Philosophy Of Education

 Kylee Kerby

 I believe it takes very special people to teach grades four through eight.  With such a broad range of ages in this category, we must be knowledgeable about a wide variety of physical and social changes.  It is very important, especially for young adolescents that we understand what they are going through and encourage them to reach for the stars.

      I also strongly believe in creating a safe haven for student learning.  Anxiety and stress in a classroom does affect student comprehension and learning.  So, it is very important to make all students feel safe, secure, and cared for.  This involves encouraging positive student relationships, recognizing and responding to diverse learners, sharing the decision making, and creating a learning environment that is not competitive. 

      As I previously said, I believe in sharing the decision making in the classroom. This includes implementing student designed curriculum.  Curriculum is not textbooks, worksheets, or a program that must be completed in a certain amount of time.  In my opinion, curriculum should be a plan that involves students and enables them to access, process, interpret, and make connections to information.  It is very important to modify your curriculum to each class or student.  Keeping the same lesson plans year after year is not acceptable.

      The most important role of a teacher is to facilitate meaningful learning.  The best way to accomplish this is to provide hands-on and minds-on experiences.  When using this method of teaching, it is important to realize that you want your students to construct their own knowledge without being told what they will find.  Instead, they are given the chance to learn on their own.  When students learn in this manner, their knowledge about that topic is enhanced greatly. 

      After students embark on the journey of learning on their own, we as teachers must asses their newly learned skills.  I believe that assessment should promote active learning.  Simply memorizing facts does not promote this type of learning.  Instead, assessment should be considered as a tool that considers student’s goals for learning, progression towards these goals, process of learning, and revision of goals if necessary.  There are many effective ways to ensure that students’ progress meets realistic expectations.  One example would be to hand out rubrics with assignments.  They can be used as guidelines for the students’ to access before they even begin their projects.

      As you can see, I believe strongly about several classroom topics.  I also believe that I will be an effective teacher for grades four through eight because I possess the necessary skills to accomplish everything that I believe in.   It is my goal to ensure that my students’ leave my classroom with confidence, knowledge, responsibility, structure, organization skills, but most of all, the feeling that someone cares about them, their education, and their future.     

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Last Updated: July 26, 2004