I remember when I began pursuing a career in teaching, all I knew was that I loved kids and I loved learning. However, I had never taken the time to think through what my core beliefs were as an educator. During the beginning of my master's program while I was completing my student teaching, I was asked to write out a formal document of my teaching philosophy. It's interesting to look back at what I thought versus what I know now that I have been in my own classroom for almost four years. Overall, I feel that I can break up my teaching philosophy into three different categories:
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Building Relationships
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Classroom Management
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Collaboration
Building Relationships
Whenever I get asked the question, "What is the most important part of teaching?" my response is always, "Building relationships." I truly do not believe anyone can be successful or effective in the classroom if they do not take the time to get to know students and to show that they care. A professor that I had in college put it simply when he said, "People don't learn from people they don't like." I have kept this statement with me every year in my career. In my classroom, I make it a priority to build not only student-teacher relationships, but student-student relationships as well. I find that putting an emphasis on this relationship-building helps to creative a classroom environment that is warm, inviting, caring, accepting, and safe. By creating this sort of environment, school becomes a place that students want to be and I become a teacher that students want to learn from.
Above are images of some of my students completing a team-building activity. They had to use a rubber band and strings to build a pyramid out of cups together. This activity helped students build relationships with each other as they worked as a team to accomplish a goal.
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All pictures posted with permission.
Classroom Management
The way in which I manage my classroom forms another huge piece of my teaching philosophy. Similar to building relationships, I do not believe that a teacher can be successful or effective without a clear and fair set of classroom expectations. I believe that these expectations must be agreed upon and established at the very beginning of the school year. Although curriculum is essential, I've found that it is easier to move through the curriculum when students have a clear picture of what is expected of them. While I always have a set of expectations in mind at the start of the school year, I believe that it is extremely important to include students in the creation of these expectations. With the help of my students, I like to begin the year by forming our "Rules to Live and Learn By." In this way, I encourage students to create expectations that will not only make our classroom a good place to learn, but also, a good place to be.
The images above show some of the ways that I have posted reminders of classroom expectations in my classroom. I find that my expectations differ from year-to-year with each unique group of students, so it is always better to make these posters myself!
Collaboration
I included collaboration as one of the three main parts of my teaching philosophy because I feel that this covers two beliefs that I have as a teacher. The first is that as teachers, we should always be striving to learn more and to improve our own practice. One of the most effective ways that I have been able to do this is through collaboration with my team members. I firmly believe that teaching is a profession that relies heavily on teamwork. Together, we share ideas, lessons, successes, and failures to help each other become better educators. I believe that this collaboration also carries over into another important kind of teamwork: working together with my student's parents. I have a strong belief that parents are my allies in the classroom. I make it a priority to communicate with parents regularly and to show them that we are on the same team, working towards the same goal. I find that this helps me to learn more about students and to receive much appreciated support from home.
Above is an image of me with some of the amazing staff that I work and collaborate with on a regular basis. We were all dressed in black for the spirit week day, "Monochromatic Monday." I also included images of some of the technology that I have used in order to easily communicate and work with my student's parents.
Images retrieved from: https://www.classdojo.com/