A PART OF MY PHILOSOPHICAL STATEMENT

    "Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions".  When I entered English department, I didn’t know what teaching means. After observing 35 sessions in the school, the image became clearer. Teaching is not about entering a class and throwing the information randomly, it is about inspiration, touching students' minds and opening their hearts. After spending those years in English department, I can write my first philosophical statement, observing 35 sessions has a big effect on forming my own statement of teaching.

   We as TESL students learn hundreds of theories, in different courses such as cognitive theories, educational psychology, language acquisition, methods… But they are only theoretical, although we make activities to apply it and explain it to our friends as if they are our students. But observing real class is totally different. Observing the class shows us that applying the theory is harder than creating an activity and explain it in front the class. The teacher needs time to know what theory suits her students, because teaching is like touching their small minds.

   This integration between what we learned in university and what we saw in the classroom forms our own image of teaching and our philosophy of teaching, and shows us the basics of being successful teacher and at the same time teacher that can reach her goals in education. In order to be successful and effective the teacher should use herself as a bridge for the students to cross, until they were able to create their own bridge. My image of teaching has many rules and basics.   

“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.”    
    First of all, Teaching is not about giving the students random information; it is about helping them to find their own way. The teacher should image herself as a bridge for the students to cross towards their own way. Being a teacher is a big responsibility, because students are what you teach them, teaching them how to learn is better than dictating them the information. The student should be able to find his own way to learn during his journey, because the teacher will not stay with him all the time, her role is to give them the basics to construct their own bridge. The teacher leads the class and students will lead the world. It is her role to tell them where to look but do not tell them what to see.    

  Second, teacher should use many methods; she should choose the best of everything.. In order to reach every student, the teacher should use many methods, and don’t stuck on one method. Using single method may benefit one or two or maybe ten students but not every single student. Every student learns in different way than others. When the teacher uses many methods and approaches, she fairly reaches the mind of every student. As a teacher in the future I would use many different methods and ways to teach my students, to be a fair teacher, I should teach my students fairly.

     

   All of the above and hundreds of other rules can't limit teaching, teaching is a broad title that has under it thousands of theories, rules, methods, and approaches. Actually I can put many rules, but real teaching is not as theoretical, teaching in a classroom differs a lot from observing it. Every teacher has her own ways and rules to teach her students, but the successful teacher is the one who can reach their little minds and leads them to find their own way of learning.

It takes Big Heart

To shape little

Minds.