Core Teaching Philosophies

I really appreciate that Zalika acknowledges, and hopes, our versions of these statements will evolve. Here are my thoughts, as of today.


Community: I believe teachers can create an environment where everyone wants to be. This includes feeling safe, feeling loved, feeling a sense of belonging, feeling like a part of a bigger whole, feeling understood and feeling important. Setting up community in a classroom is vital to building respect. I think that when students feel this way, they will be much more engaged in their learning and take ownership in their experiences at school. I have come up with a few ideas to build community. I would like to see my students develop their own set of classroom "rules" at the start of the year so that we can decide what is fair and important to us. I will model being a good listener, and teach others to be good listeners. We will have fun together. We will work together in pairs and small groups. We will discuss friendship and bullying, and the consequences of mistreating others. There are many parts to a community, and hopefully I will be able to take my ideas into a classroom and build a place where all students enjoy being at school which allows for positive learning experiences.





Each person is different: In my classroom I value recognizing and appreciating the differences among us. One of my favorite quotes this year was from "Why an Anti-Bias Curriculum?" where she says, "Mainstreaming should not be viewed as an effort to teach children to minimize or ignore difference, but as an effort to teach them positive, appropriate response to these differences." Also, as a response to questions about this type of curriculum and drawing attention to differences as potentially negative, "It is not differences in themselves that cause the problems, but how people respond to these differences." I believe in integrating anti-bias approaches into my curriculum. I will avoid the tourist approach in teaching my students about themselves and each other. I value my students learning what bias is, what stereotypes and how these types of discriminatory behaviors negatively affect our classroom community, our school, and our lives outside of school. The storyteller who visited our art class today said something, and I will probably misquote him since I didn't write it down, but nonetheless, he shared one moral lesson present in his folktale: that all people have wisdom, in some form or another, and you never know when you might need it. Appreciating what everyone brings to the table is a beautiful thing and something that I am still working on in my own life - to keep that accepting open mind to other human beings. I would like to share that perspective with my students.



Openness/Communication/Structure: I believe children deserve a teacher that sets clear expectations and goals in their classroom. I believe children deserve to be given the tools to be successful within their classroom. I believe children deserve a teacher that they can count on and communicate with. I believe teachers can model healthy communication for students. I believe students will respond positively to an open, approachable teacher. I think that these 3 elements go together, because without openness, teachers would not be able to build rapport and respect. Without communication, students wouldn't know their expectations, or be able to do much at all with their teacher. Without structure, there is chaos, and the teacher loses the open position that students are attracted to, and becomes more of a dictator to gain control. Structure is communicated to students, and if we are open about the reasons for our expectations, our students should follow.

I find some of these ideas are lingering elements of my favorite teachers. I have really tried to keep in mind, what will I say if someone asked WHY I did something? It's tough, but I'm glad we are exploring this now with the ideas and support of such a great group.