Jennifer Carroll Teaching Philosophy I believe that: Every student has the right to learn.

April 2011

Students succeed both in and out of the classroom when they are able to understand as well as express complex ideas with grace and precision, when they recognize how they as individuals process information and learn, when they understand how their own minds work. As a teacher, it is my responsibility to defend students right to learn in the environment that is most appropriate for them, with access to all of the tools that they, as individuals, need to think, explore, and communicate. This means welcoming a rich variety of organizational strategies, multi-media materials, active learning projects, and elements from the students own lives into the classroom. Armed with a desire to listen to my students and deepen my understanding of diverse learning styles, backgrounds, and personal motivations, I strive to teach students how to teach themselves.

Every student has the right to be taught.

A teacher is both a social and an intellectual mentor. Whether classroom experiences ultimately draw students into populous marketplaces or solitary ivory towers, my goal is to encourage social intellectual exchange in my studentsnot only to help students think through the course materials, but to use course materials as tools for helping students become adept and literate thinkers. As an educator, I expect my students to do the work that is necessary to accomplish these goals. Likewise, students bring their own expectations to me in the classroom. As their teacher, I must meet their intellectual and learning needs. I must do all that I can to understand and respond to what they ask for. I must take all the time that is necessary to reorganize and reinterpret classroom materials so that they are as accessible and comprehensible as possible. This is the discursive, social reality of teaching. Without the teachers willingness to engage on a deeply interpersonal level, the intellectual motivations of education will falter.

Every student has the right to be safe in the classroom.

I aim for my students to become adept at understanding and externalizing their own ideas, to become powerful self-advocates and drivers of human intellectual exchange. This is a big expectation and a challenge for most individuals. In order for students to achieve this goal, the classroom must become an environment where the occasional awkwardness and discomfort of learning is welcomed. Students have the right to fair and reasonable expectations for themselves. Their work deserves to be valued, no matter how much farther they have to improve and grow. Students should be given the space to be wrong. Their ideas deserve to be listened to, no matter how different or uncomfortable those ideas may be. Active learning is hard work, and students deserve our respect for all of their efforts.

The roles of student and teacher are porous, constantly shifting, and often overlap.
Teachers never stop learning. The privilege of working with many new students year after year brings with it the invaluable benefit of new perspectives, ideas, and challenges, all of which hone the skills and intellect of the teacher just as much as the teacher hopes to do in her students.