Jacob Trinkle My Professional/Philosophy Statement As a public school teacher we our taking on the job of producing future citizens of the

United States, and this is a serious task. In order to make citizens we have the responsibility to introduce and influence our students with ideas that they will deal with on a regular basis. Postman called these influences gods; meaning that these are what people choose to believe within the common world. Many of these gods I would not press upon my kids as much in the classroom, and others I would. I would defend them in the class by integrating within my lesson; hence showing the students that they will encounter these in real life. In the end, the students will benefit the most from these gods. They will transition into better people and be prepared to head out into society. One god that I would press upon students in my class would be the god of multiculturalism. This is the belief that people should recognize other cultures and what they have achieved rather than just understanding their own cultures. I believe this would be very beneficial to students so they would not be ignorant of other cultures and would create a more open mind for your students. I went on a trip to Montreal and was surprised to see on the bus all of the young kids who had never been out of Clinton County before, some of them late teens. Many of them seemed scared when even just crossing the bridge into Canada and this made me think. If teachers taught multiculturalism then the students would be excited to visit this culture and other cultures around the world; why isnt this happening. Postman believes it is an impossible goal to teach students this, but I believe you could indeed make your students more open-minded to other cultures. This would be easy to integrate into the Math curriculum seeing

how math is a universal language. In addition, math has been being used forever even building pyramids, temples, and solving various problems. As teachers we have the power to create the public and with this comes the question What kind of public should we create? I believe we must create a public that is both responsible and that has respect for others. In my experience of seeing students in high school recently, these characteristics are missing. In my school, students are going back to the days of smoking in the bathroom, and graffitiing on the walls. I feel public schools are not conveying these common values to their students. If the public is paying for school, we should do our best to teach our students common values. Teach them that everyone is equal in the community and we all need to put forth effort to reach common goals. Our students should understand that producing change is a group effort and takes responsibility and critical thinking. This could be done by making an end of the year project that has to do with the community. This would be a great summative assessment for me and I would know I made the public I wanted. As a teacher, I believe there should be basic qualities or dispositions that are essential in the classroom. Once you are able to have these qualities, these same qualities should be educated to your students. Firstly, you should always be honest with your students. A teacher should be reliable and organized, also optimistic. If you are optimistic as a teacher, this will push onto the students thus creating a positive environment at school, and at home. One of the most important qualities is that you always work as hard as possible. In my eyes, teaching students to work hard is extremely important and will give them the upper hand later in life. When applying for jobs and at interviews, your personal work ethic will make or break you. I want my students to work as hard as possible; I will let them know I am there to help. I would stay after school every day if that were what it takes to get these ideas into my students heads.

Some people may say that we cannot teach these values to students and that it is not our place in society. I believe we do have the right to teach certain values as long as what were saying is within our ethical code; and as long as it is relevant to the course work. As teachers, we have the power to teach more than what is within the content; and than to shift this power to the students and let them use it within society. If teachers were meant to teach strictly within the content, that is not creating much of a public at all. Since schools are called public schools, we should be producing a public. The way we can do this is by setting good examples for our students, involving them with the community, and make responsible, respectable, hard working students that can easily integrate into the public.