Autumn Hackbarth

Professor Christensen

EDU 202

April 22, 2018

Philosophy of Education

Teaching is a big responsibility. Teachers can influence and change their students lives

forever. It’s important for teachers to prepare and to try to constantly improve their teaching

skills in order to provide the best education they can. Finding a teaching philosophy and

teaching style is an important part of becoming a teacher.

I am choosing teaching as a profession because I’ve always loved being around kids, and

knowing the impact teachers can have on a students life. Teachers inspire and create positivity in

students that will be remembered forever. Teaching is fun and creative, while getting to teach

and pass on knowledge to future generations. The person who inspired me to become a teacher is

my tenth grade history teacher Mr. Corona. He always made his classroom environment warm

and welcoming, just like a family. You could tell he cared about every one of his students.

Corona treated everyone with respect and expected the best from every person. He made

everyone feel involved by making sure everyone got a chance to speak and ask questions. He

would also tell life lessons that would help students for the future. I have close family friends

who are teachers that share their teaching experiences and advice to help me be a better teacher,

while having good communication, motivation, and a love for teaching that will help me move

forward in this profession. My field observation helped me understand the teaching environment

by showing me how teachers run the classroom, how busy they are, and how rewarding the
profession is. The teacher I was paired with, Mrs. Peterson, always ran the classroom smoothly.

She taught tenth and twelfth grade english. If students made any interruptions, she was very

quick to end it in efficient ways. If a student talked while she was teaching a lesson, she would

spend a second or two telling the student not to talk and continue on the lesson, with little

interruption for the class . She was constantly doing something, either teaching, talking, or

helping students in any way she could. You could tell she loved her job, especially when students

came up to her with questions, as she could see the look on their faces when they got the

problem.

Essentialism, perennialism, and part of progressivism are the educational philosophies

and psychological orientations that hold my current beliefs on education. I like how essentialisms

aim is to instill students with the “essentials” of academic knowledge. It strives to teach students

the accumulated knowledge of our civilization through core courses in traditional academic

disciplines. Essentialism is meant to train the mind and promote reasoning. For perennialism, I

like how it’s centered around books, Great Books- works by history's finest thinkers and writers,

books as meaningful today as when they were first written. It focuses on enduring themes,

questions that span the ages, develops rational thought, and disciplines minds to think rigorously.

For progressivism, I like how it focuses on real-world experiences of students, as it will help

them feel more involved with what they are learning. My knowledge of historical events, about

children and school, will influence me by knowing every child and person, no matter their

gender, race, and wealth should have equal access to the best quality education.

Everyone learns in different ways. I will implement visual learning, kinesthetic/tactile

learning, and auditory learning. I will use visual learning by using textbooks, charts, course
outlines, flash cards, computer simulations, and illustrations. For kinesthetic/tactile learning, I’ll

plan student movement in class, independent study time, have students take notes and underline

key points, integrate hands-on lessons, and observations. With auditory learning, I’ll include

group work into class activities so students can verbally share ideas, and have students read the

text or any new vocabulary words out loud. With student diversity, I will make sure everyone

feels involved and include the contribution, additive, and the transformation approach. The

approaches include different races and backgrounds from holidays, focuses on heroes, concepts,

themes, and has students learn from the perspective of other cultural groups. For assessment I’ll

use standardized tests and the portfolio approach, which will use papers, projects, and

videotapes.

Teaching is a lot of responsibility. Qualities I need to possess in order to move forward in

this career is having a positive attitude, determination, good communication skills and being

organized. Teachers should always be positive and in the best mood they can be so they don’t

affect their students. You need to always be determined and motivated to keep improving as a

teacher. Good communication, discussing, and explaining concepts in different ways is what

every teacher should strive for, so every student has the best chance at understanding and

learning different skills. For being organized, you need to keep track of students papers, grades,

materials that have been covered, and materials that still need to be covered which is a vital part

of running a classroom. The steps to achieve my goals of becoming a teacher are completing a

bachelor's degree, complete a state-approved teacher preparation program, pass required exams,

and submit a Nevada teaching credential application.

 Teaching can be a really rewarding and unique profession. Teachers educate, guide, and

inspire the young. Teaching is an important and life changing career.