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My Goal
My goal is to grow each student not only academically, but also grow them to be a good person. I want each student to grow confidence in not only their education, but in themselves. I strive to create a space where every student feels valued, respected, and empowered to take risks and make mistakes.
How to reach that goal
1. Strong Relationships
I take the time to get to know every student. This includes their strengths, interests, and challenges. I make sure to show genuine care for each and every student. When I show students that I put time and effort in their learning, they are more likely to put that same time and effort into themselves.
2. Clear and Positive Expectations
At the beginning of the school year, I work together with my students to create a classroom set of rules and expectations. These rules and expectations reflect the respect, kindness, and responsibility I want to see in my students.
I reinforce positive behavior with praise and encouragement. When mistakes happen (and they do! It's okay!), I frame them as learning opportunities rather than as failures requiring punishment.
3. Encourage Active Participation
I provide opportunities for every student to contribute. I utilize strategies such as "think-pair-share" or small group discussions in order to allow every student to engage and have their voice heard.
By building the strong relationships in my first step toward achieving my goal, I am able to know the strengths and unique talents of each student. This helps each student feel that their unique qualities are important and valued.
4. Create a Safe Environment for Mistakes
It's important to show my students that I make mistakes too, and it's okay! Mistakes are an essential part of learning, so it's crucial that students realize that they're okay to make.
I strive to praise students for the effort they put in, not just for their correct answers. As long as my students are trying their best in their learning, that's the hardest part!
5. Collaborative Learning
I encourage teamwork as a core learning tool in my classroom. When students are collaborating on projects, discussions, or group activities, it allows them to develop social skills, learn from each other, and find the value in working together.
Through my teamwork-focused approach, I let students give and receive constructive feedback from each other. This helps students learn how to build their conversational skills as well as how to receive criticism in a productive way.
A Deeper Dive into my Philosophy
My philosophy for building a positive learning environment centers around all students feeling valued and respected. Every single student deserved to be in a classroom they feel that they belong in, regardless of their background. I plan to create a classroom culture that builds academic success, social growth, and personal expression.
My overall classroom approach is influenced by a few key individuals that I'd like to mention and explain. These key individuals are Doug Lemov, Karen Poplawski, and John C. Maxwell.
Doug Lemov is the author of the book Teach Like A Champion. In this book, Lemov goes in depth on a wide variety of different teaching strategies. One main strategy I like to use from Lemov is his motivation and relationship building. A large push from me is to grow students' desire to learn. Lemov states "To modify motivation we must change what our students see and what they perceive as normal, acceptable values" (Lemov 25). This is arguing that in order to build that motivation to learn in students, learning must be a normal, acceptable value in the classroom. It must be seen as the thing to do. When students have that desire to learn, miracles can happen.
Karen Poplawski is the author of the book The Morning Meeting Book. As stated in various sections of my website, I view Morning Meeting as one of the most important parts of building a classroom community. In her book, Poplawski lists six principles that are utilized by the Responsive Classroom approach, which I aim to follow. Here are those principles:
1. Teaching social and emotional skills is as important as teaching academic content.
2. How we teach is as important as what we teach.
3. Great cognitive growth occurs during social interaction.
4. How we work together as adults to create a safe, joyful, and inclusive school environment is as important as our individual contribution or competence.
5. What we know and believe about our students - individually, culturally, developmentally - informs our expectations, reactions, and attitudes about those students.
6. Partnering with families - knowing them and valuing their contributions - is as important as knowing the children we teach. (Poplawski 7-8)
John C. Maxwell is the author of the book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. While not explicitly about teaching strategies or even education, I believe most of these laws can be applied in some way when teaching. For example, Maxwell discuss what he calls "The Law of Connection". The Law of Connection can be summarized with the quote "Leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand" (Maxwell 113). If there isn't a connection between teacher and student, it makes it hard for a student to want to listen to what you're teaching. Another quote from this that I appreciate is "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care" (Maxwell 116).
And finally, to wrap up my philosophy is a quote I was told by a coach in High School. I have searched to try to find an original source of this quote, but I've been unable to find it. So here's one of my greatest guiding quotes:
"It's great to have fun, but more fun to be great"
References:
Lemov, D. (2021). Teach Like A Champion 3.0 63 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College. Jossey-Bass.
Maxwell, J. C. (2007). The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership: Follow them and people will follow you, revised and updated. Thomas Nelson.
Poplawski, K. (2023). The Morning Meeting Book. Responsive Classroom.
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