Teacher Philosophy Paper

Walk into any high school classroom and take a few minutes to observe how the teachers room is set up and how the teacher begins their lesson, do this a couple times. When youre done you will realize that every classroom was set up in a different manner and that every teacher you observed had a different way of teaching. For example, the chemistry teacher was showing her students how to correctly set up the beakers, whereas the history teacher shows his students a short clip about the Harlem Renaissance and then begins to go into depth about the time period. Every teacher, whether they are teaching chemistry or history, has a different teaching philosophy that they choose to follow and that is unique to them. As a future high school English teacher, I aspire to create a flexible classroom structure that I can change in order to correlate with my lessons. I also aim to pitch my lessons at a level where my students are being challenged to think in depth, but not being overwhelmed with what I am trying to say. Part A: Before I even thought about becoming an English teacher, I began to think about why I wanted to be a teacher and what I wanted my students to get out of my teaching. I had always known that I wanted to be a teacher and that as a teacher, I wanted my students to expand on the knowledge I presented to them and use that knowledge in their daily lives. It was not until the middle of eleventh grade year when I finally decided that I wanted to be an English teacher and my decision had a lot to do with Mr. Gaboury, my eleventh grade English teachers influence on me. Mr. Gaboury was like no other teacher I had ever had before, he was passionate about teaching English, but at the same time he was a very structured teacher.

Throughout the most of the year, Mr. Gaboury had the desks in the classroom set up in one way with all the desks facing the chalkboard and the desks never seemed to change. Then one day the desks in the classroom were set up differently, instead of being in parallel lines, the desks were split down the middle of the classroom facing each other. This was very odd because Mr. Gaboury didnt often like change, but the way he structured the desks worked for the activity we were doing. As a class, we were going over our persuasion essays and Mr. Gaboury had purposely set up the classroom in order to get students to persuade the other students to understand what they were saying. In the class, I was one of the only students who were persuaded by another students essay and it wasnt until after class was over that I realized why Mr. Gaboury set up the classroom differently. I realized that Mr. Gaboury switched the desks in the classroom to make the classroom more student centered rather than the usual teacher centered. I never knew the reasons why a classroom would be student centered or teacher centered until I read the first chapter of Bridging English. In the first chapter on figure 1-1 there are five classroom designs labeled A through E that we talked about in class. As a class we went over which of the five designs were student centered and which were teacher centered. Out of all five there were two student centered designs, two teacher centered designs and one design that could be used for either. For me, the classroom designs triggered my memory of Mr. Gabourys eleventh grade English classroom and how it was designed. I believe that as a teacher you have to be flexible with how you set up your classroom and be flexible enough to change your classroom design at any given moment. I think that students will learn better if their teacher were to switch up there classroom design to correlate with the lessons they are doing. I strongly believe that as a future

English teacher, my goal is to use different classroom designs in how I teach my lessons, so that my students can achieve the full extent of the lessons I am teaching. Furthermore I believe that as a future teacher I have to pitch my lessons at a level where my students are being challenged to think in depth, but not being overwhelmed by what I am trying to teach. In Bridging English Lev Vygotsky, a soviet psychologist, explained that a child has two points of development levels, in the actual developmental level a child understands concepts and completes tasks without assistance (Milner 9) and at the level of potential development a child can complete more complex tasks with the assistance of teachers (Milner 9). Lev Vygotsky called these levels of development the zone of proximal development. Vygotskys zone of proximal development is described as the gap between what a learner has already mastered (the actual level of development) and what he or she can achieve when provided with educational support (potential development) (Coffey 1). Vygotskys zone of proximal development is a hard theory to develop in a classroom because it is so broad, but I believe that as a future teacher its important to want to aim at achieving Vygotskys zone of proximal development in order to expand on your students knowledge in the classroom. Vygotsky also came up with a term called scaffolding which he describes that In a classroom, setting, the teacher is responsible for structuring interactions and developing instruction in small steps based on tasks the learner is already capable of performing independently (Coffey 2). I believe that by structuring your classroom based on Vygotskys idea of scaffolding inevitably you will be one step closer to helping your students reach their zone of proximal development.

Part B: As a future English teacher I strongly believe that there are many challenges I could face in an ELA classroom, but I believe that I can overcome some of these challenges by sticking true to my teaching philosophy and adjusting it to the lessons I would eventually have to teach. In an ELA classroom, I believe that it is important to maintain a collaborative culture with some of the lessons you would do, in order to attend to the variety of learners that are present in an ELA class. The most important thing that I think all ELA teachers need to initially do in their classroom is realize that you have a variety of learners and try to plan you lessons in a manner where you reach a zone of proximal development with a majority of your students and those students who may struggle a bit can easily be guided in the right direction. Every student learns at their own speed and is interested in certain ways of learning, for that reason ELA teachers should attempt to bring in lessons that will interest their students and at the same time expand on their knowledge. My goal in my classroom would be to try my best to reach Vygotskys zone of proximal development and be flexible in the way in which I structure my classroom. One way in which I can obtain my teaching goals in an ELA classroom would be doing a collaborative activity that would interest my students, but expand their knowledge. In class, this semester we read Island by K. Sohail and then watched a news broadcast on teenage homelessness. This activity was not only fun, but I thought of many ways in which I could adjust it, so it could work in an ELA classroom. If I were to teach Island I would first have my students read the story to themselves. Then I would choose six of my students to go to the front of the classroom and read the short story aloud. I would choose six students because in the story there are seven strands of narration occurring, one is a police officer, the young man,

another police officer, a narrator, a little boy and the little boys father. Each student would be given a different voice and by reading the story aloud, other students in the class might understand the importance of understanding what you how you hear and what you read are two different things, but in the end you may learn more from one than the other. After we have read the story aloud as a class, I could show my students a clip on teenage homeless and relate it back to the story by asking them teacher generated questions. Some of my questions would be: Why do you think it was important for me to show you this clip after reading this story? How does this clip and the story relate and how are they different? Teaching in an ELA classroom I would have my students take five minutes to write down their answers in their journals and then ask them to share with the class. After the class shared their answers I would pass out a worksheet to each of my students and then begin showing the movie Freedom Writers. The worksheet I would pass out would again provide my students to pay attention to the movie, but think about how it could relate to Island and the news broadcast. On the worksheet, my students could jot down whatever notes they wanted and after the movie was finished I would have my students write a journal response to the movie and ask them to answer how the movie relates (or doesnt) to Island and the news broadcast I showed them. After they respond I could let them chose to read their response out loud or in a group. Then after I would collect all their journal and give their responses a grade. In Steven Hunts article Eliminating the attitude barrier of us and them he states incorporating lifes experiences into the learning environment grounds it for the students in something relevant to them. And incorporating their interests and helping students explore aspects of these in their curriculum allows students to become more interested in learning more (Hunt 35). I think Hunts point of view is exactly what I would be attempting in facing the

challenge of maintaining a collaborative culture in my classroom while also attending to a variety of learners. As a future teacher, it is important to realize that not all you students can learn at the same level, but by incorporating their interests in the classroom you can better guide them to a higher level of learning.

Bibliography
Coffey, Heather. "Zone of Proximal Development." Web. 14 Nov. 2010. <www.learnc.org/lP/pages/5075>. Hunt, Steven. "Eliminating the Attitude Barrier of "us" and "them."" The Art of Learning to Teach Preservice Teacher Narratives (2001): 34-40. Milner, Joseph O., and Lucy FM Milner. Bridging English. 4th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. Sohail, K. Island. Pg 30 in packet.