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Philosophy of Teaching Statement
As a student and teacher of literature, I believe that education is a continuous dialogue with past, present, and future knowledge. This grand “dialogue” with authors, from every subject area and genre, students, teachers, theorists, and philosophers, is what helps people understand the world in a larger sense and ultimately, hopefully, helps shape the world differently. Armed with not only active knowledge, but also a true voice in a worldly dialogue, students will not only achieve personal success-- they will also be agents and leaders of changing the world. My role as teacher is to help facilitate, animate, and ensure that all students participate is this dialogue. Teaching is not actually about instilling “knowledge” into students, but rather, is a complex process of advancing students’ ability to become active and in control of the learning process.
My philosophy of teaching and learning includes this emphasis on engaging students and helping them develop their own individual voice. By providing real world examples and problems and connecting literature and literary concepts with the real world, students can easily become excited and motivated to learn course objectives. These objectives, then, cease to be a static part of their schooling. It becomes part of their lives. I think that students not only can learn, but that they actually want to learn. Each student learns uniquely, and as a teacher, it is my responsibility to assist students in discovering how they learn. This includes developing meaningful relationships with students and continuously seeking to find ways to engage and make a pathway of success for students. In many ways, I feel that this is my favorite aspect of teaching: I love my students. I have always felt that as a teacher, I am also a student. I can only play both roles if I invest in my students in an emotional way and validate what my students teach me.
My philosophy of teaching and learning is supported and rooted in the learning theories of the revolutionary Brazilian educator and social theorist, Paulo Freire. For example Freire speaks of the importance of knowing and understanding your students, “Educators need to know what happens in the world of the children with whom they work. They need to know the universe of their dreams, the language with which they skillfully defend themselves from the aggressiveness of their world, what they know independently of the school, and how they know it.” He also speaks of undoing “the banking concept of education,” where an all-knowing teacher deposits knowledge into students’ minds. Instead, he argues for a mutual learning paradigm where the teacher and the student participate in a dialogue. As he writes, “Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human being pursue in the world, and with each other.” Perhaps most importantly he insists that, “Dialogue cannot exist…in the absence of a profound love for the world and for people.” I could not agree more wholeheartedly with Freire, and love is what I take with me to every class I teach and every student that I encounter.
Bibliography
Freire, Paulo; Pedagogy of the Opressed, Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos, The Continuum Publishing Corporation, New York, NY, 1987.
Freire, Paulo; The Politics of Education - Culture, Power, and Liberation, Translated by Donoldo Macedo, Bergin & Garvey, New York, NY, 1985.
Freire, Paulo; Teachers as Cultural Workers - Letters to Those Who Dare Teach, Translated by Donoldo Macedo, Dale Koike, and Alexandre Oliveira, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1998.
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