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Alexandria Dean

Christensen

EDU 202 – Spring 2019

7 April 2019

Educational Philosophy

People go into the teaching profession for many different reasons. Some people go into

teaching because they want summers off and think it’ll be easy. There are some people who go

into teaching because they think it’s what they’re supposed to do, whether their parents taught or

everyone their whole life has told them they’d make a great teacher. Finally, there are people,

like me, who have a desire and a passion to go into teaching and make a difference in students’

lives. I believe that my educational philosophy is a simple one: everything you do and say as an

educator matters—whether it’s being patient or showing your students you care—and it’s

important to be flexible.

When I was a freshman in high school, I took a biology class. I was doing really badly

and was on the verge of failing the class. My teacher, Mrs. Fernandez, spent an hour or so every

day after school tutoring me and getting me where I needed to be to pass the class and to help me

learn how to take notes and understand what I was learning. I ended up finishing biology with a

high B. Mrs. Fernandez is one of the major influences that made me realized I’m meant to be a

teacher.

Patience will help me become a great teacher. I’m able to repeat myself and not get

annoyed quickly. My field observation really showed me how important patience is, especially in
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secondary education. Kids are going to try to push your buttons all day long, and it’s important

that I remember that I have to be able to remain calm and level headed.

Personally, I think that the progressivism philosophy lines up the most with how I view

education and how I want to run my own classroom. I completely agree that education and

curriculum needs to be flexible. If you pick one way of teaching and assume that it’ll work for

every student, you’re never going to reach the majority of the students that you teach as they all

learn differently. A lot of students need to be able to feel like they have control over their

education. If you just tell a student how to learn and what they need, they’re not going to respect

you. If a student doesn’t respect you, then they won’t learn anything. History of education also

plays a huge part in how we view schools and education. Much like our history with government,

we can learn so much about the pain that was caused on others and how to avoid it in the future.

If we take this same mindset with the history of education, we can help prevent the harm caused

to children in our classrooms and schools.

When it comes to teaching strategies, I’ve learned quite a few this year working for a

middle school as an instructional aide. I’ve got to watch teachers first hand educate 150 students

and the strategies they’ve used. One of my favorites that I’ve seen that I plan on using in my own

classroom is the classroom management strategy of being able to get a class to stop talking and

pay attention to who’s speaking to them. One of the teachers on my team has taught her class

that whenever she says “class, class” they respond with “yes, yes.” It sounds silly and

elementary, but even with my 12-year-old sixth graders it works really well.

When it comes to student differences and assessments, I think it’s really important to

realize what accommodations that students may need to be successful in their education. These

accommodations are things such as, giving students more time on tests, allowing extensions on
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assignments, allowing retakes on tests that they don’t do well on, etc. It might seem annoying

and like a waste of time in some cases, but it can be critical to a child’s success for a teach to be

willing to give them what they need and not just let them slip under the cracks and fake

paperwork.

I think in order to move forward in this career, I need to make sure to keep my patience,

but to also gain a little more understanding for things that might come up in a student’s life that

might prevent them for turning in work on time. As for my future plan, I plan on continuing

working for Somerset Academy as an instructional aide as I continue towards my degree. After I

complete my AA at CSN, I plan on taking my Praxis exam and then transferring into UNLV to

finish my degree. My long-term goal is to teach middle school math. Through my year at

Somerset, I’ve fallen in love with teaching and leading middle schoolers. I’m really excited to

pursue my goal and finally become an educator.