Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy is influenced by what I saw in my family while I was growing up as a child. My mom has always been a passionate educator as well as my grandma. My mother's dream was to design and build a K-12 bilingual school in Colombia. She pursue her dreams with passion and consistency until one day there it was: Altamira International School (my mother's fourth baby). My mom, my inspiration and great leader, walked me through this amazing and fulfilling journey and now I become a teacher. 

As a teacher there are some values I tried to be practice and stay consistent with. Some of them are: love, respect, effort, trust, consistency, continuous learning, collaboration, and a sense of hope and believe that students will thrive. I see my students as humans capable of anything you want them to become. I believe students will respect you as a teacher if they know you love them and care for them. 

My goals as a teacher would be to practice what I preach, in other words; walk my talk. I want to be a teacher that steps of comfort zone, takes risks, learn from mistakes, never stops learning, and always leaves room for feedback, critique and reflections. Teaching for me is a never ending adventure for those willing to always learn and maintain a positive attitude and flexible mindset. My goals for my students 

In my classroom, I will create a community where everyone is welcome to come and join. No matter what their social background might be, everyone deserves to feel loved and respected. Students might come in being one person and walking out being someone completely different. Is has to be an environment where children are able to unlearn, relearn and open their hearts and minds to new, different and multiple ways of seeing life and others. Together, by setting classroom norms and routines, students will feel safe in an environment where judgement, critique and bullying are not allowed. 

Once we've set community and culture we feel connected with, it's time to open our doors to the learning to come and join us. According to my teaching methods as a teacher, I've tried lots of them through out my teaching journey. Some of them are: whole/small group instruction, flipped classroom/station rotation, cooperative learning/independent work, personalized learning/differentiation, etc. Nowadays, trying to move to a more innovative and disruptive way of teaching, we've tried a bit of constructivist approach, inquiry-based, and now PBL and deep learning. Every time we've tried a new teaching method, we must ask ourselves 'what's the purpose of doing so'? 'would this teaching method align with my core values as a teacher? 'how would this impact my students learning?' Honestly, I can't go back to traditional ways of teaching. The world needs students well-prepared for today's job skills and mindsets. School MUST meet the world-life needs and problems. If students are not transferring knowledge to real and new situations, what are we doing as teacher 8hrs a day from Monday till Friday? Every day our students walk in our classrooms goals must be clearly established, every single activity must have a meaningful purpose and we as teachers must be facilitators of learning to happen in the hearts and minds of every child. 

In conclusion, every year I try to give my students the best of me. I don't try to repeat what I've done last year because my students are not the same as those that were here last year. So, I try to stay updated in order to provide better teaching and learning experiences for my kids. I know that kids that step out of my room at the end of the year feel self-confident, well-prepared and strong to step into their next challenges (either next grade level or life). Last, I would think as myself as a mother (not yet) with 2-3 children. So I want to be an example of a teacher that I would love the own children to have. Children see us as their greatest inspirational leaders, heroes and would believe everything we tell them, would act or behave like us so my invitation for you today would be: watch your thoughts, feelings and behaviors cause you don't know who's watching and following your steps. School is a place where students should discover their deepest strengths and talents as a way to serve the world and make it a better place to live on. 

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