Lauren Stark

My teaching philosophy has evolved over time and in a way is contantly changing.  When I started teaching, or rather my education to become a teacher, my goal was to be the teacher I had never had.  I wanted to combine the best parts of my past teachers and try to emulate that.  I quickly learned that what made each of those teachers special to me was that they were genuine, honest, and personable.  They weren't trying to be others.  

 

As I prepare for my 4th year in the classroom, I have decided to embrace the philosophy of my principal, "Never work harder than your students!"  She share this philosophy with us last school year and at times I utilized it and found that the students learned more when I got out of their way.  Embracing this philisophy will take some time but I think it will make me a better teacher in the long run.  My class will be more student friendly.  My lessons will be more hands on and I might learn something new in the process.  This philisophy goes against my teacher instict that I need to front load information as opposed to students searching for something specific and then sharing what they have found to build the whole picture of an event from the past.  

 

Another aspect of my teaching philosophy that I find important is challenged based learning.  I believe it is important to challenge students to break out of their norm.  The real world is a lot more difficult than high school and it is part of my job to make students college and career ready.  I think of challenges as giving an assignment and if the basic requirements are met than you have done enough to earn a B.  While this might make some students upset, I want to see what you can do to make the assignment your own.  I believe that your goal should never be just to complete the assignment but to do so to your best ability.  I have challenged students to be creative or present information in different way, essentially encouraging out of the box thinking.  The results from this have been amazing.