At 6:00 yesterday, I received many of the essays for the final assignment that I had applied for the AP European History class. I looked over all of those that were submitted, and I was fairly satisfied. The work and research that students were expected to carry out were carried out according to the standards set. The assignments were creative and had a research element to them. The students had no trouble carrying out this task on their own and the research that they undertook was thoughtful and original. These results were of the quality that I had hoped for and I am happy with such an outcome.
It seems evident to me that students in senior classes in an independent school are better able to commit to these sorts of assignments without being told exactly what to do. They can find an idea or a problem that interests them and carry out research on such a topic. Also they are able and even willing to create a project that is creative and interesting for them to demonstrate their knowledge. This contrasts greatly from the junior class of a public high school that requires a great deal of scaffolding in order to get started. I am also very happy with the former group’s self-agency because being told how to make something creative really defeats the whole purpose of being creative (or arguably leads to inherently uncreative).
Thus, I arrive at a teaching philosophy that I would like to revise (as we teachers are always revising such a part of our professional identities): I think that it is essential that students are given the opportunity and are made to be as creative as they ought to be as they are taught in my course. They can take on a topic that is of interest to them (provided it falls into a category of the curriculum) and study it in a creative way that fulfills their learning needs. Although this should apply to all levels and grades, some groups of students may need varying amounts of scaffolding in order to be able to commit to a creative assignment that they have personalized based on their skill levels, maturity, or age