Go 1

Teaching Philosophy

My main priority as a teacher will be to engage students in meaningful experiences to

guide their learning. To achieve this, I have three main objectives: 1) To provide an environment

in which students are able to discover and obtain information and experiences that are

meaningful to them. A students learning begins with the environment in which he is in. To

maximize the potential learning, I want to create a comfortable environment in which students

feel free to explore, discover, make mistakes, and ultimately learn from their experience in the

classroom. 2) To teach students to be analytical individuals. they should be drawing on their

experiences and figuring out what they can do to best fit what they are searching for. Finally, the

ultimate goal is 3) to establish students as individuals thirsty to keep learning. I aim to encourage

students to continue their learning in a search that goes beyond the classroom and into their own

individual interests. Hopefully, I can encourage and inspire students to love and pursue music as

my past teachers encouraged and inspired me.

My best strategy in fulfilling these objectives is to base my approach in the principles of a

Constructionism learning approach. Constructionism is built on the assumption that children will

do best by finding for themselves specific knowledge they need (Papert (1993) 139). This will

help me entertain my first objective in finding ways to create a meaningful experience for

students within my classroom. I will have to remember this principle as the foundation for any

activity or lesson that I hope to include in my classroom. Constructionism also utilizes a

characteristic of a student called bricolage. Paperts metaphor for Bricolage is that of a tinker

trying to solve a problem; Faced with a job, the tinker rummages in his bag of tools for one that

will fit the problem at hand (Papert (1993) 144). If it is a new problem for which he does not

have an exact tool, he may try to combine or use a sequence of tools in order to solve it. I hope to
 Go 2

encourage students bricolage in my classroom (and outside of it as well). As students continue

and reach more intricate musical skills, they will have to rummage through tools that they have

already developed and maybe find new tools either through me or through their own intuition in

order to achieve what they want out of their music. Thus, my second and third objectives are

formed based on bricolage.

My third objective also draws upon a key principle of Constructivist learning theories.

According to this theory, a true act of discovery is no random event (Driscoll Bruner 234). I

want my students to be enticed by the act of discovering music the beauty found in sounds and

harmonies, their spoken voice and the voice of their instruments, the mathematical and structural

intricacy behind music theory, the history and powerful meanings conveyed through music, and

everything else that could be imagined through a string of pitch levels and frequencies.

Ultimately, I want my students to be enthralled by music and hunger to be able to achieve what

they want through their instruments.

I realize it is quite ambitious to attempt all that I want to and have all of my students

excel. To achieve all of these, I must examine my position as a mediator for students learning

and balance my involvement as that of an active teacher and as that of a mediator simply

allowing students to discover on their own. While there are information and concepts that the

students would simply never discover without a prompt or initiating force, students hold an

incredible amount of intuition that, when given the opportunity, will usually do exceptionally

well as opposed to being prompted to doing a certain task. This also goes back to Sociocultural

theories and the ZPD; it is our job as mediating educators to determine where our students zones

are and what the best mode if instruction might be.

 Go 3

Assessment, as Sheppard describes it, should be for both student and teacher a source of

insight and help instead of an occasion for meting out rewards and punishments (Shepard 10). I

hope to integrate meaningful forms of assessment, both throughout the course of my class and at

ends of cycles. Specifically in a concert band setting, I specifically want students to also be

evaluating their performances, so that I can see they are establishing some form of self-

regulation. I will look at the assessments I plan to employ as well as feedback from students to

self-evaluate. I believe that an examination of what the students are learning and retaining as

well as feedback from what the students are experiencing will yield the most accurate self-

evaluation.

As a young educator, I realize once again that much of what I wish to accomplish is quite

ambitious. However, I am driven by having seen passionate and driven students excelling. A lot

of a students success has to do with the environment in which they can culture their learning.

Therefore, I want to be the teacher to enable students to go as far with music as they can and as

they please. If I can do this, then I can claim success as a music educator.