Educational Philosophy
I ask a question without an answer and look to my right as immediately, a student's hand shoots up in the air, presumably with the answer to the unanswerable question.
This is not entirely surprising because this student frequently shares his opinion with the class and that opinion is usually laced with a uniquely cynical and sarcastic mocking which often denounces the importance of the issue at hand.
As my eyes gaze toward his seat I struggle to resist rolling them in jest.
He adjusts his posture and sits straight up in his chair with a bit of a smirk on his face. I don't know whether this is because he is sure he has that answer I am looking for or because, more likely, he has thought of something brilliantly humorous to say.
Either way I am excited to hear his answer.
Then the words spill out of his mouth and at first I am certain he is trying to take the class along on a time-wasting tangent (another one of his specialties) but he has answered with a thought provoking, even if irrelevant, question.
Not one bit of this question has any basis in what we have been discussing in class or what the students did at home so I struggle to find a way to appropriately respond to the student.
I turn half-way around and pause, then I think for a moment before turning and looking back in the direction of the student, still searching for the right words to say.
The possibility of responding with a simple, "no" and moving on features prominently in my mind; I do have a significant amount of material to cover, but I resist that urge and fix my thoughts on different words.
“Why did you think that?” I say.
Relatively certain that the next words he spoke would reveal his distaste for the topic or argue to its lack of meaning, I was shocked to hear the insight into a thought process completely different than my own and different from that of every other student in the class. When he explained himself, I saw how it all made sense in his mind and that was a special moment in my own mind.
This moment will be hard for any of my future students to top. It reminded me how much I love thinking and the special opportunity that an educator has in getting a group of raw minds to deal with complex issues, in many cases for the first time in their life. With so many young brains in the room it is absolutely impossible to predict what each day will have in store. Sometimes a day that appears headed in a chaotic direction turns into a day where great ideas fade into existence. It is the thought that at every moment I am guiding these students on how to develop their mind and that each of these minds need to develop in their own way that excites me.
Although this is how I understand education now, as a student I struggled with finding the purpose of education. Too often I think education is presented as a competition where the elite at each lower level rise up to the next level, and ultimately end up at the best universities and get the most prestigious and highest paying jobs.[1] I personally fell into this cycle of thought growing up when I saw education simply as the means to an end. After years of working mostly just for the high marks, I got to the law school of my choice and I realized that the end I had been working toward my whole school life would not give me meaning. When I discovered that entering the world of education would offer me true fulfillment, I fell back on a type of thinking that was always at the back of my mind. This is the more existentialist thought that life has no meaning other than that which we place on it. If we wish to succeed in education we must have a definition of success that is relative to our individual lives.
As an educator I plan to encourage students to use their individuality and genuine character to help develop an understanding of historical content but even more importantly to develop an understanding of the direction of their own lives. This is quite a task and one I will hardly be capable of finding success in for each student. I know I will not be a perfect fit for each student because one style of teaching could never fit every student. However, I do think I can provide enough passion and pragmatism to garner the interest of my students. What they do with that interest is largely up to them.
While it is important to encourage students to direct their own learning, it is also crucial to acknowledge the fragility of these young adults. Something that a grown adult could brush off might fester and take-over the life of an adolescent. An act as small as rolling my eyes at the student who raised his hand might entirely shut him down for the rest of class or even longer. As a teacher it is essential to remember this fragility and never make a student fear embarrassment or having their genuine thoughts brushed away. Along the same lines, “students who are battling tough odds on the home front need a clear invitation to learn.”[2]
To foster learning, I will create an environment where students feel free to speak their mind about any issues relevant to the learning as long as they respect the students around them. I will also aim to keep my beliefs ambiguous to students because I am not interested in pumping out minds that work just like mine. In my opinion it is my duty to, “help transform learners into thinkers who create, challenge, evaluate and make decisions.”[3] I want to oversee the creation of unique minds that present issues in class that I could not think of myself. Students like the boy who answered the unanswerable question are my co-teachers in the classroom. There will undoubtedly be times when students can add something to the class that I would not otherwise think of myself. I will aim to make sure that they are not reluctant to do that and even have encouragement to do so.
