My teaching philosophy reflects my education and my experiences in both the educational domain but also in life itself.

I realize that this is an on-going process, one that is continually developing and as I grow so will my ideas and beliefs. What follows is a description of my educational philosophy that informs my teaching, which will in turn enable me to provide and foster a positive learning environment. I attempt to do this in my teaching by focusing on students selfefficacy, students self-esteem and safe learning environment.

I believe that all students have the innate ability to learn if given the opportunity to receive a quality education. Children learn best in a safe environment, one free of judgment or discrimination. I believe that it is important for students to learn in a student-centered environment versus direct instruction, which promotes collaboration and cooperation among students and helps to build meaningful relationships. It is important to provide students with a variety of opportunities to learn by incorporating the multiple intelligences and learning styles of each and every student. This demands for flexibility in my instruction to focus and place more emphasis in the classroom on meeting the needs of each child individually through the use of accommodations, modifications and teacher modeling. My overall goal is to foster a safe and encouraging learning environment for my students that supports and harbors positivity and respectful communication within the classroom. This is so important because other academic objectives cannot be met or achieved without being in a safe learning environment. Two such objectives are self-efficacy and self-esteem.

My goal is to create a classroom community of leaders through promoting and developing self-efficacy. I must teach my students the importance of education and real-life application of classroom instruction so that they will continue to want to learn outside the constraints of the four walls of my classroom. My goal is to educate my students in self-advocacy so that they know their rights by law as individuals and receive those rights. One way I will get students to do this will be by involving them more in the process and construction of their IEP. It is my responsibility to make sure that I am teaching all of my students to the best of their abilities so that they are able to succeed in my class, which puts them in a position to succeed in other areas of life given the objective goals that we have developed for them together.

I believe as a teacher one of my biggest goals is to help my students develop healthy attitudes towards themselves. This will be done through emphasizing the importance of independence and self-actualization, and the ability to make decisions through problem solving and elimination, and to accept and take responsibility for their decisions and actions. My goal as an educator is to help students become the best possible version of themselves and to be proud of who they are in a world that is constantly trying to change them.