Philosophy

Teaching Philosophy: July 2016

“Our job as educators is not to teach the content, Google can do that; our job is to teach students to love the subject.” (Sir John Jones) This quote completely changed my view of teaching. Of course I need to be able to teach the content, and teach to the curriculum, but my role as a teacher is to teach students passion. To teach students one thing they love about the subject, and explore that love. I strive to teach my students the critical thinking skills they need to apply these practical skills to their daily lives beyond school.

Moving from my small town to the big city, I have had to explore what my values are, and how they influence my personality and teaching. 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 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, to find their passion in the subject. When it comes to teaching skills, my aspiration is to teach my students so they become independent and life-long learners. 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 think it’s important for students to unplug from their devices once in a while. 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 believe it’s more relevant for students to not only connect their subjects to their own life experiences, but to connect subjects together and see them holistically. 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 and enhance analytical, practical, and creative intelligences through Home Economics. 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-kinaesthetic, 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 that “Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.” Churchill is essentially displaying the qualities of a growth mindset in this quote. For students to believe that every mistake they make is part of their learning process and not the end of their project is hugely important. As a teacher, I strive to foster a growth mindset in my teaching through cross-curricular, project-based learning.