Teaching Philosophy Ryan John

Revised 2012
Introduction As a sophomore in high school, I was well into my development as an individual, a student, and a member of American society. I was not expecting anything out of the ordinary from the American Literature course I was registered to take, though I was a little nervous because it was the first honors section of a class I had ever taken and I was going to have a teacher who was new to the school. The first day of class, I filed in with the rest of the group and sat at one of the desks positioned in a large circle around the room. After the usual introductions from the new teacher, he asked us to take out a piece of paper and a pen. He wanted us to write down our answer to the question What does it mean to be an American? We all sort of rolled our eyes as we thought about the obvious answers: being born here, passing citizenship tests. As we read our answers aloud, the teacher started his yearlong trend of playing devils advocate to nearly everything we said. He taught us to question everything we thought we believed and provided us with the information to support our ideas; that is, unless his questions had already led us to completely reconsider those ideas. Over the course of the year, we read literature full of excruciatingly difficult moral dilemmas and scathing social commentaries, discussing the issues in depth and with a view

John 2 of the world that was wider and more comprehensive than I had ever imagined possible. We tied Arthur Millers The Crucible and the theories surrounding the Salem witch trials to our science classes with an in depth study of ergot poisoning. We applied our individual, angst-ridden teenage love lives to Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter and Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby. Nothing was more enjoyable than hearing each persons wildly bitter poem in the style of Salingers character Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. We lived those stories. We understood them and how they applied to us. We knew why they were important. They helped us develop a sense of self and how each of us fit into the world. Everything in that class mattered, and in turn so did we. Make it Matter Bernice McCarthy quotes Elliot Eisner as saying There are multiple ways in which the world can be knownknowledge is made, not simply discoveredthe forms through which humans represent their conceptions of the world have a major influence on what they are able to say about it (McCarthy 109). McCarthy also cites John Dewey as she describes his beliefs in the importance of human experience as the gateway to understanding (McCarthy 39). Simpson, Jackson, and Aycock write that our students have had experiences that have helped make them beautifully different, more insightful, reflective, and whole (Simpson 20). Joan Wink believes, Critical pedagogy encourages us to find the magic of personal discovery based on our own lived experiences (Wink 67). My philosophy of teaching is heavily influenced by John Dewey and the tenets of Critical Pedagogy. Teaching must integrate the life experiences of students into the material to help them discover a sense of self and a comprehensive view of the world as it relates to them as individuals. In short: make it matter. Make everything you teach important to your students

John 3 by connecting it to their lives and showing them why it is important along with how it can help them in their actions, attitudes, decisions, and development. Learning is experiencing, connecting, reflecting, naming, acting, evaluating, and integrating. Never forget it is all of those thingsconnect the essence of your content to your students (McCarthy 19). If learning entails all of these things, then teaching must provide opportunities for each of these concepts to take place and to connect content to students. McCarthy provides a way to do this with her 4MAT system, a system following a cycle of learning that includes the various types of learners she designates. McCarthys system is an excellent way to target the vital aspects of education, but the idea that has influenced my philosophy the most is the idea of inclusion. Simpson, Jackson, and Aycock support the need for comprehensive inclusion: If we are going to positively influence children and youth as maturing, whole people, we will be called on to touch more than their intellectual development; for example, we will need to give attention to their social, emotional, ethical, and physical growth (Simpson 4). Teachers must have complex understandings and multiple perspectives in order to appeal to and positively influence the wide array of students they will encounter over their careers (Wink 33). It is the responsibility of the teacher to help every student feel valid and useful in the classroom environment by developing a cohesive sense of community in the classroom. My sophomore American literature teacher arranged the desks in his room in a circle to encourage group discussion and face-to-face dialogues between everyone in the class. He never shut anyone down when they earnestly contributed to discussions if their comments were out of place. Instead, he asked them to explain further or he guided the rest of the class to see where the individual was coming from. Wink discusses functional,

John 4 academic, workplace, information, constructive, emergent, cultural, and critical literacies that can affect how students learn and understand the world (Wink 47). Teachers must take the literacies of their students into account along with the rest of the characteristics that make students unique in order to best serve their educational needs. This ties into McCarthys ideas of the importance of left-brain and right-brain based activities to appeal to various learning types. Wink also discusses the idea of marginalization and its detrimental effects on students (Wink 55). No student should ever feel marginalized, left out, or discriminated against in a healthy learning environment. Teachers must accept and support students for who they are mentally, emotionally, socially, and physically and for who they have the potential to become. By acknowledging and accepting students as they are with the intention of helping them achieve their personal potential, teachers are further enabled to make material matter to their students. By helping students see the connections between themselves and the material covered, teachers can help students develop a sense of self. It is important for teachers to acknowledge and support students individuality and life experiences not only to build confidence, but this support, coupled with the connections made between material, helps students understand who they are based on their experiences. Conveying students worth to you as their teacher is essential to helping them feel a sense of worth; honor them as individuals and let them know how much you care about them. Make time to talk to students and get to know them as human beings. By acknowledging individuality, creating connections between concepts covered in the curriculum, and caring for students as valued human beings, teachers give validity to students sense of self and help them to understand what their role in society can be. By making material matter to students, you make the

