DiscussEdgeTeachingPhilosophy

Draft IN PROGRESS--much revision and writing yet to do!

I teach people, not texts. Black and white, two-dimensional curriculum guides designed for the ideal student are just that—limited, flat, and ideal. Real learning is dynamic, it’s messy, it’s loud, it's personal, and it’s life-altering. It isn’t something that can be tucked inside a manila folder or even bubbled in on a test. It is something that is lived, breathed, inspired, and affected. Learning leaves the learner wondering more about their universe than before they inquired. Texts, curricula--they are simply starting points. Even the most inspirational verse ever penned is a beautiful but lifeless leather-bound dust collector without the individual reader—the person who makes meaning of and from great literary texts, whose heart is touched, and mind is challenged because of them. So for me, to teach is to inspire another to inquire—to look within and to look without—to question life, and to discover who they are. Teaching is opening a door. Like learning, it is ongoing, reciprocal, and responsive. Given the opportunity, desire, and time, it is possible for an individual to learn anything. However, like Galileo, I believe that learning cannot be imposed upon a person; a teacher can only help students to find answers within themselves. Acknowledging this reciprocal nature of learning and teaching is the life blood of my teaching philosophy--a philosophy with a face, with the many faces of those who step forth from my classroom.

Pamela Sissi Carroll in Integrated Literacy Instruction in the Middle Grades advocated that progressive teachers validate intuition with sound research and professional publications. Never has professional research resounded more with my own teaching intuition than when I read John Dewey’s claim: All that is learned cannot be measured, and all that is measured is not learned. For this reason, the focus of my classroom is on the learning—in all its dynamic forms—of individuals and not on covering curriculum for the sake of ticking one more check on a lifeless list of things to teach, or on playing school, where students sit smiling stupidly, gorging on information someone else spews, while their only thought is to wonder when they will need to regurgitate it and whether or not the test will be multiple choice. I constantly assess the learning of my students, and this assessment guides my teaching, but it isn’t always something that can be recorded in a gradebook or gridded on a scantron. Sometimes learning subtly emerges in the life of a learner. When Jennifer confesses to enjoying class discussion so much that she continued it at home with her mother, or when Cynthia says, "You know, I'm starting to see imagery and symbolism in the book I'm reading on my own. I never saw things like that before," or when Josh, who has "I hate reading" tattooed across his forehead, asks, "So, you got another book like that, Miss?" learning is there. [connect to philosophy of discovery through inquiry and to philosophy of responsive teaching, to classroom climate, and to teacher as learner] Sometimes learning is a little more obvious. When Angelica and Kyle bound through my classroom door to tell me that they liked the Shakespearean sonnet we read in class so much that they went home and taught their parents, these students demonstrate their learning by teaching others. "They didn't get the poem at first," Angelica explained, "but I showed them how to think through it, to discover meaning, the way you helped us." [connect to philosophy of scaffolding, to tapping into daily real-life experiences, and to Janet Allan’s premise of meeting the learner on their level, and then bringing them up.] Sometimes learning is dramatic and powerful. The day that Chad danced--literally--out of joy, this hideously beautiful dance in front of my desk because he burst with pride for the paper he wrote, and when he, the kid who a few months before hated writing because he “always did it wrong,” told me wanted to be a writer and an English teacher who helps others discover the writer within themselves, that's learning. I'm sure of it. connect to writing and reading philosophies ………………. Unfinished, obviously… I plan to use these examples of learning to explain my teaching methods in detail………

I teach people to open their hearts, to share their experiences, to expand their world view, to discover the writer within, to hunger for good literature, and to question, question, question. I teach people to think, to challenge themselves, and to contribute as citizens of a democratic society. Learning is addictive. I teach my students to awaken their appetite for knowledge and to hunger for it daily. I teach people that it’s okay to take risks, to try something new, and that learning takes practice, patience, and multiple drafts to find perfection. Failure is part of the process, and so I provide students with an atmosphere which is safe, yet challenges them to feel uncomfortable with mediocrity. And although my expectations are high, I’m resolved to provide students with the tools they need to surpass them. I teach my students to not need me.

I am a teacher, a learner, a student among students. Offering an individual the opportunity to learn with me is how I teach. People are whom I teach.