Professional Credo
Amanda Chamberlin
Manchester College
Abstract
The philosophies that I believe are the best to follow when becoming a teacher are progressivism and existentialism. I would follow how those philosophies would work to set up my classroom. This includes the way the children will sit together along with the different types of bulletin boards. I also believe that there are two individuals who influenced my decisions to become a teacher. With their influences, I decided that I wanted my teaching method to be similar to theirs.
Teaching is not teachable, to teach you must be an active and continuous learner. My motto on teaching is have fun teaching, because if you don’t children wont have fun learning. There are two different people, who I would like to mention, who have inspired me to teach. I would also like to talk about the philosophies that I would am going to teach by, and the type of environment that my classroom is going to have.
The thing I would like to begin with is the first person that I would consider to have inspired me to become a teacher. That would be my eighth grade language arts teacher. She always assigned us projects where we would have to teach the class new information. She would put into the rubric a section for creativity of presentation. What this meant was that she expected us to find new and different methods of teaching the information. After the very last presentation we had for the year, she made the comment to me that I would make a good kindergarten or first grade teacher because of the ways I always did my presentations. I thought that idea was pretty cool, but I put it on the back burner until recently. That’s what brings me to the next teacher; this is the person who has inspired me the most. That is Professor Stetzel of Manchester College, and I would have to say she is the one who has opened my eyes to teaching. The passion she has for teaching, and not just at the elementary level, is amazing. The conversations we had where we discussed teaching options for me and the path I should take, she helped me decide that teaching elementary education was the right path form me. That’s when I decided teaching children was going to be my passion.
The next thing to discuss is the philosophies that I plan to teach by. There are two different philosophies that I am planning to follow when I become a teacher. There are several things that I believe in, and would incorporate into my classroom. Starting out I would say that I believe that a classroom should be project oriented and I would be there to guide the students in my class. I feel that the curriculum should come from student’s needs and interests because I feel like this would help personal growth of the students. The major goal in my classroom would be to create an environment in which students can learn on about things that relate to them and their interests. This is the philosophy known as existentialism. “Existentialism philosophy focuses on the experiences of the individual. This offers the individual a way of thinking about my life and what is the meaning of “me.” This philosophy emphasizes creative choice, the subjectivity of human experiences, and concrete acts of human existence over any rational scheme for human nature. Existentialist’s ideal curriculum is one that provides students with extensive individual freedom and requires them to ask their own questions. This then leads them to conduct their own inquiries, and then to draw their own conclusions (Parkay, & Stanford, 2007).” The philosophy of existentialism only party describes the philosophy I will use when I am a teacher. The reasons why my teaching philosophy is partly existentialism is because I strongly believe in creative choice and how it helps express the individual. As a teacher, and with this philosophy, I could provide experiences to help my students find meaning in their lives. I feel, also, with this philosophy it could help students grow because it requires students to ask questions, conduct their own experiences, and draw their own conclusions.
There is another philosophy called progressivism. I feel that this is the other part to the philosophy I believe in and that I want to teach by. I believe that as I teacher I should create opportunities for the students to make choices and those choices should help shape what the students learn. Progressivism is based on the belief that education should be child-centered rather than content area. “Dewey progressivism is based on three general assumptions. The first is that the content of the curriculum ought to be derived from students’ interest and not from academic disciplines. The second is effective teaching takes into account the whole child and his/hers interests and needs in relation to cognitive, affective and psychomotor areas. The third and final one is learning is essentially active rather than passive (Parkay, & Stanford, 2007).” The reasons why I would say my teaching philosophy is partly progressivism is because in the classroom I would serve as a guide to learning, not just a figure in front of a podium spewing out knowledge that my students most likely will not retain as soon as the bell rings for lunch. I, as the teacher, would help students learn what is important to them. I also would set my classroom up in such a way that the students could work cooperatively in groups, having them identify problems that they find important and solve them.
Lastly, I believe that everyday in the classroom, teacher or student, is a learning experience and you will always have room to grow. Through out my entire career I would like to be able to say that I have learned from my students as much as they learned from me while they were in my class. The knowledge I gain from year to year will help me grow as a teacher and a person. To me being a teacher is much more than going to college, getting a degree, and eventually getting your teaching license. To me becoming a teacher is being able to help children learn retain information, and to do it in a way that leaves them craving more. There are several different methods that I would use to help achieve this goal in my classroom. The first thing is that I would have my kids set up into pods, with each pod having four to five kids in it. The kids would be grouped by their interests, so the learning environment is conducive to them. My classroom will never be lecture style, though I will try to compliment all learning styles. I will have different bulletin boards in my room with things that interest them and at the same time go along with the lessons that are being learned. I will also have a discipline system that gives out rewards with a behavior chart, and emphasizes that good behavior is ideal. Teaching to me is not only about pouring knowledge into kids’ brains, but to help them retain knowledge, and to have them walk away with a valuable life/learning experience.
In conclusion, my teaching methods are going to follow the philosophies of progressivism and existentialism, which are the methods that were used by two different teachers that have influenced me. I feel that these are the types of teaching environments that I would like to replicate.
References
Parkay, F. W. & Stanford, B. H. (2007). Becoming A Teacher. 7th edition. New York: Pearson.