Teaching Philosophy example...

http://www.isd.uga.edu/teaching_assistant/philosophy/2003/Bennett/index.html

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wider universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.”
--"Self Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The teaching philosophy I chose to discuss opens with the above quotation by Emerson. I thought this was a very insightful and applicable quotation as to how a teacher functions. The author refers back to the quotation throughout her statement, picking it apart and pointing out how it applies.

As teaching philosophies go, I can't say I have a lot of knowledge thus far, but in the one above, I completely agree with the idea that we, as teachers, are "lifelong learners." We must put ourselves on the same level as the student, learning and accumulating knowledge everyday. When we stop learning, our minds become stagnant. We must continually be adding to our store of information, thereby stimulating our own minds so we can in turn stimulate the minds of our students.

I think it is also important to go back to your own learning experiences, as the author the philosophy discussed. What made you yourself excited about learning? What experience or experiences had the most impact on you and made you want to come back to class again the next day, just to see what would happen? In forming our own philosophies, it is very important to look back at those of others and how they have impacted our own lives and the ways we teach and learn. We can learn a lot from the experiences of others who have “been through it” before.

Lastly, moving back to the "lifelong learners" idea, I like the way the author shares her learning experience with her students. When they ask questions she doesn't know the answer to, instead of saying "Well, what do you think?” she goes and finds the answer and then tells them where and how she got it. This way, students not only learn the answers, but they also learn how to find answers themselves. This learning tool will come in handy throughout the students careers as they move on to research projects.

Basically, I like the never ending learning process we, as teachers, share with our students. I think it is important for them to know that the teacher does not know everything. He or she is there to not only guide the students in their learning experience, but to also acquire knowledge with them.