John 5 students matter. By making students know their worth to you as their teacher, you make the students matter. By helping them see the importance of concepts covered in class, they can, by the transitive property, see their own importance in society and the global community. The Transitive Property Simpson, Jackson, and Aycock write, Students need to develop a view of life that helps them get beyond personal interests and consider the interests of others, including their schools, communities, nation, and world (Simpson 21). When teachers shape their lessons to include and value the unique individuals in a class by making the material applicable to the students lives, students will not only appreciate and understand the material better, they will value themselves more highly as individuals. If students can understand their own importance as individuals by observing the way material is presented in a comprehensive and inclusive manner, they can transfer that knowledge of importance to themselves and their peers as members of society. Teaching must give students the capacity to apply the knowledge they gain in certain aspects of their lives to other parts of their lives; thus, the transitive property. Following Dewey, we will want to create situations and opportunities in which students are able to move beyond both information and knowledge to using their understanding for the betterment of school and their communities (Simpson 53). By experiencing a strong sense of community in a classroom, students will want to find that sense of community elsewhere in their lives. Dewey writes, the business of the educator whether parent or teacheris to see to it that the greatest possible number of ideas acquired by children and youth are acquired in such a vital way that they become moving

John 6 ideas, motive-forces in the guidance of conduct (Simpson 105). If teachers see to it that students understand the idea of connection and community, students will transfer that desire to achieve the same sense of community found between themselves and the material, each other, and the classroom to other parts of their lives. Students will work to achieve it in their schools, homes, neighborhoods, and the world. Explaining the duty of educational facilities to help foster community, Dewey states, for unless the agencies which form the mind and morals of the community can prevent the operation of those forces which are always making for a division of interests, class and sectional ideas and feelings will become dominant, and our democracy will fall to pieces (Simpson 101).

Teachers should help students see the connections between the material they are covering and how it connects each student to a much larger world. By seeing these connections, students will more easily be able to understand the connections between themselves and people from different classes and sections, thus reducing division of interest. The reduction of division of interest can lead to great transformation among communities and societies. Wink discusses the evolution of American society when she writes, Our society is becoming more vibrant, more enriched, and more exciting. It represents more of us. This traditional monovoice is transforming itself into a new multivoice (Wink 60). McCarthy ties this idea of transformative teaching and into the ideas of Dewey: John Dewey maintained that if learning is real, it will create purpose and direction. That direction will lead to change, and then to transformation (McCarthy 39). As a teacher, I have found that the one of the most effective and transformative

John 7 ways to make learning real to students is to connect with them on a personal, human level. Talk with them between classes. Allow for time to share during class, see how they are doing in life. Checking in with students and getting to know them as individuals proved the key to success during my student teaching experience. Learning each childs name, discussing their life experiences, and constantly providing a friendly space for them to learn allowed for me to have one of the most incredible experiences of my life during my semester of student teaching. In addition to helping students learn, teachers have the potential to be support for the constant struggles and triumphs in students lives. While finding a balance between appropriate advice and helping students find support through guidance services is essential, one of the most effective ways to help students value course content and develop a sense of self-worth is by constantly showing your personal support for them as developing human beings. Teachers have a duty to empower their students, to help them develop a sense of self, to understand that they are part of a global community, and to let them know that they can make a difference. All of this can be done by making content matter to students, valuing them as individuals, and helping them see their connection to the world, thereby making students matter to themselves and to each other while encouraging them to take charge of their lives and become contributing members of society. Conclusion My sophomore American literature changed my entire view of the world by opening up new realms of understanding and analysis. My teacher helped our class discover a myriad of world-views with activities like a feminist, Marxist, Freudian, and

John 8 existentialist analysis of The Scarlet Letter. He helped us see the validity in each of those approaches, and thereby enabling us to apply those views to our own lives and help us better understand ourselves. I never looked at any situation again with the same narrow understanding of the world. That class empowered me to be who I am by helping me understand that I am a unique and valid individual with an enormous capacity for change in the world. Any number of criticisms we looked at for works we read helped us understand the varying opinions that swirl around not only the literary world, but the world in general. We learned to decipher which opinions we agreed with and which we did not, but we understood the importance of variety and individuality. We applied those values of variety and individuality to our lives outside of English class and many of the students in that class ended up starting organizations at school such as an environmental action league, a diversity club, and a global citizens club during our junior and senior years. I remember telling one of my sophomore friends at the beginning of my junior year that American literature would change her entire outlook on life. She returned to me at the end of the year and assured me that it had. Teaching cannot simply be the delivery of information. Teaching must make information matter to students. It must solidify the value of every student to the teacher. It must provide students with a sense of individuality and validity. It must draw connections between students and the world around them. It must empower students to make a difference in their communities by connecting themselves to the world the same way teachers connect the material to their students. Make it matter.

John 9 Works Cited McCarthy, Bernice. 4Mat About Teaching; Format in the Classroom. Belmont: About Learning Inc, 2000. Simpson, Douglas J., Michael J.B. Jackson, Judy C. Aycock. John Dewey and the art of teaching toward reflective and imaginative practice. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, 2005. Wink, Joan. Critical pedagogy notes from the real world. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon, 2005.