My Teaching Philosophy

In high school, I had a teacher who sought to do the best he could as a teacher; that included making sure students understood the material to the best of their ability, making class fun, interactive, and interesting, and also making sure students knew that he always had them in mind. This is what I believe good teaching to be. Yes, he was there for me as a mentor and a teacher, but he also showed that he cared about how I was feeling and what I was going through. 

I will be teaching math in the winter quarter and beyond. I will be taking over a Geometry Honors class that consists of 9th—10th-grade students. I also interact with two Algebra I periods that both include over 12 students with IEPs. Through teaching, I hope to improve students’ overall education and have a positive impact on their lives. This would include ensuring the material I teach reaches them in a way that makes the class enjoyable while prioritizing their understanding and ensuring their grades are reliable and valid. 

To do this, I would like to emphasize the importance of group work as it could be a way for students to interact with each other and develop bonds with their classmates so they don’t feel isolated. I would also like to implement grading practices that do not consider non-academic things such as behavior; this allows me to assess students in a way that fully focuses on their understanding and growth in the class. Furthermore, being lenient with homework and late work could go a long way with students struggling with issues outside of school while also cutting out things that do not assess their understanding of the material. Finally, I would like to emphasize that students can come to me with any (non)school-related issues or concerns; I would do my best to accommodate and validate their feelings while being there in times of crisis. This allows students to trust me and be comfortable in their class, knowing that I won’t judge them or think badly of them even if they aren’t performing as well.

Recently, I also realized the importance of validating students’ intersectional personalities and strategies to foster an equitable and emotionally vulnerable environment that supports them in being their open and honest selves. To do this, I want to make sure that I create safe and brave spaces, enforce statements of equity and inclusion, create structure in my classroom that both accommodate students’ needs and challenges inequitable practices, and encourage linguistic diversity. I also realize that I might come across taboo topics (even in a math classroom) and even -isms, or stereotypes formed from my peers, my students, and even my superiors. I don’t want to avoid these topics, so I would like to handle them professionally and in a timely manner based on the personalities of the people who are making these remarks. 

Regarding myself, I am constantly challenging the stereotypes and -isms I might hold. To do this, I am educating myself on identities that are foreign to me and ones that I would otherwise have no experience or understanding of. I want to encourage students to tell me if what I am doing is encouraging or supporting something that is offensive to them so I can reflect on my actions and avoid similar mistakes and statements in the future.

I am currently in what I believe to be the second stage of my growth as a teacher. I had a couple of experiences substituting, tutoring, and a little bit of teaching, but now I am learning directly from a mentor who is showing me strategies to use when I become a teacher in the future. Right now, I still struggle with having students open up to me in a way that allows them to feel comfortable with me. However, I had an experience on the 31st of August that showed signs of my own growth. A student known to ditch my mentor teacher’s class was present one day when I was there. She was behind on the material because of missing classes and showed signs of frustration. Furthermore, she does not have good experiences with teachers; the aid that we have in the class constantly harps on her instead of encouraging her and does this in front of all the other students. Luckily, that aid was not there that day, and I was able to spend some time with that student and her group. They were working on some classwork in groups, and she was able to point out something that her peers did not see. When I saw that, I positively reinforced that experience, and she was extremely overjoyed; I hadn’t ever seen that big of a smile on her. Though she normally does not participate in class, she started to participate a little more after that experience and now talks to me more. This inspired me and showed me the effect I can have on kids. However, a similar student shows complete uninterest in math in the next period. I try to get him engaged, but he doesn’t respond to me and even lies to me. This is where I am unsure of what to do, and this tells me that I still have a lot to learn, but I am not reluctant to keep pushing forward. Rather, I’m excited to see that there is more to learn and do for the students who need me. Ultimately, this is one step to becoming the educator I want to be. Yes, I have more to learn regarding how to teach students effectively, but focusing on students and how they feel is equally important.