Education 1010

I believe that teaching is not for me to mold my students into the form we are most familiar, but rather to help them mold themselves into new forms. Forms better than what was past crafted, and my job is simply to show them the techniques those before them found useful when molding. The mind is the artist and when its left and the right work together in harmony, true artistry can be performed. It is not my place to limit either. Therefore, I will strive to nurture both art and reason, both acceptance and curiosity, both determination and reflection within my students. I will inspire them by showing them the many windows of the world and be an encouraging role model who happily holds the doors open to their futures.

All people have the privilege and opportunity to make a difference in the people and world around them. I will endeavor to both be that mode of change in my students as well as push them to become one themselves. Many of us run wild in youth, then with the help of life's lessons learn direction and with a bit of luck we walk on and outward. This is my goal as a teacher; to motivate my students through life’s transitions, to celebrate their differences which enriches their learning, to captivate them in the many wonders each day has to offer, to illustrate the importance of principal subjects, to regulate or mediate between potential challenges of mind, body and spirit, to communicate that we all must anticipate such challenges but not let them stimulate what drives us on, to facilitate their use of new technologies to gain perspectives and skills in the ever-changing machine of society and most importantly to educate them to follow first whatever captivates them most in this world.

I believe in many of the philosophies of social reconstruction but I also believe that the current age of progressivism has been showing a lot of promise among our student bodies in the past couple of decades. Working on alternate methods to learn materials, not only shows that it can be done but it has also taught us that not everyone can succeed to their full potential by the ‘tried and true’ forms of curriculum in the history of education. This means we need to adapt if that full potential is indeed what we seek from each student whom we ultimately live and breath for within our life's work as teachers. With all that said, if it had not been for ‘the classics’ I would not have found such a desire to teach English and many of its facets. It was Shakespeare with his words, “All the world's a stage,” that began to open my eyes, S. E. Hinton's youth when becoming a published author that inspired me, and Ray Bradbury that taught me to push the envelope in what is possible and what was OK to imagine for myself and within my written works. Without them all I would not even be writing this philosophy let alone the urge, no need, to inspire others. We need these classics to learn from, just as we need to learn to brave creating new ones that will be read in the future. I’ve heard it said, ‘It is the doom of man that we forget,’ but as long as we can learn from the past, learn from each other in the present, and continue to teach for our future, my teaching philosophy, and philosophy itself will be able to ever expand, encompassing the views of all.

Let's think of the ideas or thoughts we want to convey as the water. It flows and often follows where it can be led or follows in directions it already knows. Next, let's think of the act of freezing like the act of writing those things down. We claim a position, sometimes rethinking it and forming it up in other ways, like the melting or thawing of water. If we think of this chemically, then the molecules move fast, if they move too fast they become air and float away, like unwritten ideas but when they freeze they slow down, sometimes barely moving on a point and that is writing them down. It is then we can see them interact with other molecules of thoughts or water (though in other states they can as well), some may even follow another's lead, slowing down to listen or move on with that idea, changing it to fit them. However, it's when many begin to listen or to think about it that it creates the sheets of ice that can move mountains. Sometimes those written sheets of ice move slowly to create the changes in our world. Sometimes in an instance, it finds just the right crack and breaks and crumbles the solid foundations that needed to move aside. No matter the change or speed the water, ice, or stone, makes, it is the constant transformation that writing should continue to solidify within and beyond us.