I believe in efficiency in accomplishing and reaching our goals.  Whether this involves being able to solve a simple math equation or decide on a moral issue concerning our society, my belief is in reaching a solution in the most effective and accurate possible means.  This is reflected in my teaching strategy by analytically approaching any problems to learning and devising a possible solution logically and systematically.

From a social aspect, my first and foremost belief is centered on equality and fairness.  I believe in displaying equal representation, equal and fair treatment of every individual, and appropriate consequences.  In focusing on these values, I bring the ideas of democracy and legal justice into the classroom from a kindergarten environment to upper secondary levels.

Through the combination of these two main beliefs, it is my hope for my students to become upstanding citizens who are able to excel in one or more areas of expertise.  To reach this standard, I plan on structuring my lessons around group work.  With a set of classroom rules and expectations established from the beginning of the year, I believe that guided teamwork is an incredibly valuable experience in learning equality and fairness.  By focusing on teamwork and scaffolding of knowledge between students, my classroom environment also fosters a natural identification of personal strengths.  These strengths are then developed through class work in heterogeneous groups that encourage specialized roles for each individual.  I believe that teamwork is a means to efficiently accomplish any goal whether in school or in life.

I recognize that the importance of teaching students is not only in teaching information from the required subject areas.  It is still not only teaching students to understand and interpret the social topics in our society.  To me, teaching is educating, that is, allowing students to come to their own conclusions and realizations on their paths to becoming their own individuals.  It is with their own individual perceptions that my students will grow to make decisions based on their own beliefs and values rather than mirroring or following anyone else’s.

It is with this philosophy that I have evolved my way of teaching through my teaching experience.  Looking back and reflecting on when I first stepped into a classroom on my first day at practicum, I was very much a transmissive teacher.  I aimed to transmit my knowledge to the students, model my expectations, and finally assess their ability to understand my expectations and reiterate the information.  From a functional view, my students were taught information and they learned a certain fraction of that information.  However, I noticed as the term went on that although my class was excellent at producing work that I expected and wanted, I was rarely seeing originality from the classwork.  I came to the realization that I needed to allow more freedom in expressing and finding one’s own ideas.  To encourage this behaviour in my students, I began to teach with more emphasis on inquiry-based approach.  Instead of providing the correct answer to students who asked, I answered with prompting questions that allowed the student to reach one step closer to the answer.  Rather than model the “correct” final product, I began to delay this modelling process until later into the lesson.  As expected, I observed more instances of original solutions and initiatives from my class.  Unexpectedly though, the students showed signs of becoming more confident in their own thoughts and there was a much higher level of engagement than before.  This was proof to me that an inquiry-based approach is a more effective mode of learning than the transmissive method.  Thus, I plan to incorporate more inquiry-based learning into lessons until another superior teaching technique is observed.  When that time comes, I know that my students are benefiting and that I’ll be performing my mission as a teacher.

For the time being, I will remember that, in the word of Swiss philosopher Henri- Frédéric Amiel, “To know how to suggest is the art of teaching”.