Philosophy of Teaching and Learning Haley Kocefas 1

From the moment I decided to pursue a career in education, I have had many

enriching opportunities to reflect on what my values are as a teacher. My core belief is that

teaching should focus on social emotional learning and empathy in order to cultivate a

positive classroom environment and encourage student success. In addition to

incorporating passion and social emotional learning in my future classroom, I think that

part of building a positive classroom environment includes normalizing diversity in race,

ethnicity, gender identity, sexuality, ability, and social class to cater to all students and

embrace our differences in order to treat one another with compassion and respect.

Overall, I believe in creating a classroom environment that encourages inclusion,

self-expression and reflection, and allows all students to feel fully supported by myself and

one another.

In order to be able to cultivate this culture of care in my classroom, I have spent a

significant amount of time identifying and contemplating my own biases and lenses that I

bring to the table. I think that this work has been instrumental in learning how to check my

biases, whether explicit or implicit, and how to further my understanding of how to be an

actively inclusive and anti-racist educator. That being said, I think that reflecting on my

identities and experiences have helped me to see the value in self-reflection and how

students can benefit from self-reflection, as well, in order to be successful academically and

personally.

To accomplish my goals of supporting social emotional learning and empathy to

create a safe, collaborative classroom environment, I think that establishing from the first

day of class that I am there to support my students in all aspects is crucial. Daily check-ins

and personal conferencing with students can be very helpful to assess the climate of the
Philosophy of Teaching and Learning Haley Kocefas 2

room and see which students may need extra support. I also plan to create a gratitude wall

within my classroom to teach the importance of expressing appreciation and kindness for

one another, whether that means giving a peer a compliment or thanking someone for help

on an assignment.

Part of creating a positive classroom environment comes from demonstrating to my

students that I can be an attentive, respectful listener. Another part that I believe should be

incorporated is representing people from many identities and backgrounds. This can be

accomplished through careful lesson planning, and even classroom decoration in order to

show students the importance of understanding and respecting other people who may hold

different identities than them, which can help to make the point about the connection

between language and culture. For example, to show allyship for the LGBTQ+ community

and provide representation for those who do not conform to the gender binary, displaying a

poster of the recent Vogue México cover of the Muxes (those who identify with a third

gender in southern México) in my classroom can help provide visual representation, which

also serves as a resource in guiding a lesson, perhaps with vocabulary units on clothing or

when talking about articles.

In conclusion, my approach to teaching involves cultivating a positive classroom

environment through techniques rooted in inclusion, social emotional learning, and

expressing gratitude. I believe that students should feel safe and supported by their peers,

as well as their teacher, so my goal is to do everything possible to make that happen. While

ultimately I am a world language teacher, I feel that teaching students comes first and

foremost before the content of the class itself.