These writing experiences have perhaps deprived me of some sleep, which is maybe why I'm battling my second cold in the last three weeks, but both times I found myself less tired than energized. I looked up after what felt like a few minutes writing and revising to find that two hours had passed. Writing takes me outside of time. It always has.
Why, then, pursue teaching? Why not just write? Although teaching eats up all of my time (and then some I don't have--as fellow English teachers know), it inspires me. When I spend my days being angry at the house I have to clean yet again, I have nothing but anger to write. When I am out pouring myself out for people I care about, doing something I love and believe matters, I find myself with much more to say and more reason to write it down. I wouldn't have written either my Statement of Teaching Philosophy or my What's Bugging Me essay if it weren't for teaching.
Enough preamble. Here's my Statement of Teaching Philosophy. This is who I want to be.
Statement of Teaching
Philosophy
I believe in revision.
At the beginning of the semester, I tell my students that I
should display this credo as a bumper sticker, or—to show the depth of my
belief—a tattoo. At first, my students
believe that I am referring to revision as a writing practice, and I am. I believe that there is great value in
teaching students that the first thing that comes out onto the paper needn’t
(usually shouldn’t) be the finished product.
I force revision upon my writing students by checking off their progress
in the writing process, by scheduling writing workshops and conferences, and by
offering revision projects with worthwhile incentives. What I hope my student come to understand,
though, is that I believe in revision not just because it produces better
writing but because the courage to experiment, the wisdom to evaluate one’s
work and thoughts, and the patience to change and change again produces better
students. Revision is a lifestyle I
believe in.
I believe in revision not just as a writer, and not just for
my students, but also for myself as a teacher. Just as the first idea that
comes to a student’s mind is not always the best or the most refined, I trust
that as an educator I can be constantly improving. Although I could just reuse the syllabus and
lesson plans and assignments from the last time I taught English 102, I find
that every semester I teach I have improved and rethought how I teach, and so I
end up revising—often to the point of completely rewriting—how and what I
teach. I ask my students to help me in
this. I have them fill out weekly
feedback forms to let me know what they applied to their own reading and
writing and what I need to teach in a different way. When I turn in midterm
grades, I ask my students to turn in a mid-term evaluation of my teaching. I also seek to improve my teaching by being a
student of other teachers. I read books,
attend conferences, search the internet, and sit at the feet of my colleagues,
all in the hope that every time I teach, I can reach one more student or make
all of my students a little more confident or brilliant. Last semester is always my rough draft.
Although I expect to see my students grow and improve,
sometimes in ways that they find astounding over the course of a semester, I
never expect that a student will walk out of English 101 or 102 already a
perfect writer. Likewise, I don’t expect
that every lesson I teach cannot be improved upon. I hope, though, that through practice and by
observing each other as examples, my students and I will embrace the fact that
we are never done learning, growing, and revising.
I believe that relationships are the
most important teaching tool.
I love my students. I
wish it was professionally appropriate for me to use this section of my
statement of teaching philosophy to tell you the stories of who they are and
where they come from and what they write about and how they make me laugh or
think in new ways. I cannot imagine a
more difficult job than teaching English, but I also cannot imagine a more
touching and awe-inspiring thing to do with my life. Although I have been privileged with some
personal strengths and a great education, I believe that what makes me
effective as a teacher is my devotion to knowing and caring for my students as
people. I want my students to believe
that their unique ideas and experiences are interesting and important and
worthy of the effort it takes to express them in the best possible manner.
On one level, caring about my students is the easiest part
of being a teacher. How could I
not? I believe that students sense that
I see them each as individuals through mannerisms like eye contact and facial
expressions, through conversations we have before and after class, and through
respectful interactions inside the classroom.
On another level, though, I think relationships a vital enough factor in
the learning environment that they are worth a good deal of intentional cultivation. I am, therefore, intentional about knowing as
much as possible about my students’ struggles, strengths, and interests. I make a point of asking them to tell me
these things in questionnaires, particularly at the beginning of the semester,
but I also encourage them to make these personal qualities part of their
responses to literature and part of their writing. I like to incorporate a mixture of reader
response and personal connections alongside more historically, socially, or
linguistically based literary theories.
I want my students to feel valued even as I challenge them to push their
understanding in new directions.
I also believe that the classroom functions best when it is
a small community with a common interest in exploring new ideas and skills, and
so I am intentional about cultivating relationships between students as
well. One of the great pleasures of
teaching is seeing an argument circle or workshop group challenging,
encouraging, and teaching each other, all while I am standing back, a
benevolent observer. I want my classroom
to be a safe place for such interactions to happen, for everyone to feel
confident that he/she can and ought to contribute something vital to the
conversation.
I believe in using English to help
students enter into the conversations going on around them.
In a time when a great deal of media and public policy
attention is focused on STEM subjects, I continue to think that a good English
education prepares a student for academic, professional, and social success. I say this not to belittle the importance of
an excellent STEM education in any way—I won’t quote Professor Keating from Dead Poets Society about the value of
art and poetry, although I do believe we can incorporate beauty and passion
into the classroom as he suggests—but to point out that excellent reading and
communication skills are how we can integrate all of our other ideas and
knowledge into society. I believe in the
value of English class.
That said, as a person who also believes in revision, I
believe that English classes should look different now than they did twenty
years ago. Some may argue that what
makes literature excellent does not change, and while I concede the truth of
that statement to some extent (you’ll have to tear To Kill a Mockingbird and Cry,
the Beloved Country out of my cold, dead hands,) the idea of one set canon
for high school literature classes has rightly been replaced with the idea that
literature is one method for exposing students to a variety of ideas, cultures,
genres, and ways of making sense of the world.
More importantly, we educators must consider that the texts available to
and surrounding today’s students are radically different than they were before
the age of blogs, tweets, on-line magazines, wikis, and search engines. I believe an English classroom should teach
students not only how to read and think about all of these types of media but
also how to produce and publish appropriately in them.
Finally, I believe that English class presents educators a
unique opportunity to help students learn new ways of thinking. How does the same idea subtly change when it
is expressed through different media, by different authors, in different
genres, in other rhetorical situations? Students can learn to consider the elements
of rhetoric in order to best communicate their innovations, understandings, or
ideals to colleagues. They can and
should learn the mental habit of looking ever deeper into an issue, evaluating
sources and evidence, revising previous opinions or methods, and considering a
claim from a variety of angles.
Anything we learn, invent, question, or believe impacts the
world around us very little if we lack the tools to effectively share it. It is
in all of our best interests if our students become voices in the conversations
occurring in science, politics, popular culture, and our community.
No comments:
Post a Comment