Along with my classroom serving as a place where every student can explore their thoughts and have some say in their learning without the fear of being shot down or made to feel foolish, it will be a place that acknowledges the reality of their continued physical development. Research shows us that high school students are still developing in the prefrontal cortex of their brains.[4] With this in mind, I will practice techniques that take into account the fact that everything in the mind of my students is not quite yet in place. As our mind finishes development we quickly forget how it felt to have a developing young brain. The experience and mental growth of a few years removes us so far from the person we were as adolescents and as time goes on that distance only expands.
One technique that I will use that takes this teenage development into account is teaching from experience rather than from a place of authority. As teenager, “arguing to show you are willing to take on authority,” is inevitable. In fact, some research suggests that this rebellion is a function of growth in the frontal lobe.[5] Rather than combat nature, I will present the class in a way that makes it clear I am there to direct learning but not to hand down orders. There will be no drill-like routines or extensive lists of rules and punishments.
In my time as a student I saw numerous educators pull off this type of learning environment. This brand of teacher always seems positive, excited to see their students and a bit informal but just formal enough to maintain an appropriate classroom setting. They are able to control the classroom without aggression or sharp interventions. Regardless of subject matter or of their background knowledge, students will want to be around teachers like this. I know I did and I hope to recreate that want for as many of my students as possible. To this end I will focus on speaking calmly at all times, using witty humor, frequently smiling, relating to the students, giving each person a sense of belonging in the class, focusing on positives, giving students power in the class, taking ownership in the achievement of the students (good or bad), clearly outlining expectations and treating students as unique individuals.
Every aspect of the learning environment will encourage students to find comfort in themselves and develop their own thoughts. If I am able to succeed in creating that type of environment, classroom management issues will fade away on their own for the most part. When a serious issue does inevitably arise every here and there I will attack it by showing that no matter what, I care about my students and I will go to great lengths to rebuild any damaged student-teacher relationships. If a student acts out in my class it will be dealt with like a puzzle and I will run through as many possible solutions as I need to until I find the one that fits. I do not expect the same plan of action to work for each student because every student is different.
That same rational applies to my expectations of students. Although I am a believer in setting overly high expectations for myself, I expect my students to know what type of expectations to set for themselves. For one student that might be just passing the class while for another it may be getting into an Ivy League university. The only common thread that will run between my expectations of students is that each student puts forth their best effort to meet their own goal. All other expectations are for the students to decide for themselves.
The way I see my professional, legal and ethical obligations is also fairly plain and simple. I will treat the education of students in my class just as I would treat the education of my biological children. Ensuring that not only academic learning but also appropriate social development is taking place will be standard and I will care for each student in as equitable of a manner as possible. I will care about each student and if I need to spend extra time working to benefit just one student, I will make that sacrifice. I do not want to just do what is best for most because that leaves some students out and possibly the ones that need help the most. It may be naïve to think that with several classes of 40 or more I can actually reach each student but it would be criminal not to try.
So that is what I will do as an educator, try. For me that means a resolute devotion. I mentioned earlier my habit of setting overly high expectations of myself…my expectation is to become the best educator of all time and I will not stop trying even if I never manage to get close, watch out Socrates.
[1] Friedman, L. (2014). Competitive Kids. Education Next, 14 (1). Retrieved from http://educationnext.org/competitive-kids/
[2] Zapf, S. (2008). Reaching the Fragile Student. The Positive Classroom, 66 (1). Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept08/vol66/num01/Reaching-the-Fragile-Student.aspx
[3] Fleetham, M. (2003). How to Create and Develop a Thinking Classroom. London: LDA.
[4] Knox, R. (2010). The Teen Brain: It’s Just Not Grown Up Yet. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124119468
[5] Pickhardt, C. (2010). Surviving Adolescence. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/201011/the-challenge-mothering-adolescent-son
I ask a question without an answer and look to my right as immediately, a student's hand shoots up in the air, presumably with the answer to the unanswerable question.
