environment where students want to succeed

and learn more about the world. Education aims to build these relationships and environments

for students to grow into functional, proper adults and succeed in their learning.

My Teaching Goals

Because of my lacklustre experience in public school, where I felt that I never good enough and I

would never amount to anything, I want to change that by being a positive role model in

someone’s life. This is not to say that I want to be a student’s friend as that goes against the

professional model, but more so I want to be that one person in a student’s life that believes in

them. I want students to see their true potential and gain an appreciation for learning. I only

developed as a human being once I started to be open to learning and I want to pass this on. In
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our current century, students need to develop the ability to be open to new ideas while still

thinking critically and not accepting every piece of information out there. As a teacher, I have to

teach the curriculum at hand; however, to do so in a way where students understand why they are

learning this portion of the curriculum and how it impacts their lives. Students should be able to

make connections between what they are doing to their world outside of school. As an educator,

I need to illustrate how to do that by showing them my thinking out loud when going through the

curriculum.

This coincides with a want to learn, and this want should be with them for their lives. As

individuals, we are continually learning and growing. To reject this aspect of our lives is to deny

growth within ourselves. One factor in incentivizing learning is by doing so through

collaboration. It gets someone to think through an idea from multiple perspectives through

conversation and see a diversity of thought in action. As such, I believe that group work,

discussions, students correcting their own work (SELFs) should be stables in my pedagogy. A

student-centred approach to learning where students feel in control of their education where they

can explore any questions they may have to promote learning to be the methodology I want to

use.

However, to truly accomplish this, I must keep in mind multiple intelligences, learning styles,

and universal design for learning (UDLS), to keep students engaged and play to their strengths.

This coincides with building positive student-teacher relationships to truly implement these

goals. I must know my students and how they work best to accomplish this. In that case, it is

crucial that differentiated instruction is part of my classroom to meet students’ needs. As an

educator, I will be teaching multiple classrooms of students, and as such, I must be flexible in my

teaching and be able to change my plans if the situation calls for it. Moreover, to fully
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understand my students, I must speak to colleagues, guidance counsellors, and parents as I only

have one viewpoint. One needs multiple perspectives to truly understand anything and anyone.

As a student, I felt that no one cared about my progress, so I do not want students to feel that

way. They need to feel like they have the power to learn, the ability to advocate for their learning

and have someone in their corner that knows their learning style and can help them if need be.

Diversity

In terms of teaching diversity, I think it takes all kinds. I do not mean in terms of skin

colour, sexuality, and religious beliefs, but backgrounds, political beliefs, and where a person

grew up. One job as an educator is guiding students to be open-minded and understand opposing

views so long as they do not harm someone else. As such, I want to create an inclusive classroom

that promotes the diversity of people and thoughts. In co-operative learning, these different

perspectives can help students succeed in their education and helping one another. Creating an

environment in the classroom where everyone can shine and do their best work is of utmost

importance. Because I come from a mostly homogenous town where nearly everyone was part of

lower-middle to middle-class white families, I was not confronted with diversity as early as

others were. However, as I went through my Bachelor of Arts at St. Thomas University and now

my Bachelor of Education at Crandall University, I am being confronted with more aspects of

diversity. It would be ill of me to ignore it all and say it does not matter in terms of teaching.

Educators will have classrooms with diverse students. They should be leading a calm,

comfortable, and safe classroom for students to speak about their experiences. Where a student’s

voice and identity are not taken for granted. Therefore, I want to be a teacher that can nurture

these types of discussions, teach empathy, and engage students with multiple perspectives of our

world. That, in my belief, is the way to get students to understand diversity.

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Assessments

For assessments in my classroom, I want to create a positive learning environment where

students’ voices and identities are not stifled but rather flourishing. When students feel like they

are in a safe space, they are more willing to speak out and ask questions, which will allow me to

gauge what they know through their interactions. Nonetheless, there is still a need for

assessments, and as my professors have taught me, one needs to start with the end in mind. To

properly create assessments to discover if my students understand the material, I must first know

where I want them by the end of the unit. The outcomes must fit the curriculum and be doable by

all the students. This means understanding students and asking them questions to know if they

are ready for the next assessment, whether formative or summative.