Philosophy of Education

I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher but it was not until recently that I decided
where exactly my teaching career would take me. Significant experiences and reflection
revealed that my skills and passions lie in urban education; therefore my philosophical outlook is
greatly influenced through the lens of poverty and equality. In order for my students to learn in
my classroom my goal is to create an atmosphere where my students feel safe to ask questions,
be curious, become excited about learning, and have the potential to become a lifelong learner.
Education is about the expansion of knowledge through the individuals eyes and it is important
to remember that this image of knowledge is different for everyone and thus address it as such.
Given the unique challenges students face from racially, socio-economic and
linguistically diverse backgrounds or experiences, I believe that the most important thing to
ensure students academic success is curiosity. I get excited about students reveling a little bit of
their character through curiosity. Promoting curiosity in students is important regardless of
background. When a child first expresses curiosity it is an uplifting moment. When a question is
asked or a child wonders about something it gives teachers the opportunity to expand his/her
thinking and encourage them to grow. A teachers response can promote discovery, problem
solving, excitement, and change. I believe that when a student sees a teacher get excited about
what theyre thinking it can instill a sense of belonging and community in the classroom.
I will achieve an environment of curiosity through creating a vary style of lesson plans
that reach contextual, visual, and kinesthetic alike. I encourage my students to challenge
themselves with learning styles that they are not completely comfortable with so that they will
not become dependent on a particular learning style. Team building activities will help create a
sense of community throughout the classroom. Learning is supposed to be fun so review games,
brainteasers, and adventure-based learning games will take place in my classroom.
I will draw from a multitude of theories to incorporate into my classroom. I will
classically condition my classroom with routines and procedures. All of these things must be
taught; I will use responsibility training to reinforce minor things. Responsibility training,
derived from positive classroom management, will consist of eye contact, proximity, etc. I will
practice omission training where I will remove problem students who are attention seeking. I
will make sure that consequences are logically connected to the behavior, reasonable in relation
to the violation, preserves the students self-esteem, and are able to be enforced. I hope to
provide students with as many choices as I can. It is important for students to feel in charge of
their own learning and choice can aid in this. Students will be required to read books from each
genre but will be allowed choice in which books they read. Students will know that I am a warm
demander, and respect will run my classroom. My classroom rules will be observable,
enforceable, and age appropriate, this is derived from assertive disciplinarian strategies. Using a
positive classroom management layout I will have access to my students at all times.
Consequences will be up to my judgment but appropriate for the situation. From the humanism
perspective all consequences will be logical. Consequences will be related, reasonable,
respectful, and reliably enforced.
Lastly, learning is the most important goal when it comes to education, not the grades.
Learning is a process that can take a different amount of time depending on the individual. Thus,
allowing assignments to be turn in more than once and accepting late assignments, to a degree, is
an important part of the learning environment that I will create. Students are under enough

pressure as it is with high stakes testing. In my classroom I will decrease the amount of pressure
that they feel with assignments and homework while still maintaining my expectations.