Philosopy of Teaching

We have an assignment due in my Intro to EI/ECSE class today. We have to write our philosophy of teaching. We weren't given any guidelines. In fact, none of my assignments so far have had any guidelines, except for amount of pages. My philosophy of teaching is to be a page or less, double spaced. This is my first draft. My instructor will look it over, make comments, and I will use those comments to rework my philosophy and turn it in to another instructor in another class. The idea is that by the time I'm finished with the licensure program, I will have a lengthy philosophy of teaching that is succint and solid. So, here it is folks, Delphi's current short but sweet philosophy of teaching:

Learning is a continual process of which every human being is capable. Everyone acquires skills and knowledge at different paces. No one pace is correct. The pace is correct only to that individual, as one must master a certain set of skills before moving on to the next.

As a teacher, I hope to foster a lifelong love of learning in my students. Therefore, it is my duty to help the students in the mastery of each set of skills, determined by their pace. If I require that a student who is learning at a slower pace learn at the pace of her peers, she may lose self esteem and any desire to continue to learn. Conversely, if I require that a student who has mastered a set of skills to continue to practice those skills without building on them while his peers reach the same level of mastery, the student may lose his desire to learn because of boredom.

In order to attain such goals, it is important that a teacher form a partnership with parents. Parents are a child’s first teachers. As such, they have a wealth of information about the student’s strengths and learning needs. I believe that supporting a parent’s role as the first and continuing teacher and advocate for their child is vitally important to the success of a child’s learning. If a parent does not get that support and their interest in their child’s learning is lost, the child’s own desire to learn may be wasted.