My Position on Teaching and My Role as a Teacher

I believe that teaching is not something that everyone can do, I wasn't sure that I could do it until many friends and family encouraged me and told me I would be great at it. I suppose time will tell on that one. I believe that teaching is about guiding students, and helping them to reach their own goals. It is true that there is a required curriculum, but I would like to encourage my students to learn about what interests them, so I will have to learn about them so I can incorporate what is interesting to them into the curriculum I am required to teach. I also feel that teaching is about letting students find themselves as they learn. My hope is that by the time they leave my classroom, they have a greater sense of who they are, who they want to be, what it means to take responsibility for their actions and how to positively react to whatever comes their way in life. I realize these are some heavy expectations, but I also feel that people are capable of doing amazing things so accomplishing these goals, even on a small level, is possible.

Like many educators, I am eclectic in my teaching styles so I will be using some of the classics, some modern works, current events, student interests and as many sources of information as I find fit for what I am teaching. I will also put an emphasis on discussion and student participation. I will assign homework as I see fit and there will be a trust between myself and the students. I will trust them to get their work done and they can trust me to grade them fairly according to the quality of work they have done. I am still not sure if I will allow make up work with points deducted or not. I think that at a High school level students should be capable of doing their work on time. I will have to figure this out before I start teaching.