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Final Statement of Informed Beliefs Paper: The Pedagogy in Powell

Logan White

College of Western Idaho

EDUC 220: Diversity in the Schools

Professor Natalie Tau

May 1st , 2023

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As an apsiring educator I absolutely adored this class. The observational time I spent as a

requirement of it and the material explored built a new gravity and understanding to my teaching

philosophy. It feels a little funny to write about my teaching beliefs because the more I learn, the

more I realize I know nothing about teaching in it’s entirety and I love that. The pursuit of

wisdom and understanding is what I’d love to instill with passion into young people. I’ve found

some core principles that my teaching pedagogy follows. I emphasize inclusion, attention, and

passion. That every student and their influences get including on my educational process, that

they receive every bit of attention possible and feel a passion for education and every way it can

benefit them.

All Students Can Learn

“Most Developmental psychologists agree that there is an inborn motive to explore,

understand, and control one’s environment (Mayes & Zigler,1992; R.W. White. 1959), known as

Mastery Motivation.” (Berns & White, 2023 Pg. 75) Now with that said I believe every student

can cultivate a love for education. As Teachers we obviously have the responsibility to assist in

that process in every fashion and style we can. I believe with in the process of having a student

learn, a teacher should focus on two key responsibilities. Socialization and the role teachers play

in the Operant methods of socialization. The second key responsibility in my eyes being a

teacher's use of modeling behaviors. I believe acting properly to socialize students and acclimate

them into the classroom environment most conducive to great learning while also managing a

teachers internal motivations, values, and most importantly reactions. The reason I focus in on
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Operant methods of socialization first in my exploration of my philosophy on a classroom is

simply because everything starts with environment. To build a solid foundation before we get

into instruction, reasonings or the influences students have on one another.

I believe the feel of a classroom comes from how flexible the teacher can be to the

students needs, but also their leniency to their behavior. The reaction to out of line behaviors

reinforce the entirety of all standards set in cognitive methods of socialization. The reaction to

these behaviors are shown in the book under operant methods of socialization such as positive or

negative reinforcement which would usually be seen as a verbal condemning or praising of

actions the student takes. Extinction is a huge reason I bring up how a teacher should make sure

to monitor and control their reactions to situations because extinction is removing the

reinforcement to hopefully eliminate any emphasis on the behavior thus eliminating the

behavior.

In my experience in observations, I found the values emphasized created effective

environments for the students to hold each other to the standard of. While how the teacher

reacted impromptu let students gauge where their behaviors were okay or to what expectation

they were truly being held. A theme within this paper should absolutely be that teachers need to

give full attention to every facet of their pedagogy and behaviors. To make classroom rules and

to present those to your class is one thing but to give the attention and effort to hold students

accountable to those expectations creates a great difference in environment.

Personally, I will ensure all students learn by first making sure that my expectation is that

they all will learn, and I will provide a myriad of mediums to meet the diverse needs of my

students. I will give my attention to the curriculum, my behaviors and the behaviors and motives

my students create for learning. Instilling motivations will be imperative to make students want
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to work with me, not against me in learning. My standards should be what my students can agree

upon those standards, that the relevancy of information taught to them will consistently be

shared. I will ensure my students learn because I will approach each topic with my full attention

to break down those topics to my respective students needs, to provide fair reasoning and fair

relevancy to these students. Hopefully this comes down to even when they don’t have teachers,

or do not have great teachers at that they still thrive in learning. To not be handed fish by each

teacher to pass a test but to be taught how to fish so that they can find mastery motivation and

control over their own young lives.

