I have worked in Special Education for three years and I see how my teaching philosophy has changed significantly from the time that I started to the present day. Nowadays, my teaching philosophy is rooted in Essentialism; which oftentimes makes me feel like the old biddy who has been teaching since Dinosaurs roamed the Earth. I want to help my students as they grow and become bigger and better humans, A.K.A adults. How do I plan on doing this? I ask myself that a lot, as I currently work in a High School and that experience tends to have me questioning myself every day, but the constant questioning makes for good reflection. I plan on helping my students become the best versions of themselves by 1.) Setting class norms, 2.) Encouraging the students to think reflectively by giving me feedback via Google Forms every three-five weeks, and 3.) By holding strong to the class norms, my morals, and my principles and never retreating to my comfort zone.
Students of all ages need structure, they crave it in order to succeed. They'll probably never tell you that, as structure means rules and holding students accountable to those rules. However, they need to have structure in the classroom, or else they likely will not succeed. I have seen this time and time again in classrooms where the teacher allows the students to do anything and everything, including texting, watching movies, throwing things, talking, yelling, and other general teenage antics. The teacher states: "Their grade reflects what they do in my class. Natural consequences." However, the teacher doesn't think about the chaos and how it affects the students who are still trying to learn in that chaotic environment. There's a lot of temptation to stray from the learning and join the rest of them because can you even learn in that environment? There's also a lot of frustration because maybe those kids need to do well in that class, it's a high-stakes situation, and yet they're being put in a situation where they can't even hear the teacher teach. I want to get as far away from that environment as possible, I want my classroom to have structure, I want my classroom to have norms, and I want to restate my most popular norms every day when I walk in and the rest as needed. If we leave the classroom, you have to set norms for how your class will behave in the halls and the destination that your class is going to. You also have to set consequences for if they break these norms, some of these consequences can be the following:
- 1st Offense: Ask the student "What is going to happen if you break our class norms again?"
- 2nd Offense: Have the student complete the task that he/she said they would do if they broke them again.
- 3rd Offense: Have a meeting with the student and his guardian to discuss the matter of the student not following the class norms.
I also want students to take control and realize that the education that they're receiving is for them. They deserve to have a say as long as they can remain respectful in their reflections. I would like to have my students fill out a reflection, which I will assign to them via a Google Form, in this reflection they will basically fill out a "Student Opinion Survey" on how I can teach them better. I feel inclined to do this as I hear from kids every day, "I never understand what Ms. Jones is talking about because she talks too fast." To which I ask the student, "Why don't you tell her?" The student then stares at me like that's such a rude thing to do, but then I explain to them, "As long as you are respectful about it, which I know you are so capable of, it's not rude. It actually helps her become a better teacher! If she teaches too fast for you, then she might teach too fast for two or three other people in that classroom!" Those interactions have shown me that students need to feel empowered that they can take control of their education and therefore create better teachers as an effect of that. It's a win-win situation as long as you teach students to do it respectfully. If they can't do it respectfully, then they would obviously receive consequences for their actions.
As a final point, I have a tendency to retreat back to my comfort zone of just being a quiet, friendly person. This quiet, friendly person could let you slip right through the previously built structure and not uphold the Class Norms at all. In the past, I always tried to metaphorically kill the quiet, friendly version of myself and make myself into one of the teachers I looked up to. It wasn't until recently that I realized how horrible it was that I was trying to get rid of a piece of myself, just because it didn't go well with what I desired in my classroom, and then I was trying to replace all of that by emulating someone else. Instead, I should've been making notes of what I could do in order to not retreat back to my comfort zone. My comfort zone as a person with intense childhood trauma is to not upset anyone, so I don't always enforce the rules very well. I know now that that is my comfort zone. I still need to develop steps for how to not retreat back to that comfort zone. I think a good first step would be to restate the classroom norms as often as needed, follow through with the consequences, and maybe do more things that scare me. If you guys have any suggestions off the top of your heads, I will take them!
