Philosophy of Teaching

I spent a good chunk of this morning applying for a faculty position at a local university. It sounds like a good job. I'd teach two sections of communication classes each semester, in the area of my choice (I'd love love love to teach interpersonal comm again, or public speaking! I've had enough of teaching writing for a while!). I'd also be responsible for the guidance of 175 students, helping them choose and register for classes, etc. I think this would be an interesting part of the job, I love working one-on-one with students.

So after I filled out all the boxes and attached all the documents I had to do one last thing: write a statement of my teaching philosophy. This should have been a simple task right? I've been teaching for almost ten years now. TEN YEARS. And that doesn't even include my time before that as a Sunday school teacher or a youth group leader. That's ten years of paid teaching in either an elementary school, middle school or college classroom. But I found out writing my philosophy out was a little difficult at first. And then I thought, wait. Just talk. Just write it like a blog. Just tell them what you're thinking. So I did. And I thought I'd share it with all of you too:

I believe a good teacher learns right along side of her students. I believe a good teacher tries new things, sometimes fails, learns from her mistakes, and tries again. I believe a good teacher encourages and pushes her students beyond what they thought they could do. I believe a good teacher does more than teach. She prods.

Students can learn a lot about the world from books. They can learn a lot about the world from the Internet. We now have teenagers going to virtual high school. We have college classes being taught to students on several different continents at once. However, what does not change is that the teacher has to continually prod. She has to engage her students. She has to ask the questions that aren’t on the pages of the book or on the website. She has to say, “Why?” and wait for the answer and then ask for a deeper explanation. She has to remember that Student X needs more encouragement than Student Y in getting assignments in on time but that Student Y needs to hear a few extra positive comments before she passes on the constructive criticism.

When I teach I am engaged in a dialogue, never a lecture. I love the back and forth between people, I love the idea that you can learn from another person or even just see something a new way. But most of all I enjoy the unfolding and discovering of what was there all along, of skills possessed and refined, of knowledge added to practice and what comes from that.

In the classroom my philosophy is simple: engage. Engage students’ minds, their mouths, and their hands. If I can do that, I can get them onto the path of learning. And to me, that’s the best end result I can hope for.