Teacher’s Expectations

In Chapter 7 of Child, Family, School, Community textbook by Roberta M. Berns we see

an amazing statistic that gives a beautiful insight on the genuine influence teacher expectations

have on students ability to learn. “studies observing actual teacher behavior in the classroom

have shown the effects of expectancy (Sadket et al., 2012) For example, in a longitudinal study

of more than 1,500 middle school students whose teachers predicted their performance was

overestimated, than for high achievers, whose performance was underestimated (Madon, Jussim

& Eccles, 1997.)” (Berns & White, 2023 Pg. 245) The relevancy in the classroom of these

statistics is profound. I’ve always heard this concept exemplified in the coach and star player

analogy. Where a hypothetical coach may see a player, he thinks has the potential to be his star

player, so he pushes that kid to stay late at practices and places more pressure to score goals,

gives him more feedback on his plays. While another player who could have just as much

potential is overlooked and because of that, he may leave practice early, he might score less

goals, the coach may not be as fond of him because of his lack of effort into the sport. Teachers

attention and expectations can make star students or disengaged students in fell swoops.
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The attention we give to a student's true potential and honest struggles can breed

expectations when executed and supported in the attainment of said expected accomplishments is

what changes the trajectory of people's education. Those expectations should be high for two

reasons I personally have. If you have a student shoot for the stars they very well will end up on

the moon and you can celebrate the places they go within their education. We should also be

using our expectations for an opportunity to teach kids that falling short of the mark is okay, that

failing is natural and that where your self-esteem and motivation reacts to those expectations is

what can cultivate a real meaningful relationship with education rather than an obligation.

Educational goals are a framework for everything after, it reflects the ability to break

down and find beauty in a lot of the processes we find in life. Educational goals can help build

great social relationships, great additions to self esteem and be the crux of the educational

pathway students take.

Students’ Social Ecology Theory

In Chapter 8 Section 5 of Child, Family, School, Community textbook by Roberta M.

Berns it gives amazing explanations in how peer groups socialize within an educational

environment. Students will do most of the heavy lifting on learning if you can build motivation

and incentive. This is seen time and time again in the physical classrooms I have observed but

also in almost every influence we have explored this semester. That students copy what they see

and when they see an emphasis on learning they match it with enthusiasm. In the role of

involving parents connects learning to students ecology, involving the accountability within peer

groups. The attention the teacher places on a student will be matched by the other students in the

class. Over and over the effort we place in educating will be reciprocated by the students. When

a teacher cares about a subject, even the most apathetic of students will hold to peer pressures.
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The value of education is really what we can build together and learn together. To

educate our students on the relevancy of our peers and the information and diverse views they

carry is exactly the interaction that will not only let kids learn the necessary tools to survive but

to thrive.

In mentioning how important it is to give these students great standard practices to hold

each other accountable in classroom for it still arises the problem of the standards of their home.

In my experience observing classrooms and talking to educators, I have noticed more contention

between the parents ideologies about teaching and the educators themselves. We can not be

working against one another as teachers and parents. Family units are so imperative to a child's

development. We see this beautifully demonstrated in the many times we get a explanation on

the Microsystem and the influence the family unit has on a child's development. According to

The Annie E. Casey Foundation, “. Students whose parents stay involved in school have better

attendance and behavior, get better grades, demonstrate better social skills and adapt better to

school.”

Seeing all these amazing influences families have on a students learning you can also

look at the huge influences cultures and communities have. I believe these influences go hand

and hand and compound off of one another. I love this quote from Oxford University Press's

Academic Insights for the Thinking World where Robyn M. Holmes says, “One way to think of

culture is as a context in which we learn and develop” Parents and family units place different

expectations and emphasis on school. Those are usually around the context of culture and those

expectations can be make or break when they interact with the views of the community. Your

family unit could have a huge importance placed on academic success but if your local

community or other peers don’t value that you may not succeed. It’s imperative that we try to
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build emphasis on education with in parental involvement, appealing to all cultures, and

communities. Another quote from the Oxford university article, “Acknowledging and

incorporating cultural knowledge, patterns, and ways of learning at home when they disconnect

with those at school is one important way to ensure all children’s academic success.” As a

aspiring educator my teaching should appeal to whatever culture by using those knowledge bases

and metaphors.

