TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 1

Personal Teaching Philosophy

Chico State University Chico

Chloee Ironside

EDTE255, Dr. Teja

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My Philosophy

Every student has a unique way of thinking about and processing information. For information to

stick with a person, it has to be presented in a way that each mind can understand. A classroom should be

inclusive and supportive to all students, regardless of ethnicity, social status, skin color, gender, medical

condition, background, etc. Teachers have a job unlike any other in the world: they are tasked to teach

information to students that they’re supposed to carry with them throughout life to be successful.

Teachers shape the lives of every student they interact with, young or old. Without teachers, our world

wouldn’t look like it does today. I believe every student has an immeasurable amount of potential and

capacity to learn, given the right opportunity that best fits them.

I have been a student long enough to know what kind of teacher I don’t want to be, and I’ve also

been taught by teachers I hope to be like one day. A teacher’s philosophy is supposed to change with

experience, so I’ll share what I believe at the moment. I think my philosophy has aspects of

constructivism and progressivism, with a few touches of my experiences combined. I had to complete the

second semester of my sophomore year of high school through the home hospital program my school

offered. It was the best and worst thing that I’ve experienced; my health was the poorest it had ever been,

but I had to teach myself a lot of the material I was given. I could no longer depend on the classroom

setting designed for learning, and I’m sad to say that it took getting extremely sick to realize how vital

teachers are. The phrase, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone,” best describes the process I

went through as I completed my work. My mental health was also greatly affected because of the lack of

a classroom environment. While I wouldn’t change my experience, nor would I wish the type of pain I

experienced to be felt by anyone else, I decided I would do everything I could to ensure a learner doesn’t

feel the way I did. Helpless, scared, weak, anxious, and depressed simultaneously are just a few words I

would use to describe my emotions at the time. I believe no one should feel so negative about education,

and I will work hard to help students avoid the negativity.

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I understand I have set myself to a high standard, but the future of a student's academic career

will be in my hands, and it’s not something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. With that in mind, I believe I

would associate my philosophy with the ideas expressed in Constructivism and Progressivism.

Constructivism is a student-centered learning theory in which students are active participants in the act of

learning as they work alongside people and interact with objects to better their understanding of what is

happening around them. I think the best way to learn something is to experience it; that way, you can

make a personal connection to what you're attempting to learn. I can recall the information I was taught in

the classroom because I could use it in my daily conversation and the outside world; it didn’t only apply

to the classroom setting. The world is constantly evolving and changing. Students learn just as much from

the outside world as they do in the classroom, maybe even more. Students have to combine what they

already know with the new information, and then they have to reorganize and expand on their previous

knowledge. This process isn’t simple, and teachers need to guide students as they make discoveries about

the world themselves. We want to give students the best chance possible to survive in the outside world,

so our teaching must be the best it can be at all times.

I also think my philosophy aligns with some of the aspects of Progressivism, also known as

Pragmatism. I believe how this philosophy is reflected in the classroom, and my interpretation is different

from how it looked when Dewey was alive. I think students are now being tasked with more problem-

solving questions and assignments at an earlier age, which only prepares them even more as the questions

become more complex with age. I also think assigning projects allows them to express their creativity and

understanding through the work instead of picking or writing an answer on a test. Working on a project,

individual or group can be more time-consuming than a test, but projects can offer learning experiences a

test cannot. I mentioned it once, and I'll repeat it because I genuinely believe that humans retain

information the best when they experience it and make a personal connection to it. I think hands-on

experiences can be achieved in every subject area, and teachers must take advantage of them more often. I

remember being told to copy the definitions of words and recite them for a test several times throughout
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my academic career. While writing them down was helpful, it wasn’t enough for me to truly understand

the content. I could answer the questions correctly on a test because I memorized every word I wrote

down. If you asked me the same questions today, I couldn’t give you a confident answer; I could give you

an educated guess at best. I think about what I should’ve been asked to do instead, so I could understand

what I was taught. I don’t want to be the teacher with her students thinking about what their teacher

should’ve done. I want to be the teacher who has done her best for her students to understand the content.

I believe hands-on experience is the route I want to take to be that teacher.

As new knowledge is absorbed throughout the year, it is essential for students to demonstrate

what they have learned. However, I have mixed feelings about assessments. I understand their purpose,

but the weight of the word “test” makes me uncomfortable. I know the feeling students experience when

they hear the word test, and it’s always made me uneasy. Students stress themselves out to ensure they

perform their best on this one piece of paper because it determines whether they pass or fail. Now that

I’m learning how to become a teacher, I’m learning that an assessment is not only a reflection of a

student’s understanding but also a reflection of how well you have taught students the concept being

tested. What an assessment represents has recently changed for me, and I’m not sure what it will represent

when I finish school. I know that I want to change the feeling students experience when I one day say the

word test in my classroom. Learning more about teaching will allow me to explore this aspect further.