Philosophy of Teaching

Tyler Rose

Philosophy of Education

Final Paper

Oct 20th, 2022

Ph.D Zervas

I have spent many years always hearing about learning styles, even before I had gotten into the field of education. It has always been an idea rumbling around with me; however, I’ve always thought about how I learn and never really applied it to the outside world nor thought about my fellow students. Really this all started for me when I decided to go back to school and earn my bachelor’s degree. I struggled for years in school, mostly due to not being interested in the material or not seeing the benefits of receiving a degree. When I went back to school, I wanted to challenge myself and try my best to show up and earn a degree with a high GPA; I was worried and not sure if I could show up and would be lacking behind my younger classmates because I always struggled in a traditional classroom. Sounds like a fascinating journey glad you’re here now. 

I loved anything that used my hands, whether it was shop class, wood working, cooking class, drafting, photography or an art class; I was guaranteed to earn an A and always be the first one done with the project asking for more work. Meanwhile my classmates were lost and asking me for help. These same classmates though were in full understanding of the math work while I was 2 lessons behind and moments away from giving up and expecting to take a summer class to make it up. I always felt less than and incompetent when a teacher would stand in front of me and lecture for 45 minutes and give us 15 minutes of in class work. Probably around my sophomore year of high school I had resigned myself to being a guy who wasn’t built for school.

Moving onto college I fell in love with writing, I learned how to express myself and I found a way to outshine my classmates. I broke all my previously conceived notions and started to finally feel like a “normal” student. When I finally went back to get my degree, I realized I hadn’t lost my ability to write a paper and fell back in love with it. I then stretched my abilities in school and signed up for classes that I had always feared; math, biology, physics, chemistry, and other “hard science” courses. I sat at a desk and followed the instructor, I asked questions, I asked for help, I worked in groups, and I received my A’s. All the while I was working in construction and learning how to fabricate metal. And I can already see you are a good writer.

I was able to learn how to learn and stopped being stuck in a mindset that there was only one way for me to learn. I challenged myself and tossed aside any old ideas I had, and I truly impressed myself. All of this is what made me want to get into education and become a teacher, I want to help students like myself to understand that they are not stuck learning one way. My hope was to help students realize this through my teaching techniques and hopefully they didn’t need to wait 10+ years to do this. I wanted to go into teaching science, I wanted to have the best of both worlds with hands on and lecturing, in hopes to branch the two styles of learning. 

While reading during our course I remember in the Courage to Teach readings our author Palmer discusses how we discourage students from using the word “you” in their writing. That was such a wonderful example of what academia is anymore, a snake eating itself that pushes one style of learning. Instead of encouraging everyone to get involved we only care if they can show up and speak how we speak and fully agree with us right of the gate. Truly gate keeping as I hear my students say. Not encouraging students to talk about their experience with it is the focus of Palmer’s writing in this chapter, and yet the point modern education should be personalized and to get students to show up as they are.

I have recently been able to watch my students use their different learning styles. I’ve watched my A+ students read a passage and immediately grasp the concept while the rest of my students read a few sentences and gave up all hope. I recently played a video and had a questionnaire for them to answer as they watched it and for the first time in 8 weeks all my students shifted right in front of my face. My reading students were so bored with the video they just guessed on the questions and got tons of them wrong. Then my visual learners aced it with 100% scores and their eyes glued to a video about plate tectonics. It has really left me questioning how I should be teaching this material. 

I love having labs, but labs take time and supplies, and it gets messy. The students love labs, they get to use their hands and their brains in a completely different way. It’s what I loved about my science courses in my undergrad, however now I understand why each science department has its own lab manager and lab assistants. What this has really taught me is: it’s completely possible to teach these students that they don’t have to learn only one way, but it’s going to take a ton of time and energy on my part. It’s also not going to happen overnight, and I think that might be the most hopeful thing about this career so far. I look forward to decades of developing a craft and always evolving.

I wish I could find the perfect balance between watching videos and reading material. I wish I could pay someone to come in and set up labs for me and clean them up when my students are done. But this leads into the next point I wanted to cover which is why teaching is an art more of a science. Working in the art field building sculptures for years I was blessed with an opportunity to watch artists perfect what they do. To watch my favorite local artist Neil Goodman, build a bronze sculpture was aww inspiring. He had a vision for this rough piece and slowly he took pieces away and a shaped it, adding chemicals, burning it, over a few weeks of work. I was lost during most of the process until the very end and I start to see what he has, and it’s all based on his feel and experience. 

