Teaching Portfolio:

INTRODUCTION

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

THE ORIGIN:

My career as a teacher began about a year ago, but I have been a teacher for far longer. My first experience with teaching was nothing close to formal and had occurred for reasons that were entirely selfish. I was a barista at a small cafe and I did not want to work my Saturday afternoon shift. It was a Thursday night in a college town and summer had driven away all of our usual evening patrons. In addition to this, we had one server too many for the amount of customers that had dwindled in, and by this I mean we had no customers, so we did not need the single server that had remained when the rest left for the night. I pulled the lone server aside as he was leaving and asked, “How’d you like to cross train and pick up some extra shifts.” The words extra shift echoed oh so beautifully in the server’s ears, as he agreed to learn the art of milk steaming and pour over brewing.

After a couple of hours, the server I came to know as my very first student became trained, well enough, in the process of making coffee. He was no professional, but with hard work he would one day be astonishing. This server had been originally very nervous about learning to be a barista, but getting someone to work in my place was very important to me. I urged him to learn, explaining that it never hurt to try something new, and it turns out my server companion was quick to learn how to perform the essentials. He soon came to love making coffee and was grateful I helped him to conquer his fears. My shift was covered for Saturday afternoon and I felt like a well accomplished restaurant employee, but something unexpected happened on that long summer night. I came to realize my true calling in life: to teach.

THE STUDENT COMES FIRST:

Though the original intent of cross training the server was for my own benefit, it felt very rewarding to know my student felt so empowered by their new skill. I wanted to be able to do this on a wider scale, so after much consideration, I began to walk down the long and rigorous road that will one day lead to me becoming a certified teacher. I wanted to be able to replicate what I did that night in the restaurant, but with many students, and for a reason that goes beyond getting a shift covered. I wanted to learn how to be the kind of teacher who put the student’s interest before their own and strived to make sure my students felt the same rewarding feeling my server friend felt when he faced his fears and learned a new skill.

I believe that no matter the subject, and no matter the difficulty, the student always comes first when dealing with matters of the classroom. In addition to this, I believe in order to put the student first, a teacher must become well acclimated to the classroom material. This can be difficult for a new teacher, but with proper preparation anything is possible! David Elkind notes, in his article about educational philosophy, “...teaching is, as yet, more art than profession. Professional training implies a body of knowledge and skills that are unique and that can be acquired only through prescribed course of study. It is not clear that such a body of knowledge and skills exists for education” (Elkind, 2004, 51). Though art is often based on self expression, occasionally an artist will create on behalf of someone else, whether they are a paying customer or a close friend. Only artists who truly know their art are commissioned to create masterpieces, and as teachers we must strive to be these kinds of artists. Our lessons will be our paint, our students the canvas, and by the end of each school year, we will have created hundreds of walking, talking, magnum opuses.

CONCLUSION:

Just as art is not always easy to create, sometimes putting the student first is not an easy task. Students are people, just like you and I, which means they are all unique in their learning style. Some students strive during lectures, while others lose interest very fast. Part of a teacher’s job is to understand what their students need, as a collective. In college, I had the same teacher for two different English classes. One of these classes consisted of students who were very willing to discuss, while the other was very quiet and preferred written assignments and lecturing, for the most part. I learned a great deal in both of these classes, but I could tell my professor was put off by the class that did not want to discuss. Though he would have rather had the class be more discussion based, he chose to teach us in a way that best suited his students.

As an aspiring teacher, I am inspired by this selflessness. My college professor, who had to grade all of our ten to fifteen page essays and was plagued with our utter silence, took extra time out of his day to plan a lecture for a class that was meant to be a discussion. It has been said, “Only when we successfully match children’s ability levels… can we expect them to reconstruct the knowledge we would like them to acquire” (Elkind, 2004, 51). Knowing what the students need to be successful should be a top priority in the classroom. If our students are not actually learning, they will not be properly equipped with the knowledge they need to succeed in other classes of the same nature. Teaching students in a way they will understand, solidifying facts, and checking for understanding before building on prior knowledge is the most effective way to teach. Though I have made a few mistakes here and there in my first year as a teacher, one thing is certain: I will always make sure the student comes first.

-Ashley Nuckols, 2018