Alec Belli

Philosophy of Education
I believe that education and innovation must go hand in hand because we cannot
adequately prepare students for difficulties of the future by continuing to do the same thing we
have done for the last one hundred years. Students, as well as educators must have autonomy
within their work because anatomy provides a stronger incentive than a mere grade. By allowing
students to participate with their own interests as well as participating in the traditional material,
we can support skills such as acquiring new information quickly and effectively, improvise,
ability to solve open-ended problem(s), work effectively in teams and communicate and
demonstrate their knowledge to others. Additionally providing the opportunity for intrinsic
fulfillment, be that in school or professions, is one of the strongest ways to have people engage
with material as well as the learning process. I encourage a mastery component on the work or
assignments that gives the student meaningful purpose where their assignments or assessments
must provide them with some feeling of contribution to society. Our world is changing and our
student educations must change with it.
I believe that students should: think critically, address complex and solve complex
problems, advocate for their needs (either educational or emotional), share responsibility in the
classroom, maintain and encourage responsibility of learning and collaborate in a meaningful
way with other students, teachers or even community members. I will bring to the classroom
patience, empathy, creativity, confidence, determination and collaboration. I hope to inspire each
student to follow his or her passion as well as to engage with the given material. One of my
objectives is to promote the idea that failure is okay! We learn best from when we fail at
something and have to work through difficulties.
Natural consequences should be more often than not, the default punishment for not
participating within the class, disrespecting others, unfair actions or foul language. I believe
natural consequences have a profound effect in effectively creating an environment that
represents the outside world. In the real world often times people have the ability to walk
away from most situations, as well as having this ability majority of people think hard before
they exercise this ability. Creating this type of environment also provides the opportunity for
rehabilitate if a student is disruptive or upset.

Alec Belli

We must rehabilitate students who are seen as disruptive instead of punishing them for
disrespectful/unlawful behavior, rather than having the justice system attempt to rehabilitate.
Rehabilitate of students speaks to my classroom culture, I believe that the classroom culture must
reflect a safe, open environment which many technology based companies are providing for their
employees. I use these corporations as an example for good classroom culture because it
provides an example of how it looks with most of the elements within it such as; free space for
individuals to work in groups or talk to one another (collaboration), allows their employees to
participate in their own interests during the work hours (usually semi-structured).
By allowing students to participate with their own interests as well as participating in the
traditional material, we can support skills such as acquiring new information quickly and
effectively, improvise, ability to solve open-ended problem(s), work effectively in teams and
communicate and demonstrate their knowledge to others. Additionally providing the opportunity
for intrinsic fulfillment, be that in school or professions, is one of the strongest ways to have
people engage with material as well as the learning process.
Everyone classroom has a unique community of learners which means each student will
come into the classroom with a different set of tools and experiences as well as different
backgrounds thus providing a new way of viewing a problem and/or solution. I must show them
that the learning process is one, an important process to master rather than content knowledge.
From my experience, students often learn and retain the information taught if it is applicable to
their lives. Also this is one of my most important objectives of education because not every issue
in the world today has a simple solution, or even a semi-complex solution in the back of a
textbook. My second objective is to demonstrate that the learning process can be used for many
activities outside of traditional school. I believe that it is my duty to teach students the content
area material as well as to inspire them to achieve their best. Ultimately education must improve
the lives of our students and make better members of society.