Teaching Beliefs

"My role as a teacher includes my ability to educate children to be moral, critical thinking, active and contributing members of a global society. It’s true that children get socialized from birth and are initiated into a tradition, a specific way of thinking and acting. Education, on the other hand, requires critical distance from tradition, exposure to alternatives, informed and reflective deliberation about how to think and live. Yet, education is also a moral enterprise; teachers need to engage the hearts, minds, and hands of our children in forming their own characters, helping them to "know the good, love the good, and do the good", while living in a modern world characterized by a multiplicity of values, philosophies, and ideologies. " -Annesha Mohamed ​

I believe that by having a positive attitude and using encouragement in the classroom, students will succeed. It is my goal to develop life skills such as curiosity, critical thinking, and resiliency in all of my students by using many types of formative assessment along with a variety of differentiated instructional strategies.

I have many objectives that I would like to achieve in my teaching practice. I believe that the most important objective is to teach my students the skills that they will use for their entire lives, not just in the classroom. Some of these skills include respect, curiosity, resiliency, and patience. I will teach these life skills mainly through effective modelling, student inquiry while remaining true to the curriculum. Students who are introduced to these life skills early on, will find them valuable and useful for the rest of their lives. I also plan to relate explicit curriculum to personal experiences and the outside world, so that the students remember how what they are being taught apply to their everyday lives. Making students more aware of the community and world around them will foster their creativity, develop critical thinking skills, and enable them to better understand who they are and what influences helped them to form the perspectives that they have. I plan to use a wide variety of learning and teaching techniques to accommodate all personalities, foster critical thinking and perseverance, and develop a keen sense of curiosity in all of my students.

1. I believe that every child has the right to attend a school that provides them with a safe and caring environment. This is done best when there is not only a positive classroom but also a positive school community. As teachers, we are an integral part of creating this environment. We can do this by treating our students, our coworkers and our environment with respect.
2. I believe every child is a unique individual who learns in a different style and at a different rate than his or her peers. As teachers, it is our job to respect this by differentiating through content, process, product and environment. I believe that in order to do this effectively, the students need to understand that everyone has different needs and that not everyone will be treated equally; they will be treated fairly and with equity.
3. I believe that as teachers, we need to be prepared for every day. We can do this by having clear, thought-out lesson plans and strategies for effective classroom management. These plans should not be hidden but made clear to the students through the statement of classroom expectations along with the physical practice of them. We must follow through with our expectations in order to gain trust and respect from our students.
4. I believe that we should take a more humanistic approach to teaching. This will allow our students to see us as people too, which will also allow them to relate to us. However, we need to remain professional and know where to draw the line.
5. I believe that we guide children towards maturity through the curriculum. The curriculum is an important part of teaching but remembering that our students are humans with basic needs is equally important. They will have difficulties learning if they are preoccupied with stress. When they are involved in a classroom community where we the teachers have their best interests in mind, they will be able to grow academically. Learning seems to have negative and stressful connotations attached to it. By making our lessons fun and inquiry based, we can help combat these associations.