My Philosophies

       Growing up, education was always viewed as an imperative role within my family. Both my parents had graduated high school and attended college, and it was expected that my sisters and I would do the same. Education was something to be valued and to get you somewhere in life while developing who you were as a person in the process. We were taught that we would learn ourselves through the process of gaining knowledge and discovering our interests or beliefs. And I believe that this is what education should be for all students within an educational system, no matter their background; in order to accomplish this, much of the responsibility relies on the teacher to construct an environment that allows for this type of personal growth.
 

      In order for this belief to translate into a real world application of teaching and education, it is essential to examine the roles of teachers within a learning environment. Teachers are not merely present within classrooms to bestow knowledge on students; rather, they are facilitators for the learning process. While teachers must be fully knowledgeable within their subject area, the act of teaching should translate into a much more fluent and flexible system of comprehensive deliverance, instead of simply focusing on the sprouting of knowledge. In order to accomplish this, it is the role of the teachers to make the information accessible to all types of students, especially those who may have trouble acquiring and connecting the knowledge with larger concepts and themes, or even their own life.
      This is especially important when exploring the large ideas in literature and writing as well. The concept of interpreting a text and making inferences about the characters and events allows students to uncover essential ideas about life and knowledge that may not be explicitly stated within a text. As teachers facilitate the conversations about different types of literature and connect it with various types of writing, students will be able to translate the close reading they have done with fiction, and apply that to real world situations and piece of text as well. However, in order to accomplish this completely, the teacher must create a space of natural and safe learning that students will feel comfortable exploring these different ideas and share their connections as well.  Therefore, it is necessary to build a cohesive learning environment so that students can understand to the best of their abilities.