Teaching Philosophy; Nov 2015
Philosophy and Teaching Platform
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.” (Winston Churchill) How can someone have the courage to continue on, despite all of the downfalls of life? To have courage means to face pain, danger, and discomfort; and overcome it with fearlessness and bravery. To overcome an obstacle in life means to have the courage to face that discomfort, overcome it, and then move on. For students learning a skill, these obstacles are frequent and hard to overcome. My goal as a teacher is to let my students face these obstacles and teach them a growth mindset that allows them to build the courage to continue on. These critical thinking skills is what I strive to teach my students; the skills to produce a perfectly browned muffin, or a straight seam are just bonuses.
Going through life, and dealing with all of my own personal struggles, I have found that the most important roots in my life are my values and my passions. It is important to note that I grew up in the deep forest of the Slocan Valley, I was surrounded in a completely sustainable and natural ecosystem from a young age. I travelled to every corner of the world, and set down some pebbles along the way, but my heart remains in my own personal cabin in the woods. It took me a long time to realize the beauty of this place and this style of life, and because of this realization, I have learned to live more sustainably and in my own nature-filled ecosystem wherever I may reside. This connection to the world around me planted a seeded love for natural textile dyeing and sewing. These skills help me connect with science, history, math, and arts and help me understand all of them and the importance of having them in my life. Making something of quality from a simple white bolt of fabric and transforming it into something of great beauty and lustre gives me a feeling of success and bewilderment. How ever can a simple girl who believe she has no skills and no passion create something that excited her so much? This passion is what I want to share with others. As teenagers, students are often trying to discover who they are and what they want to do with their lives. They have to try so many things to figure out what drives them forward. They need to love something enough to be able to overcome the obstacles and keep moving forward with it.
Every person who is talented started out with little to no knowledge about their trade, and started without knowing this was their passion. I believe that our goal as teachers is to find the students’ fuse, and ignite their fire. Personally, I can’t specifically say what my current teaching philosophy is, because I have never taught children before, I can only say who I aspire to be as a teacher, and continue to work toward that aspiration. When it comes to teaching skills, my aspiration is to teach my students so they become independent chefs at home. I want my students to be able to manage their home life by knowing how to do laundry, clean, and live hygienically. I want my students to be able to shop frugally, sustainably, and be a moral consumer of food and clothing. My students should be able to tell the repercussions fast fashion has on a global scale, and they should be able to tell where their food is being grown and shipped from and the environmental impact of that. I believe it is important to teach our future generation about smart consumerism and the impact their actions have on a local and global scale.
With teachers trying to utilize more and more technology in their classrooms, I have to step back and think what the implications of using this technology in the classroom is. With the availability of major search engines ready to give students and immediate answer with the flick of a finger, I have to wonder how this resource impacts their critical thinking. Inspiration is now being pulled from Pinterest, and answers are being pasted from Google. How do we as teachers utilize technology so it expands the students’ knowledge without completely hindering their creativity and imagination? In the classroom setting, I believe students should be present in the classroom in both body and in mind. With the use of texting, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Whatsapp, this is becoming a harder goal to achieve. For this reason, I do not think it is constructive to have cell phones in the classroom. However, I do believe so much of what the Internet has to offer can help us as teachers. So many recourses to help us ignite the fire are at our fingertips. I plan to utilize the Internet, watch videos, and incorporate different technologies into the classroom for a wide variety of research purposes. However, for me as a teacher, it is important to show my students that they can get inspiration for their communities, the outdoors, their friends, museums, libraries, coffee shops, and everything in-between. I want to show students that inspiration comes from life experiences rather than a computer screen.
Learning can happen in so many different ways, and on so many different levels for different people. As a teacher, I strive to show these students how to learn a skill, and how these skills can be connected to other parts of their lives. Too often in Secondary Schools, we see subjects segregated. Every subject is very specific, and none tie into each other. I find this philosophy of teaching old and dry. Everything should connect to each other since that is how we make up our lives and our society on a local and global scale. I want to be able to show my students that a subject such as Home Economics is extremely interconnected to every other subject they are taking in school. Throughout history we have been wearing clothes and conforming to a certain fashion style. Our food tastes and guides have changed throughout the years. Science shows us how our bread rises, or how yogurt is formed. Mechanics shows us how the machine stitches, or the oven turns on. Math teaches us the proportions of the body, and how we measure flour to make our biscuits. Through every subject we can find connection, and through every connection we can gain understanding.
I think my ultimate goal as a teacher is to help students, parents, teachers, and community members realize that the skills a student develops while taking applied skills like Home Economics, is one that can be carried through and applied to all other subject areas of their lives. These skills and intelligences they develop enhance their learning and understanding of most things. Sternberg’s tri-intelligences theory shows us that students can develop analytical, practical, and creative intelligences. Although a student may be stronger in one subject over the other, I believe all of these intelligences are developed and enhanced through the teaching of applied skills and Home Economics. Even Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, stating that people have seven certain intelligences including: Visual-Spatial, Bodily-kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Linguistic, and Logical –Mathematical; show us that many of these intelligences are either learned of enhanced in Applied Skills and Home Economics.
Winston Churchill told us that failure is not fatal, and we must continue on despite our failures. Often, for students, continuing on and moving forward can be too hard for them and the obstacles they are facing remain in their way of learning. These obstacles make our students frustrated, depressed, and want to give up. How can we help our students through this? Should we help them the whole way, or just give them a shoulder to lean on? I hope to break down as many obstacles as I can for my students, but I also hope to foster their own courage to continue on. After all, what more could we hope for as teachers other than to give our students courage, critical thinking skills, and happiness?