MILLER MASTER’S PORTFOLIO !

Philosophy Statement

“I have come to believe a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few

as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the

arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.” -John Steinbeck

Learning has always been attractive and compelling for me. My philosophy of education

has been shaped by my own experiences in school and my aspirations to create intriguing

learning opportunities for future generations. Ten years ago, I began my journey to forge my

dreams of becoming an educator, and one of the first prominent tasks I completed was honing

my philosophy of education into a formal paper. My burgeoning philosophy, looking back on it

ten years later, has withstood a decade of intense life changes and immense heaps of new

knowledge to remain virtually unchanged. I have chosen not to modify this initial philosophy,

but merely augment and preface it with this framing statement to add additional priorities that

have surfaced with the changing times.

The driving force behind my philosophy of education, then and now, is a desire to

cultivate lifelong lovers of learning. I’ve learned from both educational theory and experience

that this requires resiliency in a student’s intrinsic motivations to succeed and achieve. A

powerful way to promote this resiliency is through learner agency, characterized by giving

students choice and voice. When we encourage students to harness their own intrinsic

motivation, individual learners can progress through standard competencies while taking full

ownership of their own educational experiences (Cooper, 2017).

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When we prioritize student agency in our classrooms, we actively work at disassembling

the established traditional pedagogy of the “banking model of education” in which learners are

seen as bank accounts in which the teacher is meant to make deposits. This view of education

perpetuates oppressive stereotypes and decreases student accountability, responsibility, and

motivation. An alternative approach to educating learners offered by Paulo Friere urges

conscientization, the attempt to use education as a means to consciously and cooperatively shape

the individual and society. In this critical pedagogy theory of education, students are encouraged

to question and challenge domination and co-create their own learning experiences (Friere,

1970).

As suggested by my concern with how education impacts both the individual and as a

result society, it is also important to me that learning experiences have implications on student’s

moral development. Although in my initial philosophy discourse, I underrated the usefulness of

adhering to placing students within theoretical developmental stages, I have come to see the

value of explicitly sharing some of these stages and theories with the students we teach.

Specifically in relation to moral development and dynamic thinking, there lies powerful

implications in teaching students how they can progress by thinking metacognitively. Explicitly

teaching students to reflect upon their own and peers’ moral and learning habits encourages them

to strive for higher levels (Kohlberg, 1984; Esquith, 2007).

Being reflective and responsive to thinking and behaving implies consideration and

prioritization of socio-emotional learning (SEL) in education. A growing concern for how

relationships and mindsets influence learning experiences has spurred the implementation of SEL

practices in schools. As educators become more aware of the impact of SEL on all aspects of
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students’ well-being, including academic achievement, integrating SEL instructional practices is

becoming a priority in many schools (CASEL, 2018). Core social competencies like

relationships management and social awareness can be the foundation for all learning and

interacting in classrooms, and should be implemented and taught embedded within the content

areas.

Complementing the SEL movement in the educational field, restorative practices (RP)

more specifically use reflective inquiry to induce empathy, self-reflection, and accountability.

Opposed to punitive discipline for student behavior, RP is an approach to managing behavior and

building community in classrooms that incorporates conversation and reflective questioning in

place of punitive consequences that exclude perpetrators from the community (Riley, 2017).

While classroom talking-circles that are characteristic of the RP movement in order to resolve

conflicts take up precious classroom learning time and often continue to leave issues unresolved,

the self-reflective nature of questioning students on their behavior communicates to them a sense

of respect and seriousness not present in the punitive discipline system.

In addition to behavioral concerns, relationships in classrooms influence learning as well.

Exuding a warm and caring presence is wonderful until students mistake it as softness and push

academic as well as behavioral limits. Time and again, I need to remind myself that students do

not really need me to be their friend. They need me to be their promoter of learning. In order to

promote their learning, they need to be required to meet increasingly higher expectations. Many

students will resist and challenge the determination these expectations require. They need their

teacher to demand a lot of them, and they need to be shown that I can be trusted to demand so

much from them, that they can indeed reach the goals they make for themselves. Teachers like
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Judith Kleinfeld of the 1970s who taught rural Alaska Native students, and Emse Codell who

recently wowed inter-city Chicago students with her exuberance, these are teachers who warmly

demanded a lot of their students and delivered copious amounts of love and care to support them.

The relationships I want to build with my students are not friendships, but partnerships for their

future achievements built on respect and empowerment.

Assuring a love of learning depends on a whole lot more than the relationships built

within the community of the school. Students need to experience success to motivate them to rise

to ever higher expectations. Part of the responsibility of student success lies in the teacher’s

hands. Learners should expect to learn about things that are relevant for their lives, be shown

what is expected of them, and be given choices for their learning experiences in content,

expression, and consequences. Teachers are held accountable for their ability to provide these

things to their students by the level of achievement of their students. With continual professional

reflection of the assessment cycle of both my students and my practice, I am confident the gap

between my philosophy and practice will continue to narrow.

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References

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2018). SEL Trends: Integrating

with academics. CASEL District Resource Center, Retrieved on April 18, 2019 from

https://casel.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/SEL-Trends-3-10232018.pdf.

Cooper, R. (2017). How can teachers best promote student agency? EducationDive, Nov. 6,

2017: Retrieved on April 18, 2019 from https://www.educationdive.com/news/how-can-

educators-best-promote-student-agency/508050/.

Esquith, R. (2007). Teach like your hair’s on fire. New York, NY: Viking.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum.

Kohlberg, L. (1984). The psychology of moral development: The nature and validity of moral

stages. Harper & Row.

Riley, E. (2017). Implementing restorative practices in the classroom. Getting Smart, March 17,

2017: Retrieved on April 18, 2019 from https://www.gettingsmart.com/2017/03/

implementing-restorative-practices-in-the-classroom/.