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Rosamaria “Rose” Popp

Professor Connie Christensen
EDU 202- 1001
13 November 2020

Educational Philosophy

The reason I have chosen the Education profession is because I realized, while being a

support staff professional with the Clark County School District, that I have a natural gift of

working with students, specifically at the secondary education level. As a support staff

professional, I have been a specialized programs teacher’s assistant, instructional assistant, clerk

typist I, office specialist II, and now administrative school secretary/office manager. While being

in this position, I have worked very closely with students at the high school level. While working

with these high school students, I have learned that many students have a variety of problems

that they are dealing with in their adolescent lives that exceed any academic problems they may

have dealt with. I became a mentor to most students that I’ve come across in my support staff

professional career. I wanted to be a positive role model to not only the young ladies, but also the

young men that are our students. I found that I could relate to a lot of them and would give them

advice as to how I managed certain situations and how they could manage theirs. They saw

someone that was able to prosper through the bad cards that were dealt to her, and I always told

them, “If I could get through it, so can you.” I believe this set me apart from different staff

members, because not many teachers or support staff professionals take the time to get to know

students and their backgrounds; why students are wired the way that they are, and I believe that

God gave me this gift to inspire and help students. Being able to empower students to be the best

version of themselves has motivated me to become a teacher, so that I can have an even bigger
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impact on their lives. I would not only be teaching them life lessons, but also academic lessons

that will take them farther than they think. While doing my field observations, I have noticed the

teacher I am observing is the type of teacher I would like to be. The teacher I’m observing is

very engaging with the students. Even if they are talking to her about stuff she does not know

such as video games, new rap songs, or new slang. She inquires about them and will say she will

check it out when she can or put it on her to-do-list for the weekend. One thing about being a

teacher is not only your students learning from you, but you learning something from your

students. Students’ main goal is to come to school to learn, but just like adults, sometimes

personal things that we are going through can become entangled with our main focus.

The educational philosophy and psychological orientations that dictate my current beliefs

about education are definitely centered around student- centered philosophies. In our textbook,

Teachers, Schools, & Society, I scored the highest on the social reconstructionism philosophy.

Social reconstructionism encourages schools, teachers, and students to focus their studies and

energies on alleviating pervasive social inequities and reconstruct society into a new and more

just social order. My role as a teacher would be to explore social problems, suggest alternative

perspectives, and facilitate student analysis of these problems. That popular saying “Our kids are

our future” is a heavy, powerful statement and with all the nonsense going on in the world, I

would only want to encourage my students to become the change they wish to see. Our students

deserve the best education. The education system has come a long way from how it used to be.

But I almost feel like because it is better now, people who have the power to influence and make

a change do not really care and have just kind of settled for what it is. I believe that our

education system can and will be better. The politics, testing, and redundant curriculum have

ruined the education world. I want to influence my students to let their voices and ideas be heard.
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The more that teachers and students fight for our education system, the more we will start to see

changes. Educational leaders such as, George S. Counts, Paulo Freire, and Bell Hooks have set

the stage for students’ goals to become intelligent problem solvers, to enjoy learning, to live

comfortably in the world while also helping to reshape it in the social reconstructionism

philosophy.

Some of the strategies I would like to implement include students talking more about

what they want to achieve and what they are going to do to get there. I have read how one of the

problems in today’s classrooms is that teachers talk too much for a majority of the instructional

time. I hope to have a healthy balance of teaching my students what they need to learn in order

for them to succeed, but also to hear what they have to say about the lessons that they are

learning and opinions that they might have on other topics going on in the world. Engaging with

the students is very important and by doing this, I hope to have good pedagogy. I consider

myself a student for life, in that I love learning about anything. As I mentioned before, I want to

learn about my students just as much as I hope they would like to learn from what I’m teaching

them. In today’s day and age, we live in a very diverse nation which includes a diverse

educational environment. Someone once told me you learn a lot just by talking to a foreigner. It

is actually interesting, because my current roommate is from Mongolia and to hear how very

different our cultures and traditions are is beautiful and strange at the same time. But what I have

learned is that it gets your brain thinking and you began asking questions like, “I wonder why it’s

like that?” We all have something to learn from one another and because I come from a diverse

background, I have no problem fitting in a diverse educational environment. I would want my

students to know and learn about each other, to see what they have in common and how they are

different, and how that is okay that we are not all the same. I want to help my students the best
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way I possibly can. If that means that I need to look over multiple IEP’s to fit one’s special

educational needs, I will do that. If that means creating separate lesson plans for the gifted

students, I will do that too. If there is a language barrier between a student and me, I will do my

absolute best to make sure that student understands the lesson. In being the best teacher that I can

possibly be, I want to make sure that my students are understanding the material and engaged

and participating so that I can assess them properly. Tests and quizzes are important because it

will help me to know which student(s) are falling behind and struggling and where I need to put

a little more of my focus and attention on. This is why I think attention to detail is vital for

teaching.

The qualities that I would need to possess in order to move forward in this career is

student teaching. I am a visual learner and while I have been “virtually” observing, it is not the

same as actually being in a classroom and watching the teacher teach. Even though I use to be a

teacher’s assistant, it was very different because I was not focused on how she was teaching. My

last semester at CSN is next semester, Spring 2021, and then I plan to transfer to UNLV in

Summer 2021 to obtain my Bachelor’s in Secondary Education. I plan to take my CBEST (I

think I may want to teach in California in the future) or praxis exam sometime before Spring

semester starts. Since we are doing the praxis exam module as a corequisite, it has been very

helpful in teaching me what I need to know and study before I take the test. Once I am at UNLV,

I hope to finish all three of my practicums (student teaching) by the Fall of 2022 and graduate

with my Bachelor of Arts in Secondary Education; from there I can apply to be a teacher with the

Clark County School District. I am very thankful to already be working for CCSD and knowing

firsthand what working with students at the secondary education level looks like and what to
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expect. I look forward to working closely with teacher mentors and administrators that will

deliver sound advice in helping me to be the best teacher I can be for my future students.