Brianna Kelsie Martin

Teaching Philosophy

“A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning. -Brad
Henry”
When I think about my goals as a teacher, it always goes back to the same main idea. I
want to inspire students to want to learn. I want to interest them enough to learn to love the
subject. I want to support and encourage them enough to believe in themselves. And I want to
make them understand just how intelligent they truly are and that they can do anything they put
their minds to. This is obviously a tall order, but my drive to complete this goal is more than
enough to accomplish it.
The first part of my teaching philosophy is to interest the students enough to learn to
love the subject. I plan to teach life sciences as well as a social justice class. For either of these
classes, I think the best way to interest students is to tie the subject to their personal lives. For
instance, in biology, instead of using mice or plants for all of the genetic examples, use more
human examples. Relate natural selection to skin color and how people with darker skin would
survive much better at the equator than a person of light skin color. Talk about how bacteria
become resistant in humans as well as pesticide resistance in crops and tie it into infections
they may be familiar with. This will take more effort to plan for, but if it can encourage the
students to relate and enjoy the topic more, it is absolutely worth the time.
Not only do I want to relate the topic to the students more, but I want to make the
activities more interactive and hands on. Research has shown that most students remember
material better when the lesson is experiential. Especially compared to lecture style teaching
methods. By doing the activity themselves, instead of having me perform it, the students should
retain the information better. Then to really drive it home, the students should reflect on the
lesson as a review and memory method. I plan to make a lot of the lesson activities involve the
entire student. They must get up and move around, explain why they moved where they did,
and relate that back to the lesson’s material. I believe this will help the students remember the
material better, hopefully leading to more interest.
As for encouraging the students, I plan to consistently talk with each student on a
personal level to help them and make sure they are on track with the class. I also plan to get to
know my students more than just in the classroom. I want to know about their families, their
culture, their personal interests, etc. As well as meeting and getting to know the student’s
parents. I want my students to know how much I care for them and that I would do anything to
help them. Students learn best when they know you care about them and their future. Over my
experiences working with students, I have found that they have been convinced that they are
stupid if they do not understand school related content. I will do my best to make them
understand that intelligence is relative and that they can be smart about specific things and not
so smart about other things. I will remind them that I do not know everything either, and that we
are learning together. Reinforce the fact that you learn your entire life and not just in school.
I want to educate these kids because eventually they are going to be our adult society.
There are so many things students need to learn to make our world a better place and without
good teachers, they are not going to learn the things they need. Not just content information, but
how to be responsible, hardworking, generous, loving people. Our society needs an overhaul
and the children in school right now are the next step to either create change or keep us in a rut.