My philosophy of teaching 26 years into it

My philosophy of teaching

My philosophy of teaching begins on the premise of gratitude. I have been given a gift to share: the joy of encouraging learning in young people. I must unpack the gift and share the contents. Teaching is not about being liked or feared as much as it is about exercising a privilege. I believe in the process of struggling to make knowledge and skills of interest to my students. I teach so they may appreciate learning more than earning the grade. I teach not to earn a wage or to be a loyal member of the collective, but to be an honourable, gracious and giving mentor and teacher.

 

I believe teaching is about being fully present and engaged in the classroom. Presence has everything to do with inner composure and outer connectivity to the students. Personal engagement has two sides: the side of knowing the content well enough to let it go as a preoccupation and to let the moment dictate what to use and how. The other side is passion for the subject, emanating from me as part of what makes me tick.

 

I believe teaching is about accepting people. The behaviours are only symptoms of deeper soul issues. I consciously embrace patience, kindness, dialogue and fairness to all. Subconsciously, I limit these attitudes when I don’t see changed behaviours. Then I have to remind myself that a student’s life is conditioned by more complex things than my singular influence in my classroom. Accepting people means keeping the door of communication and care open day after day, week after week. The student must still be accountable for deadlines and quality of work, but I can make the hard calls like “It’s now too late to recover this grade” in a matter of fact way that sends the message “This is the end of the process and you have fallen short in spite of the opportunities for recovery given.”

 

I believe teaching is about the predictable and the element of surprise. Students gain security and can make measurable progress when certain aspects of the course don’t change, especially standards of evaluation and certain daily or weekly procedures that help them feel comfortable in the learning environment.  But I look for ways to incite interest through novelty and varying strategies. In my class the students cannot say for certain that they will be sitting where they were before, or that the lesson will unfold exactly as it did yesterday.

 

I believe in mastery learning. It is a waste of my time to give a percentage to a piece of work only to have the student ask “ Do I need to keep this?” once the mark is noted. No. There are usually things to work on to improve, try again, perfect and resubmit. Practice and perfect before settling on the final product. This approach makes assessing messy at times, overlapping old and new work, re-entering results a second or third time. But the message I want to convey is: “Your work is worthy of a process of betterment, and my feedback is worth taking into account for you to get to the next level of performance.”

 

Finally, I believe teaching is a work of the spirit. Pointing the way, as Buber would say, has to do with gaining enough of the students’ respect and trust to be able to suggest new ways of thinking about things, looking at other points of view, opening our minds up to the bigger questions of life, and the students are willing to go there with me.

 

In summary, I believe in and am committed to being and becoming a present, engaged, content prepared yet flexible, accepting yet holding to account, predictable yet fresh, a hound for the student’s best work, and an enlarger of the mind and spirit kind of teacher.

 

Sharing one's beliefs in the classroom

For fear of being accused of indoctrination, most teachers stay away from sharing personal religious beliefs in the classroom. So how may  we be true to who we are, be authentic, and still respect a plurality of views? Here are some thoughts based on my experience in public education:

1. On controversial issues, ask questions rather than make pronouncements. Yes, some of your questions will be biased according to your beliefs, but you are allowing for different opinions in response to your question at the same time.
2. Use instructional time for opening up topics for discussion and arbitrating respectful discussion. Then if a student wants your particular view on a controversial issue, you can invite students who wish to stay and keep discussing at lunch or after school. At that time, you may state your position while acknowledging that others have other deeply held positions.
3. Take the initiative to organize voluntary staff prayer, with administrative permission,  before hours, a faith group at lunch, or a "What's your point of view?" group after hours where students can express their opinions and hear students of faith express theirs as well.
4. Be confident in teaching prescriptively and by example the fundamental values we all hold to: honesty, care, respect, compassion, etc.
5. Treat all students as persons of ultimate worth, and this will speak volumes about the genuineness and compelling nature of your faith.

Assume independence or dependence?

It's a grade 12 class. There were two tasks to accomplish today. One was a quiz online. The other was preparation for a dramatic representation of a literary theme. Sadie and Chris chose to work on the drama first, then Chris left for a medical appointment and Sadie starting doing an art project, not something related to today's assignments in my class.
Everyone but Sadie was on task. I thought "she heard the same announcement as everyone else...I guess she's decided not to do the quiz. She must not be prepared." Then I caught myself. Is Sadie being difficult? No! Is she avoiding any task? No, since she and Chris had already done some planning for their drama. My subconscious belief "she's not interested" had to be challenged.
I sat down beside her and asked if she wanted to try the quiz. "What quiz?  was her response. I didn't know there was a quiz!" (Every Wednesday, like today, there's a quiz on the next few chapters of the novel, but I didn't go there). I just said: "Well, since you started in the reverse order with the drama ( what she and Chris were most interested in), perhaps you could try the quiz tomorrow." She agreed.
I'm glad I checked my assumptions.

