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Teaching Philosophy
My name is Adina Hernandez and currently I am in the process of becoming a
teacher at the University of Texas at El Paso. Becoming a teacher would mean that I can
influence young people and guide them down the right path. I believe that the young
minds have to be taken care of with the help of teachers. I want to implement teachers
who have made an impact on myself. I would also have a variety of teaching styles for
when I have my own classroom at a high school. What I want students to gain from my
teaching is an understanding of how history leads up to the present, and why it is
important and relevant today. I would love to be a teacher because it would be so
rewarding to watch individuals grow as people and scholars.
When I was in high school, my Junior year I had a social studies teacher named
Mr. Jones, but I knew him as Coach Jones, I had him after lunch and only for the spring
semester. Coach Jones had a different teaching style compared to my other high school
teachers. He would implement a variety of teaching and learning styles; groups, pairs,
individual work, and then he would also incorporate the textbook, movies, primary
sources, and his own personal experience as well. Coach Jones made an impact on me
because previous to taking his class, I did not really know what I wanted to do with my
future career. My mom and step-dad are both in the Army so I was considering joining
the Army. I have always wanted to do something in public services like a police officer,
fire fighter, or any emergency response position. But after being in Coach Jones' class, I
decided then that I wanted to be a teacher because the way he taught made me want to
learn more about history. He made it so interesting and that is what kind of teacher I want
to be in the future.
Once I eventually have my own classroom, I want to give my students the best I
can. I have had experiences with teachers who are a struggle to keep up with for a
variety of reasons like they do not elaborate, they go too fast, or they do ineffective
assessments. This kind of teaching style is one I do not want to imitate. Some methods I
would employ for effective teaching and learning are demonstrating a variety of teaching
styles, for example: Opening up the Textbook (OUT), Structured Academic Controversy
(SAC), and Teaching a Disciplinary Skill (TDS). These all are effective at accomplishing
specific goals for any given topic. Other basic practices for effective teaching and
learning, is having an organized classroom that is a safe environment for students to feel
comfortable with sharing their opinion.
My teaching philosophy is that I want students to be able to make connections
with the past and present and see the importance of knowing history. History can repeat
itself and we have to learn from our mistakes. But also, history can help us understand
how we got up to this point with our civilization. I want my students to realize that
importance and apply it to their everyday lives. I also want students to become better
individuals in a variety of ways like improving skills like time management, but also
citizens as well with things like voting and their civic duties. I believe the history
classroom is where we prepare our students about the real world so we have to make
sure what we feed them is accurate and that is what I want to give them.