My Philosophy of Teaching

    I remember how I always imagined myself being the teacher, how I imagined
being in her place and how I visualized myself teaching. I have always wanted to
be a teacher, ever since I was 5 years, when I got my first chalk-board and
explained my very first lessons to my imaginary students. And this passion
started to grow as I grew older, especially that I chose to major in TEFL. And now
that I am towards the end of my journey and that I am almost done with my first
portfolio, I can tell that I have learned a lot from my instructors, observations’
experience and the courses that I have completed. Thus, I can set my
philosophical statement for teaching in stone.

    One of the most insightful lessons that I have learned throughout my
educational years is that a teacher must build a positive environment in the
classroom, by which it promotes academic achievement. She's the only one that
can decide, from the very first day, to create either a positive or a negative
environment. Positive environment in classroom helps students be more creative
and motivated. So, a teacher’s attitude is contagious to her students. If a teacher
is a source of positive attitude, then the students will have a positive attitude
towards learning.

   The second lesson is that the secret weapon to be a perceptive teacher is to
know your students. A good teacher is a good friend of her students. If she knows
about the personality of each and every student in the class, then she's capable
of helping everyone to be successful in their field, yet she can be their supporter.
It needs a courageous teacher to take a step into student’s minds and know well
that what works with one student can’t work with the other. I remember when I
first stepped into the class I chose to observe in, the first question that came to
my mind is “What is the story behind every student?” even though I wasn’t going
to be their teacher, but at least it’s important to me to know them all.

     Along with knowing your students well, I believe that a teacher should be
interesting to her students. Students never fail to predict whether a teacher is
interesting or not. Fostering a fun classroom doesn’t only mean that a teacher
should bring to class a wide variety of visual aids, games, videos … However, it
deeply means that a teacher must trigger their curiosity, to be more interactive in
the classroom, especially for inactive participants.

    As I mentioned, the teacher must know what works for one student doesn’t
work for another. This also, falls under being eclectic when teaching. To be
eclectic means to be careful when considering different strategies in your
instructions. Yes, a teacher must know what works best for her students, some
students learn through vision, other learn through manipulative, some auditory
works best for them and so on. But the most critical part, yet challenging, is to be
wise when picking your strategies. A good teacher knows the missing pieces and
fills them with her well-chosen techniques.

    In addition, a teacher must never fail to empower her students. It's something
collective, dynamic and an enlightening. By empowering students, you can
engage them further in learning, provide a more dynamic learning experience
and, of course, find the most powerful resource in your classroom. One of the
ways to empower students is to give them the decision-making power in an area
of curriculum. For instance, if the teacher is teaching them to write a literature
criticism on some book, who says everyone has to write about the same book
written by some ancient writer? So instead, why not have students pick a book of
their own picking.

    A good teacher doesn’t follow a fixed curriculum. Otherwise, she is a robot
teaching computers. To be a good teacher doesn’t mean to stick neither to your
lesson plans nor to the book presented by the school. A teacher must learn to be
creative and flexible, by which her strategies are not always the same. For
example, I remember when I did the shadowing day with Mrs. Mariam and
helping her doing some activities. When I asked her what she was doing, she told
me "I just came up with the idea and I need to prepare in order to apply it today in
class". In fact, I was impressed by how she came up with a new idea without
having to stick to neither the lesson plan nor the book.

   In addition to being a good teacher, the teacher is the one who lets her
students take responsibility for their own choices and behavior. For a teacher to
avoid problems in her class she should make students practice taking
responsibility of their own actions in the classroom. As a teacher the last thing I
want in my class is bad behavior and problems with my pupils. Let me tell you
how that can be done. For example, if a student seems to be very disruptive from
day 1, I can show them the rules for my class. Students should know for every
bad behavior there's a consequence. Thus, this can be achieved if the teacher
sets rules and be strict with rules. 

   A great teacher sets high expectations of her students. Students give as little or
as much as a teacher expects from them. I remember one time I was observing
in the class I observe in, the teacher told me "When spring comes the students
minds are paused and they don’t pay attention anymore" at the same time our
chairperson Mrs. Rasha Halat crossed my mind and her words played in my head
again "You get anything you expect from your students".

     And for a moment I thought she's right! Maybe, because the teacher I observe
with set low expectations of her students in spring they acted in a bad way. What
if she said to her "They're the same students" maybe they would’ve acted
differently in spring. And that would be the second thing I like to add to my
philosophy of teaching that a teacher should set high expectations no matter
what!
     In conclusion, a good teacher is not just the one who only teaches what she
learned, but the one who learns from what she has experienced. By which a
teacher has to mix between theories and practice together, a thing my university
gave me the chance to do before going into the field of teaching. Now, I can't wait
to apply everything I learned in my future teachings.