The Purpose of Education
My own philosophy partially follows the tradition that knowledge needs to be handed down from generation to generation; that is, teachers are responsible for imparting wisdom from past generations of teachers and learners to today’s students. However education is not simply a continuous handoff of data and information. Education is progression beyond the status quo, as it has always been. The key to effective instructional planning and ultimately effective teaching is to find a middle ground between direct instruction and learning by experience. Teachers must set goals for student-mastery and must guide their classes in one harmonious direction. To manage school and classroom time effectively, the practices of homogenous grouping, student and parental course selection, and differentiated instruction are appropriate methods for ensuring that students of different learning abilities grouped together in classrooms do not slow the teacher’s instruction and thus slow each other’s learning.
Beyond student grouping and instructional strategies, the best method for providing meaningful education to students is for teachers to guide students toward understandings of concepts that are directly applicable to their lives and culture. Acting as a primary source of information that students rely upon for training and memorization is not the idea for teachers to follow since American students need to acquire self-reliance, critical thinking and leadership skills in addition to their curricular-content knowledge. By providing access to this knowledge and forging easily-navigable paths to it, teachers can create a psychologically advantageous classroom atmosphere for their students in which genuine interest and intrinsic motivation play a key role in students’ educations.
At the end of each school year—each school day would be better—teachers should be able to say they not only taught their students the staples of a valuable education but they also taught their students why they learned what they did and why it was important. As my favorite Hollywood teacher Mr. Keating (Robin Williams) conveyed to his students in “Dead Poets Society,” high quality of life, not achievement, is the end we are trying to meet through education. In that sense, it is important to relate the sciences to the students’ lives and not to cut the arts from a teacher’s curriculum or lesson plans. Teachers should center the curriculum around the students’ interests, as the class is much more likely to value and remember their education than if everything centered around assessment and achievement. Adequate grades and acheivement are of absolute importance. At the end of each school year there must be a means of separating learners of varying intelligences into higher and lower classes or schools of learning. However if this is all a teacher can claim to have done over the course of his or her career, I feel that career has gone wasted. Straight-A students who have yet to learn to think on their own or develop a determination to learn and excel at real-world applications outside the classroom are worth a dime-a-dozen; a C student who has these characteristics is much more prepared for life after school. I hope to leave my students with the best of both situations.
Classroom Management & Community
A teacher must manipulate many classroom variables before students begin taking responsibility for their educations. I believe class goals, expectations, procedures and behavioral norms must be communicated at the start of the school year. Uncertainty of any of these things in the students’ minds should be erased early on, which will breed confidence and appreciation within the class that each student can plan accordingly to succeed. A teacher also needs to develop a classroom community which invites participation and dialogue amongst all class members. Social interaction is a valuable tool teachers can and should use that promotes not only motivation for learning but also sharing of ideas.
Student Accountability
If a teacher provides a safe, organized, stimulating and fair learning environment, then I strongly feel that the majority of the responsibility for students succeeding and finding purpose in their educations belongs to them. As much as there is a need for passionate teachers in schools, it is even more vital that students learn self-discipline, accountability and self-reliance during their learning experiences. All members of my classroom communities will be expected to adhere to class behavioral norms, procedural expectations and personal expectations. Modeling these things for the class will of course precede my expectations, as I too must be responsible, organized and be held accountable for my actions. If I expect my students to remain engaged in their educations, I should also remain active in learning about them as well as my craft. To accomplish this, utilizing the most valuable personal resources—parents, fellow teachers, school administration—is paramount. A commitment to collaborating with other education professionals will certainly help me to better understand my students in addition to augmenting the effectiveness of my teaching practices.
Technology Integration
If possible I have plans to integrate technology and assessments into my daily instruction. It would be beneficial to both my instruction and the students if I am able to evaluate how well my class understands the material through formative assessments at the beginning of each class, then make quick adjustments to what we cover either that day or the next day depending on their comprehension. Technology is another engaging, useful and relevant aspect of learning that should be integrated into my lesson plans. With a wealth of math practice available on computer programs or the internet, the possibilities for student engagement in interesting math activities seems endless. It is difficult to attract many students to mathematics, but I am certain that with some effort, creativity and assistance from the latest technological resources I can portray a typically black-and-white subject in brighter colors.