This is how I see teaching; I can come in with a plan and try to attack the class with this plan, it might work but most of the time it’s not going to work out. It’s all about feeling it out, and I’m learning that right now. I really enjoyed most of my biology professors, they were brilliant and inspirational with their passion for things such as cell theory. And they were able to build a lesson where they talked at us for 2 hours and I was captured, so in a way they were applying a science to their teaching. It’s what they were taught on teaching, they were to show up and provide information and those who are interested will get out of it what they want to, and this goes back to the snake eating itself in academia. But I want to take that and then move in the direction of an artist, I want my students to get involved and fall in love with science.

I want to constantly be building on something, I want my students to be pleased with it, I want to see their reaction and constantly be adapting my style and material to fit their needs. I don’t want to just apply one formula to my students expecting them to change, I’m the one who needs to change. I heard years ago “contentment breeds complacency” and I think that applies here. Pain is the cornerstone of growth and educators should always be striving to change and grow, it’s part of the job! Getting uncomfortable and vulnerable with students is what made some of the best teachers I’ve ever had. They are open and show who they really are, they went from a babysitter to a leader; they lead the way into me learning more and wanting to learn what they care about. The passion they showed was what mattered, the material almost came second.

This leads into my final point which is What makes an effective teacher? The passion is what makes an effective teacher, that passion is contagious to the point where they are a leader that I must follow. I think of Robert Williams in Dead Poet’s Society, this teacher comes in and shows these young men they don’t have to follow a strict order and all the rules to life. His passion took a group of rough young boys and showed them how to be free and become individuals, all the while using poetry to do it. Now that’s an effective teacher!

I remember my 8th grade science teacher Mr. Tallman, and it was his passion that I remember. He wanted to teach us how to learn and think, not how to regurgitate material onto a piece of paper. He treated us all like equals and never spoke down to us, all the while trying to show us how capable we were. His passion for science and how it’s practical to our everyday life was what changed me and made me want to know more. He is an inspiration for my career and his teaching style is something I try and shape around. 

With Grit and a Big Heart: A Beginners Guide to Teaching talks about the passion that it takes to become a teacher,

Having little or no time to use the restroom, eating lunch while making copies, grading piles of homework, answering emails and phone calls, attending school-wide events, and dealing with student issues is just another day for a teacher. A teacher may interact with well over 100 people in any given day and constantly feel she has no time to herself. Most teachers do not have an office to get some downtime or a proper workspace to grade and plan for their classes. They are constantly on the go from the moment they walk in the door until they leave.

This perfectly sums up the day of a teacher, yet they show up every day and give it their all. They deal with attitudes from parents, administration, students, and colleagues all day long, they are the punching bag of society. Yet they show up and give it their all most days with little more than a thank you here and there. I truly think it takes a special kind of person to be a teacher, be an effective teacher; someone who can deal with being Americas punching bag and still do their job. 

Teachers are effective because of their passion; students can see who is passionate and who is just showing up for a paycheck. Being sincere and genuine is the qualities I would recognize in my favorite teachers; the others had a feeling of being burned out. Maybe this is a little bit of decompartmentalization and a little bit of acting because the teachers I grew up with had horrible salaries and were constantly being bashed for their union involvement. Yet over half of them cared and cared deeply enough to always be there for us. Passion and effectiveness can carry a teacher a long way, but they must also be knowledgeable in many different areas. 

I think the last skill set with an effective teacher is humility, being able to tell a student “I don’t know” or “let’s look that up.” It’s showing their just another human, and they’re not perfect; this sort of modeling is what students need in their lives. Most students freeze when a teacher asks them a question and sometimes, they just jump to an answer. It’s okay to say, I don’t know, and I would like to. Being the sort of learners, we want our students to be is a mark of an effective teacher.

Continuing my education is also a goal to be an effective teacher, I know that certain teachers say that Med programs can be a waste of time; however, that has not been my experience thus far. I was sitting on my lunch break a while back and watched the Ted Talk video on being vulnerable, it really changed my teaching style ever since then. I even changed my lesson up and asked my students to talk to me about being emotionally vulnerable. Recently there has been some violence at our school with fighting and we talked about what is stopping them from being emotionally vulnerable and why they want to immediately resort to physical violence with their peers. I’m excited to learn even more, because teaching is the one profession that everyone has watched someone enough that they begin to think “oh that’s easy, I can do that.” And for a short while they might be right, but that sort of energy begins to fade. Actual structure and a solid foundation are what this is built on. I’m hoping to gain more from this program with these in mind. 

Citations:

Palmer, Parker J. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life. Hanmunhwa, 2011.

Weir, Peter, director. Dead Poets Society (Motion Picture). Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, 1989. 

Zervas, Theodore G. With Grit and a Big Heart: A Beginners Guide to Teaching. Rowman & Littlefield, 2022.