Philosophy

My ideas about teaching come out of my ideas about learning, for teaching is primarily the act of facilitating learning. Learning is a natural process, and for true learning to take place it is essential that the classroom not be turned onto an unnatural environment. By its very nature, however, the classroom is an artificial setting. In the traditional classroom the teacher stands at the front of the class while students sit in rows. The focus is on the teacher – the teacher is the leader and the center of the classroom. If learning is about the students, clearly the teacher must not be the focal point. For true learning to take place, the class – the students - must be the focal point. Switching the focus to the class is quite straightforward: make sure that most of the time is spent with students working with each other, seated in a circle or in small groups.

Learning in the classroom should take place in much the same way it does outside of the classroom – through experiences from which students can learn naturally and effortlessly. This means getting away from lectures and exercises and rote learning and moving towards genuine and meaningful engagement with material and information. It means doing, in much the same way we ‘do’ outside in the real world. In foreign language it means using the language to communicate; in science it means experimenting; in math it means solving real-world problems; in social studies it means looking at what is happening in the world and trying to understand it; in language arts it mean reading and writing and discussing. Classroom activities, as well as work outside of the classroom, must be as genuine and meaningful as reasonably possible. The teacher must endeavor to create situations where students are confronting problems and issues they can relate to, regardless of the subject. Content should be relevant to the student's life: understandable; meaningful; applicable; interesting; compelling.

Students are more engaged and learn much more when they are working with their peers, whether in class or out. Learning is a social activity, and while individual work is essential, the opportunity to work in groups, to share ideas, brings about better results.

Assessment is an ongoing process: the teacher is constantly observing the students’ progress. A good teacher knows exactly where a student is at all times, and need not rely on tests. Formal assessment should be genuine, i.e. to the extent possible it should reflect the way things work in the real world. The teacher should be assessing the level of mastery of the subject and not the memorization and recall of facts.

While assessment is important to help understand the student’s progress, grades are not. I do not grade assignments in the traditional sense, by assigning a number or letter grade. I make corrections and suggestions and give feedback; the student can thereby easily see how well s/he understands the material. I do not compare students to each other. I do expect my students to achieve their full potential.

I believe that high expectations are an important aspect of teacher attitude toward students. A belief that students can and will perform at a certain level leads to just such performance. There is no student who cannot learn.

Schools should have a curriculum that exists above all of the academic courses; a clearly-defined set of tools and skills that they believe students should leave the school having mastered. Only in that way can the program achieve a sense of unity and purpose that can take it to a higher level.