Sydney Farniok

ED 3100

Educational Philosophy

12/2/21

My Philosophy for Success

Teaching has been something I have wanted to do for most of my life. I looked up

to my teachers in elementary and high school. The activities I completed, the level of

engagement expected of me, the highest standard I was held at to become successful. My

educational philosophy is to do just that with my students. I believe that students

receive the most effective education when they are actively involved in the learning

process and can enjoy it. In doing this, I plan to draw from their personal experiences

and stories, coupled with planning engaging lesson plans that set the students up for

imagination, success and ignite their passion for learning. Through learning different

theories, I have found that an essential thing is adjusting your plan to fit each student’s

individual needs. Education and teaching are challenging because things are constantly

changing, and you must be flexible because no student is the same as the next.

My motivations for teaching stemmed from how my teachers motivated me

throughout elementary and high school. I find it so empowering to shape young minds

and set high but attainable expectations to set them up for success. My teachers pushed

me by planning lesson plans that helped me learn, and when learning, I was also

building self-efficacy. Albert Bandura came up with a theory that when students have

self-efficacy, they believe in themselves to attain their highest level of self-perception

and self-motivation. Self-efficacy motivates me to become a teacher because I think

every student deserves to feel self-motivated and that they can believe and depend on

themselves to gain academic knowledge and knowledge about social skills and life. It is

essential to focus on building personal and life skills in an elementary classroom.

Another thing that motivates me to become a teacher is being able to help young

minds learn skills that will help them be successful for years beyond the year you are

with them. Being a teacher who can help students and the students take away from that

experience is the most heartwarming gift you can give a student. Lastly, something that

motivates me to become a teacher is setting up an effective classroom. It has been

something I think about often. The first days of school are the most important to set up

expectations and rules of the classroom. This is a crucial time to set those boundaries

and expectations with your students to be able to run a well-behaved and fun classroom.

I think about the powerful quotes and beautiful artwork from the students that will

warm our classroom.

I have set goals for myself as a teacher. I have a goal to incorporate Howard

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Planning lessons that cater to students'

experiences and stories is important because it can set them up for self-satisfaction and

success. It is important to me, and a goal I have is to plan activities that activate their

imagination and willingness to learn. Through this, I plan to use Gardner’s eight

intelligences. It is essential to play into their strengths so that the student can strive to

engage in something that feels easy to them. For example, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic,

and spatial are three examples of the eight intelligences. To incorporate these bits of

intelligence, I would plan activities that incorporate seeing, hearing, and feeling the

content. It is impossible to plan a lesson that caters to all bits of intelligence, but it is

essential to alternate and incorporate. As a future teacher, it is hard for me to imagine

leaving a child behind because I left out a type of learning that played into their

strengths. Another goal I have set for myself as a teacher is to run an effective

classroom. By doing this, I plan to set attainable expectations for my students.

Establishing an effective classroom is the first thing you should do when starting a new

academic year. Characteristics of an effective classroom include setting up expectations,

teaching the students cues to get their attention, making classroom rules, treating

everyone with respect, and the list goes on. I have high hopes that I will have a well-

managed and effective classroom for my students to succeed in life and academics.

My goal for teaching is to be the teacher that student remembers ten years into

their future. My goal is to be compassionate, kind, and loving toward all my students. As

mentioned before, my method will be to teach the students so that they can be involved

in their learning process and in a way that they will enjoy learning. By doing this, I will

incorporate Lawrence Stenhouse’s Theory of Curriculum. This theory states that the

participation and elaboration of educators are crucial. The development of the

curriculum is essential to decide how to teach it. It is important to be flexible, open,

creative, and innovative. Education and lesson plan constantly change because life

comes up, and other skills are essential. In his theory, he also states that it is crucial to

reflect on lesson plans and curriculum, and you should do so with the thought of your

student's needs. This encourages understanding student success, and you can adjust

things to make the most effective. With this theory, the teacher and the student should

be learning something new every day. I think this teaching model is important because

you must be learning the best ways your students learn. It is hard to know what

strategies may work best because you get a new group of students each year. Some

strategies I plan to implement visually interactive word walls, math walls, and social
study walls. Through observing, I have found that small group discussion helps the

students bounce ideas off each other and engage in conversation. To create an effective

classroom, I plan to use strategies to allow my students to build on life skills. For

example, allowing my students to help take attendance, feed the classroom fish, or run

the library books to the library. These skills help students gain independence and self-

discipline. As an educator, the less time you spend trying to discipline kids, the more

time you have to teach valuable academic and life knowledge.

Finding methods that work in classrooms can be difficult because you must gauge

the students' desire for engagement and learning. A method I plan to incorporate when I

am a teacher is making connections. From my time in a classroom, I have noticed that

my host teacher makes connections throughout the day, and these things resonate with

her students. I plan to do this by using read-aloud to focus on new vocabulary, finding a

fun word that the student can use throughout the day to develop their vocabulary and

understanding. Assessment methods are another focus of mine. I never felt successful

when I saw a bad test score. I plan to incorporate a method that uses formative

assessment for understanding. For example, to check the understanding of a student’s

vocabulary is to observe their use of the daily vocabulary word. As mentioned before,

small group discussion is another method I would like to incorporate into my teaching.

When you ask a large group of students one question, typically, the same few students

answer the question. In small groups, it is more effective to ask questions to give some

students that will not typically answer a chance to engage in conversation. A critical

method to incorporate in any classroom is building relationships. When students feel

respected and welcomed, they are more likely to be engaged in lessons and activities,
and when they are engaged in activities, they learn more. The only thing I want as a

teacher is for my students to feel welcomed and respected in my classroom.

Through observation in a classroom, I have seen some of my goals in the flesh. I

have a goal of being a compassionate, kind, and loving teacher. My host teacher poses as

a great example to being a rock for her students. She treats every student like they are

her own, and I believe that these students will remember her for years to come. She also

is a great example for having flexibility for lesson plans. Through the curriculum theory,

you constantly must be re-assessing yourself and observing how well the lesson worked,

and we have talked about lessons that work and some that do not. This is an important

goal to have and to exemplify because you and your students should be learning

something from the lesson. Although I have not been able to do much with the students

in my field experience, I still am able to treat the students with compassion. I plan to

leave an impact in my future classroom, both academically and by building life skills.

Teaching is an impossible job, and the pay is low, but the reward makes it all worth it.