My Teaching Philosophy and What Makes Me...Me

 

“I’ve come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom.  It’s my personal approach that creates the climate.  It’s my daily mood that makes the weather.  As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.  I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.  I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.  In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized,” are great words once said from an educator, Haim Ginott.  Ginott took the words right out of my mouth.  It was my first day of kindergarten, waiting at the bus stop with my mom and dad with a backpack filled with clothes, shoes, my toothbrush, and a picture of my family when I knew school is where I will forever be.  I packed my backpack as if I was headed to college, never coming back and living in the building.  I was so excited to enter a land filled with the superheroes of the world; the teachers.  Teaching has been a dream of mine since I was 5 years old and my parents bought me a school set that included report cards, attendance sheets, and a chalkboard with chalk, I had the smartest stuffed animals that ever existed! 

 

Fast Forward 21 years, and here I am teaching math to a classroom full of talking “stuffed animals” receiving the most exciting reward in my profession thus far, Teacher of the Year.  As I previously said, I knew teaching was my future, but I did not know what grade level or why.  It was not until I encountered Megan Love, and her last name said it all, she was an Angel to say the least.  She had just gone through a divorce when she got our class and you would never know, she made learning fun and math understandable, and that was my turning point.  Finally, I understood math!  I understood it so much I was able to help others and the feeling of understanding and making others understand was one of the most rewarding feelings ever!  How can someone not want to do this as his or her profession?  Not only did I find my math abilities with Miss Love I found a friend and by friend, I mean someone I could trust.  Miss Love was someone I could turn to and she made going to school fun and that is why I continued my path and dream as an educator because I knew I could do the same for others as she did for me.  Miss Love is someone I can now call a friend where we catch up for dinners, I watch her children, and she will be a guest at my wedding this year.  Education is not just about the books and standards, it is about the passion and care for students.