This is not entirely surprising because this student frequently shares his opinion with the class and that opinion is usually laced with a uniquely cynical and sarcastic mocking which often denounces the importance of the issue at hand.
As my eyes gaze toward his seat I struggle to resist rolling them in jest.
He adjusts his posture and sits straight up in his chair with a bit of a smirk on his face. I don't know whether this is because he is sure he has that answer I am looking for or because, more likely, he has thought of something brilliantly humorous to say.
Either way I am excited to hear his answer.
Then the words spill out of his mouth and at first I am certain he is trying to take the class along on a time-wasting tangent (another one of his specialties) but he has answered with a thought provoking, even if irrelevant, question.
Not one bit of this question has any basis in what we have been discussing in class or what the students did at home so I struggle to find a way to appropriately respond to the student.
I turn half-way around and pause, then I think for a moment before turning and looking back in the direction of the student, still searching for the right words to say.
The possibility of responding with a simple, "no" and moving on features prominently in my mind; I do have a significant amount of material to cover, but I resist that urge and fix my thoughts on different words.
“Why did you think that?” I say.
Relatively certain that the next words he spoke would reveal his distaste for the topic or argue to its lack of meaning, I was shocked to hear the insight into a thought process completely different than my own and different from that of every other student in the class. When he explained himself, I saw how it all made sense in his mind and that was a special moment in my own mind.
This moment will be hard for any of my future students to top. It reminded me how much I love thinking and the special opportunity that an educator has in getting a group of raw minds to deal with complex issues, in many cases for the first time in their life. With so many young brains in the room it is absolutely impossible to predict what each day will have in store. Sometimes a day that appears headed in a chaotic direction turns into a day where great ideas fade into existence. It is the thought that at every moment I am guiding these students on how to develop their mind and that each of these minds need to develop in their own way that excites me.
Although this is how I understand education now, as a student I struggled with finding the purpose of education. Too often I think education is presented as a competition where the elite at each lower level rise up to the next level, and ultimately end up at the best universities and get the most prestigious and highest paying jobs.[1] I personally fell into this cycle of thought growing up when I saw education simply as the means to an end. After years of working mostly just for the high marks, I got to the law school of my choice and I realized that the end I had been working toward my whole school life would not give me meaning. When I discovered that entering the world of education would offer me true fulfillment, I fell back on a type of thinking that was always at the back of my mind. This is the more existentialist thought that life has no meaning other than that which we place on it. If we wish to succeed in education we must have a definition of success that is relative to our individual lives.
As an educator I plan to encourage students to use their individuality and genuine character to help develop an understanding of historical content but even more importantly to develop an understanding of the direction of their own lives. This is quite a task and one I will hardly be capable of finding success in for each student. I know I will not be a perfect fit for each student because one style of teaching could never fit every student. However, I do think I can provide enough passion and pragmatism to garner the interest of my students. What they do with that interest is largely up to them.
While it is important to encourage students to direct their own learning, it is also crucial to acknowledge the fragility of these young adults. Something that a grown adult could brush off might fester and take-over the life of an adolescent. An act as small as rolling my eyes at the student who raised his hand might entirely shut him down for the rest of class or even longer. As a teacher it is essential to remember this fragility and never make a student fear embarrassment or having their genuine thoughts brushed away. Along the same lines, “students who are battling tough odds on the home front need a clear invitation to learn.”[2]
To foster learning, I will create an environment where students feel free to speak their mind about any issues relevant to the learning as long as they respect the students around them. I will also aim to keep my beliefs ambiguous to students because I am not interested in pumping out minds that work just like mine. In my opinion it is my duty to, “help transform learners into thinkers who create, challenge, evaluate and make decisions.”[3] I want to oversee the creation of unique minds that present issues in class that I could not think of myself. Students like the boy who answered the unanswerable question are my co-teachers in the classroom. There will undoubtedly be times when students can add something to the class that I would not otherwise think of myself. I will aim to make sure that they are not reluctant to do that and even have encouragement to do so.