Janet's Response to August 10 blog

I think, as Christians we are called to exhibit beliefs and values that is often outside of and in conflict with the "norms" of main-stream society. It is difficult to apply absolute standards and parameters to "human development", the "human experience" and the "life situations" that humans find themselves in.  It is important to note that it is GOD who is IN CONTROL and NOT US, and we are called to SERVE and NOT JUDGE.

Who knows why your student "presented" as he did during the school year?  You appear to be saying that his performance during the school year was "sub-standard" and he was deserving of the outcome (consequences) that had befallen him. I think you will find Biblical references which contradict this "behavioral science" (Skinner) approach. Perhaps this was an opportunity for growth on the part of this young student and of a "seasoned" teacher as you. I think, as a person of Faith, you’re called to “give opportunity” period .. no limits, and an agent of society, you’re expected to “respect deadlines”.  I hope that as I continue on in my teaching career, I can live with integrity by honoring my principles, values and beliefs in all that I do.

Giving every opportunity versus respecting deadlines

The following is the first incident of its kind in 27 years of teaching:

I received an email via my workplace email service from a grade 12 student from last semester on August 8th. He let me know that the scholarship money he was hoping to receive from the university he is about to attend was diminished due to a lower mark average than what he needed. He asked me if he could do some extra work this week to improve his average.

Note that during the semester:
1.  he often submitted assignments late.
2.  he did the minimum of what was required.
3.  he did not take much initiative to understand the assignments.

I let him know that I was not authorized to do this sort of thing and that he needed to talk to the school administrators.

This unusual request raises a question in my mind: have we so loosened the grip on deadlines that students feel they can work when they  want and without any reference to faulty work habits?

A case of abusing a learning disability

Gavin, a grade ten student, was not passing my course. I attended a meeting with the father, the administration, Gavin's other teachers and the Academic Resource teachers. We acknowledged his disability: his handwriting is almost illegible, he prefers to learn auditorily and he displays defiance to authority.

In the context of the meeting, he insisted that he would not write anything down, either with assistive technology. Was this adamant refusal due to a total lack of confidence in his note-taking skills, or was this a case of banking on his auditory skills to absorb enough information to pass the course? His other teachers told me he typically waited until the end of the course and produced just enough work to pass.

Toward the end of the semester in my course,  Gavin wrote some tests and the final exam. His final task portfolio which is heavily weighted in my course was brought to me after the deadline and its content was incomplete.

Twice he oppposed my requests of him in the classroom to the point where the Vice-Principal had to come and remove him. Once he pushed me to get into the classroom when I stood at the door with some catchup work for him to complete in the hall. At times he would get up and move around without permission, touching classmates or throwing objects.

As the teacher, I struggled between wanting to help Gavin and letting him suffer the consequences of his behaviours. I tried to stay open to seeing him succeed until the end of the course, though at times I felt it was not in his own best interest to receive the course credit. 

I did not really know until I added up the marks, including for all the work I had received late, whether he would get 50% or not. In the end, he was not successful. I believe this may help him to see that a disability cannot excuse incivility and last minute efforts.

Post-secondary jitters

I stood in the middle of the classroom this afternoon answering a stream of questions from my grade twelve students -all questions pertaining to marks:
-how did I weight this assignment?
-what assignments can be upgraded and resubmitted?
-how can they raise their average?

The question that stunned me, though I tried not to show it, was J's :
-is this mark entered in the gradebook as a portfolio assignment an assignment she should include in her portfolio?

The sheer redundancy of the question shocked me. Then I realized J is likely so stressed about marks for post-secondary opportunities she is unable to accept the obvious. She seems to believe that nothing is a given. All must be questioned. Is the education system ( and my teaching ) so Machiavellian our students cannot view results as anything but a guessing game?

But I've been good today!

I have an identified student in grade nine who struggles to focus. Today he decided to sit at the back instead of in the middle of the classroom. I said that he needed to be closer to the front. His response suggested he viewed moving up as some kind of punishment : "But I've been good back here!" I quickly pointed out that he was a good person, but that he would be able to focus better closer to the front.

How do we as teachers help teenagers when they fail to perceive "help" as a positive thing?