As I sit here at my kitchen table, looking out at the snow covered neighborhood, I feel a sense of disappointment (no- not just for the immense amounts of snow). I was so excited to get up early this morning and get ready to meet my practicum classroom of sixth graders. I suppose I can wait a couple hours until this late start goes by.
I can't help but think this is the day my career really begins. This is the first day I meet my real students and come face to face with their energy, enthusiasm, frustrations, and struggles. With this late start, it gives me the opportunity to sit here (with my coffee of course) and reflect on the last couple semesters and the incredible journey I am about to embark upon.
With the big ideas from class still bouncing around in my head, I keep thinking about formulating and putting down in writing my teaching beliefs and philosophies. What a better time than right now!
I am going to use this post to get all my ideas out there and then pick through the mess to find the gems, which will become my guiding beliefs.
First and foremost- I believe ALL students can learn. The big ideas I develop below will support this most important belief.
Relationships: I believe positive, trusting relationships in the classroom lead to academic risk-taking and improve students' feelings about their worth as individuals and their self-efficacy as learners.
Environment: I believe students learn best in a warm, homey environment where they feel loved and know they are respected. The environment is not one that is mine (the teacher) but ours. Students feel most at home in a classroom that reflects them and their classmates, where they feel they have some ownership and hold responsibilities to the rest of the classroom community.
Instruction: I believe students learn best when they are asked to complete projects and activities that are purposeful, have real world applications, and result in authentic products. Learning in the classroom should focus on deriving meaning from text.
Instruction: I believe students learn best when they are taught how to make academic choices and required to take gradual responsibility for their learning. For this to be true, I must provide ample time and space for inquiry, curiosity, and imagination.
Assessment: I believe I learn the most about my students when I engage in one-on-one conferences in the classroom. This conferencing serves as a means of formative assessment and allows me to plan future instruction which meets my students where they are and focus on what they know and can do.
Wow...as I look back at what I just wrote, I didn't expect it to come pouring out like it did. As I said above, I thought I was just going to write down some big ideas and try to sort through to find the gold. Well... I guess I had more solid beliefs than I thought. I know these six beliefs will be rewritten, revised, and ultimately change a great deal once I spend more time in the classroom. I can't help but feel a sense of amazement and pride that over the last three semesters I have learned and absorbed so much that I am able to sit here today, on the first real day of my life as a teacher, and spew out my beliefs so readily. I'm excited to see what my new sixth graders have in store for me. This will be quite the learning experience!
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