My Teaching Credo

Ali Hagen

My Teaching Credo

EDUC 111

Professor Eastman

Abstract: I believe that to be a truly remarkable teacher, it takes caring, motivation, time, dedication and above all a passion to help and a desire to keep learning. I want to make my classroom a safe environment that my students cannot only learn but they can grow into productive members of society. I believe that along with learning the information in the books, education should be about becoming a productive part of society. 3

During the last 14 years of my education I have discovered what it means to be a truly remarkable teacher, it takes caring, motivation, time, dedication and above all a passion to help and a desire to keep learning. As a teacher you not only make lessons to teach students but you also learn about yourself. If you let it, teaching can be a way of self-discovery and you can utilize it to help others through teaching. Anyone can be a teacher, but it takes a certain type of person to be a great teacher who inspires students to want to do well. This teacher who inspires has to love what they teach, be able to go the extra mile and above all be available to help.

When I was little, I decided I wanted to live at Sea World and be a dolphin trainer. When I found out that wasn’t an option because they frown on people actually living at Sea World, I was left career less by the age of 9. I didn’t give my future career path much thought until I entered high school. That’s when I fell in love with the idea of teaching. My job had been in front of me for the past 13 years and I finally realized it.

I realized I wanted to be a Spanish teacher after I had Mrs. Lyons as a teacher.

She knew of my desire to be a teacher and put the idea in my head of teaching Spanish. I fell in love with this idea because she motivated me to learn everything I could and she made the class something to look forward to. I wanted to make a classroom environment similar to hers so I could make my students love the language as much as she made me love it. The best teachers are the ones who love what they teach and in turn make the students love the subject.

My classroom will be a place for learning by doing and growing by learning. I want my students not only to learn the material but I want their education to be about 4 learning how think for themselves and how to become a productive member of society. I will try and make every student feel like my classroom is a safe place for him or her. I will accomplish this by becoming a resource to my students and making them feel like I am there to help, not only a teacher but someone who is looking out for their well being.

I believe that students learn as much from each other as they do from professors or teachers. In some cases, students can relate to their peers better than teachers and so I want them to join together to do group projects, presentations and learn from each other in order to grow.

I want to teach my students information that is useful to them and what will be pertinent to their lives. Most importantly I want them to think of education as a privilege and understand that they are lucky to be bettering themselves because not everyone has that opportunity given to them. Education should not be about all memorization and being able to spit facts out, it should be about actually learning the content. I want my students to get an education but also grow as people and become a productive part of society. I want students to apply their education to better themselves in the real world.

When students graduate, I want them to feel like they not only received a good education but that they are prepared for the real world.

I think a student performs their best when they are motivated to do well because the teacher inspires them and they feel safe enough in that environment to explore new things since that is how we grow. If students accept responsibility for their education, I believe they should be given the opportunity to have a say in what and how they are learning.

Learning is an active process especially in any language course. My students will 5 be up and learning as opposed to reading and memorizing facts from a book. I want to incorporate fun with learning by playing games and assigning innovative projects. I feel this will improve students’ abilities to work with others and to self motivate which are two key abilities to have to succeed in life. I also want to play in active role in not only the educational, but also the emotional development of my students. I want to be a resource for them if they have any questions pertaining to school or not. I was lucky enough to have many teachers though out my junior high and high school career that helped whenever called upon, and I would like to be that same type of resource for my students. Students should not be afraid to correct me on something if they believe it is incorrect. I encourage those questions and contradictions because that lets me know they are actually retaining the knowledge enough to notice a mistake. 6