My Teaching Philosophy: Beliefs and Personal Experience

Developing a personal teaching philosophy is essential to defining the way an educator shapes the minds of their students. My teaching philosophy essay reflects my belief that the role of education extends far beyond the transmission of information. Inspired by Romanticism, I uphold the idea that education should ignite a passion for learning within students, fostering an environment where curiosity thrives and a genuine love for knowledge is cultivated.

Teachers all vary in their personal philosophy of teaching. When I took the Philosophy for Education test, I agreed with the Romanticism philosophies. I believe that the emphasis of learning should be focused primarily on the students. The classroom should be a positive learning environment for the kids to come to every day. The students should have a love for learning and their teacher as well. Education serves a purpose to make the students strong in all aspects of themselves, not just their minds. They should also be taught to have good morals to be successful. I also relate to the Essentialism philosophies of education. I believe that students must learn important content knowledge. I also think teaching strategies that have been proven to work should be used by teachers. I also think that parts of the progressivism philosophy is valuable as well. Students should learn though experience and learning to work with one another. I also believe Constructivism is important in the classroom. Teachers shouldn’t just look at the students to be filled with their information that they have for them; instead, teachers need to create learning situations for students to build their own knowledge.

I have the beliefs that I do from my personal experiences. In school, I always loved the teachers that I was able to connect with and I learned so much from them. It is so much easier to learn in a positive learning environment where you want to learn and engage in the classroom. I also had the wonderful opportunity to intern for a kindergarten teacher my senior year of high school. A lot of my teaching philosophies that I believe was how she ran her classroom. She ran a very efficient classroom and made sure the students were learning a lot. The kids loved her and were excited to be there every day.

I will transfer my beliefs into actions by having a positive relationship with all of my students. I will make sure my classroom is a positive learning environment and the needs of my students’ are met. I will teach my students to have good morals and to be good students. I will use effective teaching strategies to make sure my students are learning what they need to be. I will have my students work in groups sometimes to help them understand the importance of working together. I will let them discover things on their own. I will create situations where my students can build their own knowledge and not just have everything taught to them. I believe these are some of the most important things to have to make a teacher and the students successful as a whole.

In sum, my philosophy of education as a teacher is described in this essay. My teaching philosophy, as seen from the essay, is based on my beliefs and personal experiences.

Works Cited

1. Dewey, J. (2014). Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. The Floating Press.
2. Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Bloomsbury Publishing.
3. Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a Theory of Instruction. Harvard University Press.
4. Nel Noddings. (2012). Philosophy of Education. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from [URL]
5. Palmer, P. J. (2007). The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life. John Wiley & Sons.
6. Kumashiro, K. (2009). Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning toward Social Justice. Routledge.
7. Apple, M. W. (2000). Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age. Routledge.
8. Eisner, E. W. (2002). The Educational Imagination: On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs. Merrill/Prentice Hall.
9. Shor, I. (1996). When Students Have Power: Negotiating Authority in a Critical Pedagogy. University of Chicago Press.
10. Freire, P., & Macedo, D. (2018). Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. Routledge.

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