My conception of teaching adheres to certain principles of Taoism, which holds that nothing is static

everything is in constant motion and change, like water. Water can be many things: cold, neutral, or hot. It can
be ice or vapour. Water is cool and serene, or boiling and wild. It may also be light or heavy, stretched thin or
widely voluminous. It reflects its surroundings.
People are like water: always changing, in some sense constantly becoming something new. We adapt
and alter ourselves in order to fit different environmental parameters or challenges. We are constantly in
processes of unfolding into new states of being, as Heidegger puts it. The underlying principle, or constant of
what we are, is, paradoxically, change or difference. Individuals are many different things in one instant, and
are bound to inevitably change over periods of time.
In holding these fundamental ideas in mind, as an educator, I also change my methods to fitting the
needs and interests of my learners. All learners vary, in much the way that water differs in its numerous
manifestations. Students have unique learning styles and abilities, which I am always matching with my own
differentiated teaching practices. When students need the aid of a steady pace, I become the leisurely, serene
pond, which nurtures these kinds of learners. At times when my students need to be challenged, I convert into
an energetic stream, whose bubbly current takes my pupils in directions that they dont anticipate. My teaching
techniques do not fit premeditated, artificially imposed paces; my pedagogy naturally flows, organically created
by the learners of my classrooms. Thus, the rhythm, and to some extent the content, of my classrooms is
spontaneously generated by fitting itself to the people that populate the classroom space.
Accordingly, my educational viewpoint matches the Taoist doctrine, that in order to live harmoniously
with nature, we must flow and change as water does, which nurtures others. When faced with challenges, we
may be like water, which shapes itself in many different ways to flow past rocks. By learning to go with the
flow and adapt ourselves to every challenge, we can learn to overcome difficulties rather than unnaturally clash
and fight with various trials. My aim is to nurture my students into being like water to be as free thinking as
free flowing water, never afraid to change their ideas, beliefs, and learning styles, which may be oppositional to
static, habituated dogmas. This change, after all, is what truly defines growth and learning.
To have all students adhere to one, specific, concrete academic or ideological standard is to go against
nature. Water constantly fluctuates, but it is always water: people differ and change, but they are equally
valuable individuals. My mission is to have students discover what knowledge and wisdom means to them, by
fostering their learning styles into becoming developed, thoughtful individuals, in the fluctuating and exciting
stream of life.