Along with my classroom serving as a place where every student can explore their thoughts and have some say in their learning without the fear of being shot down or made to feel foolish, it will be a place that acknowledges the reality of their continued physical development. Research shows us that high school students are still developing in the prefrontal cortex of their brains.[4] With this in mind, I will practice techniques that take into account the fact that everything in the mind of my students is not quite yet in place. As our mind finishes development we quickly forget how it felt to have a developing young brain. The experience and mental growth of a few years removes us so far from the person we were as adolescents and as time goes on that distance only expands.
One technique that I will use that takes this teenage development into account is teaching from experience rather than from a place of authority. As teenager, “arguing to show you are willing to take on authority,” is inevitable. In fact, some research suggests that this rebellion is a function of growth in the frontal lobe.[5] Rather than combat nature, I will present the class in a way that makes it clear I am there to direct learning but not to hand down orders. There will be no drill-like routines or extensive lists of rules and punishments.
In my time as a student I saw numerous educators pull off this type of learning environment. This brand of teacher always seems positive, excited to see their students and a bit informal but just formal enough to maintain an appropriate classroom setting. They are able to control the classroom without aggression or sharp interventions. Regardless of subject matter or of their background knowledge, students will want to be around teachers like this. I know I did and I hope to recreate that want for as many of my students as possible. To this end I will focus on speaking calmly at all times, using witty humor, frequently smiling, relating to the students, giving each person a sense of belonging in the class, focusing on positives, giving students power in the class, taking ownership in the achievement of the students (good or bad), clearly outlining expectations and treating students as unique individuals.
Every aspect of the learning environment will encourage students to find comfort in themselves and develop their own thoughts. If I am able to succeed in creating that type of environment, classroom management issues will fade away on their own for the most part. When a serious issue does inevitably arise every here and there I will attack it by showing that no matter what, I care about my students and I will go to great lengths to rebuild any damaged student-teacher relationships. If a student acts out in my class it will be dealt with like a puzzle and I will run through as many possible solutions as I need to until I find the one that fits. I do not expect the same plan of action to work for each student because every student is different.
That same rational applies to my expectations of students. Although I am a believer in setting overly high expectations for myself, I expect my students to know what type of expectations to set for themselves. For one student that might be just passing the class while for another it may be getting into an Ivy League university. The only common thread that will run between my expectations of students is that each student puts forth their best effort to meet their own goal. All other expectations are for the students to decide for themselves.
The way I see my professional, legal and ethical obligations is also fairly plain and simple. I will treat the education of students in my class just as I would treat the education of my biological children. Ensuring that not only academic learning but also appropriate social development is taking place will be standard and I will care for each student in as equitable of a manner as possible. I will care about each student and if I need to spend extra time working to benefit just one student, I will make that sacrifice. I do not want to just do what is best for most because that leaves some students out and possibly the ones that need help the most. It may be naïve to think that with several classes of 40 or more I can actually reach each student but it would be criminal not to try.
So that is what I will do as an educator, try. For me that means a resolute devotion. I mentioned earlier my habit of setting overly high expectations of myself…my expectation is to become the best educator of all time and I will not stop trying even if I never manage to get close, watch out Socrates.
[1] Friedman, L. (2014). Competitive Kids. Education Next, 14 (1). Retrieved from http://educationnext.org/competitive-kids/
[2] Zapf, S. (2008). Reaching the Fragile Student. The Positive Classroom, 66 (1). Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept08/vol66/num01/Reaching-the-Fragile-Student.aspx
[3] Fleetham, M. (2003). How to Create and Develop a Thinking Classroom. London: LDA.
[4] Knox, R. (2010). The Teen Brain: It’s Just Not Grown Up Yet. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124119468
[5] Pickhardt, C. (2010). Surviving Adolescence. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/201011/the-challenge-mothering-adolescent-son