Cultural Diversity Instruction

As an aspiring educator, when I am in a classroom I would imagine it like it was going to sell a

car, you don’t start selling every great thing about the car, telling what the person needs and

should like about it. You have to ask what they are looking for, just walk then through the

opportunities they have. With my students my job is not to berate them with expectations, we are

supposed to build expectations and goals together. Hopefully they share enough of what they

want and who they are that I can persuade them on a great deal of important goals they should

have for themselves. We can celebrate that diversity within each of our students but even

selfishly the more I know about my students the more I can convince them that they should buy

into learning. I want to appeal to any context of learning my students come from, even if that is

as minute as the lifestyles their parents have. The concept of Cultural pluralism has become more

and more attractive to me, We explored it through our readings in this course but I also in

conversations with friends found they went to bilingual charter schools or different educational

opportunities. I was very jealous because I know how many amazing opportunities can afford

you to have multiple cultural understandings in your educational journey. In Chapter 6 of Child,

Family, School, Community textbook by Roberta M. Berns we get a deeper dive into the

education terms of Cultural assimilation and Cultural pluralism. In the book it talks about the
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concept of multicultural education, learning experiences that encourage interest in muliple

cultures within society. That couldn’t be any more relevant or important than being able to being

able to read and write, to be able to respect and realize other cultures exist other then our most

popular one.

I will hopefully take many workshops and trainings in presenting in multiple sense of

culture to appeal to all my students, have clear open dialogues with parents on where I can

understand that I provide feedback accordingly. I will present my material based on how I know

my students in the classroom, the best way to deal with any cultural diversity is always be able to

adapt quickly and fairly to the needs of your students. In reality most every culture is going to

have amazing representations and examples of some fundamental building blocks of my

classroom, that the right intention of walking into the situation will have you go very far , critical

thinking to solve any problem that arises and attention to any and all things in our environment

and material. We should teach that in many languages to build a use of both cultures, that

hopefully we can have two very easily coexistent cultures being representative to assimilate

values in education and those fundamentals of intention, attention and critical thinking.

Curriculum for all Learners

When it comes to curriculum we need to look at the material, medium of presentation and the

measurement of results we are getting from the process of teaching it. In Chapter 7 of the

textbook we review over the measurements of our students learning with authentic assessments

and standardized tests. Understanding where my curriculum is going to meet the authentic

assessment of the students mastery or just their understanding in comparison to the norm will

gauge where my priorities lay. Understanding the media my students are ingesting and how that

will influence them such as Social Cognitive theory we discuss in the book, Cultivation
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Theory, Motivation Theory, and Displacement Theory. Watching how each of these theories

influence my students lives will also mean I need to create stimulating media to actually compete

with these forms of media they are using. To tie these concepts together, I want to find engaging

material that appeals to multiple cultures or even one day multiple languages. I want to build a

personal relevance with every student, I want to create mediums of presenting that meet all

learning needs my students could have. I want to create a curriculum that will be the easy

formula for all that I am preaching so that built cirriculum will do the heavy lifting to keep me

honest, fair and sensitive to the needs of administration and my students.

I covered so many interconnected topics in teaching in this essay and all I would like to say in

conclusion is that, passion and giving critical attention to this career will make or break whatever

type of teacher I want to become. It’s a lifestyle to teach, and I adore it. I want to do everything I

can to meet the expectations I have of my pedagogy laid out in this essay and more.
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References

The Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2022, December 14). Parental involvement in your child's
education. The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from
https://www.aecf.org/blog/parental-involvement-is-key-to-student-success-research-
shows#:~:text=Students%20whose%20parents%20stay%20involved,key%20to%20long
%2Dterm%20success.
Berns, R., & White, S. (2023). Child, family, school, Community: Socialization and support.
Cengage.
Clifford, Becky. “What Role Does Culture Play in Shaping Children’s School Experiences?”
OUPblog, 15 Feb. 2021, blog.oup.com/2021/02/what-role-does-culture-play-in-shaping-
childrens-school-experiences/#:~:text=Numerous%20cultural%20forces%20connect
%20to,to%20children’s%20formal%20school%20experiences.