The school of education at Seattle Pacific University has very specific standards that students in the education majors should be able to meet by graduation. The course “Introduction to Education” is a student’s first step into the world of education. Students are expected to gain knowledge about different teaching styles, lesson planning, and who they believe they will be as educators. During this course students are expected to learn about the school standards and the state standards for becoming an educator. These are called the HOPE standards. Throughout this course I feel as though I have constructed a better understanding about teaching in general and my own teaching philosophy.
In one of our required texts it states that “your beliefs and predispositions about teaching have a profound impact on how you teach and what you teach, just as your beliefs and predispositions about living have a profound impact on how you live your life” (D. J., & Loomis, K. S., 2006.) This is part of the basis of what we learned about in class. We have to be able to understand our views on teaching in order to know how we will teach. Through this text and in class discussion I discovered that there are different teaching philosophies, the same way that there are different philosophies about life. The philosophy that I most identify with is Progressivism. I hope to be very focused on teaching the whole child. I want to teach first or second grade, so besides teaching my students to be good readers and writers, I also want to help them to become better people. I am already taking practice with this when I babysit and tutor.
One of my favorite things to do with the kids that I babysit is read them stories, I try to choose stories that have important lessons in them. This is beneficial to them because not only are they gaining more vocabulary words, they are also learning important life lessons about being nice to others, sharing, and cleaning up. After we read I talk to the kids about what the characters learned at the end of the story and what that means in their lives. Teaching children is about so much more than just getting them onto the next grade. We want to help develop good people. I have less freedom to do these things when I tutor but I take time to talk to the kids about their lives and just be a good role model for these kids who might not have any good role models in their lives. Part of being a good teacher is being a good person.
Another part of being a good teacher is having the ability to plan lesson plans that are organized and aligned to content standards. The text states that lesson planning “forces you to reflect on what you want to accomplish in each class and how best to do so. Planning helps you control how class time is used and, as a result of reflection, use that time as productively as possible.” (Center for Excellence in Teaching, 1999.) During this course we have had time to practice making objectives that are aligned to state standards. This will help me in the future because I now have more experience in writing lesson plans. Writing lesson plans involves knowledge of the state standards and the HOPE standards designed by our university.
During the course of this class we have gone over the HOPE standards and talked about how to relate them to our course work and eventually relate them to the work we do in the classroom. In class we learned about the hope standard O1 which is to Offer and Organize curriculum aligned to standards and outcomes. We showed this through our course work as we practiced writing objectives with the state standards. Now that I am almost finished with this course I feel more prepared in working with the HOPE standards and I hope that they will make me a better teacher. The main goal of this class is to introduce my classmates and I into the world of teaching. It is the first step to becoming the great teacher I hope to be in the future.
Martin, D.J., & Loomis, K.S. (2006). Building teachers: A Constructivist approach to introducing education. Independence, KY: Wadsworth Publishing.
Center for Excellence in Teaching (1999). Teaching Nuggets. Los Angeles: University of Southern California.
Ms. Jena Machin 