Updated Teaching Philosophy!

In the 21st century classroom, generations of learners require opportunities to be critical thinkers that connect to the real world, and my role is to be versatile in my approaches from being a facilitator within a student-centered classroom, to also being a guide through direct-instruction in a teacher-directed classroom whenever necessary. I remain approachable, calm, and collected while creating a safe, motivational, and positive learning environment. Building a space for respect, involves espousing it, and reciprocating it, while also using “selective leniency” when situations, or students, call for it to provide equity and a safe space for learning. I emit authority, but do not need to always practice authoritatively. I care, and I relate to my students, I build trust and healthy communication, while also being fair, and stern in the structure necessary for deep learning balanced with social-emotional context in a learning environment. Continual growth, daily reflection, and collaboration with other teachers and staff is key to building successful students and a team that models this growth for our students.

Students today are seamlessly switching between formal and informal learning environments, often with technology as a nexus between these environments, both individually, and in an interactive fashion. In our modern 21st century classroom, upcoming generations need to be critical problem solvers, and creative project finishers, who can collaborate, and not just cooperate, across language and cultural boundaries to innovate in an ever more complex – and connected - world.

Curriculum and materials need to be relevant and related to the student’s lives, English should be useful in how student’s will use it informally, as well as within their academics - formally. I have found in my classroom teaching, and my action-research, that innovative international Englishes involve students using transliteration, which is a mixture of everything from symbolic or pictograph language, memes, to their own vernacular, as useful when integrated into helping them learn lexicon in contexts. Learning through language and learning with language - are both what students grasp onto concepts to learn English if it is the target language, while also learning through content subjects. Social Studies requires specific language and is a discipline that requires creatively making students connect to what must be relevant and relatable to their modern lives along with the various cultural lenses they bring to the world.

Social Studies and History have not been on the forefront of civics and civil engagement in the United States, and I believe it must maintain its integration with other subjects such as humanities, while every material and skill must serve a purpose for the students. It can be argued that we are becoming a population practicing “engagement from afar”, where we are distancing ourselves socially, while occupying more space online. Whereas writing, language arts, and English bring ideas together, Social Studies and History can also people together around these ideas to engage youth in the democracy we hold so dear. Students should be at the forefront of their learning with guidance and multi-modality, and not just saturated with listening, but given opportunities to express their learning through speaking, writing, interacting, and presenting.  I offer that the arts, music, and social media have created a smaller more versatile arena and study space for transliteration, poetry, language arts, and music that can integrate many topics and content disciplines for new ways of learning.

The philosophy that every learner has diverse approaches to problems is coupled with how learning through teaching is negotiated as meaning is constructed. Learning is different from teaching for students, as learning is internally created within the student’s minds, so, this all requires me to be mindful of my approaches, scaffolding and assessment of their learning with various modalities and intelligence preferences, and the many tools like inventories, portfolios, test scores, and rubrics, to track this pathway and journey rubrics. It also calls for simulations and experiential learning activities that immerse students in analogous and interactive situations that are designed to have them construct meaning from empathy, different perspectives, and intelligence preferences.

Technology needs to be carefully balanced as a relevant tool along with hands-on materials, so that students acquire both skill sets in a world where technology is ever evolving, and the technologies keep them as the creators, and not just receivers, of ed tech for educational benefits and their academics. Student’s cell phones can be used in lessons, so can video games and their concepts, literature, and language from sub-cultures, yet, they must be integrated and innovated into academic subject matter per well-articulated standards.

The best I can become as a teacher, relies on my reflection and adaptability to change, all within the classroom, within my methods and strategies, and the relevance of my delivery of disciplines. Every generation will engage the world a little differently in different ways, with different tools. It is my role to help them create meaning through the form and function of language and engage them into the world whilst I relate my knowledge and our experiences in doing so.