Statement of Educational Philosophy

"Learning is finding out what you already know, Doing is demonstrating that you know it, Teaching is reminding others that they know it as well as you do.  We are all learners, doers, and teachers."

Richard David Bach

    Education as a whole is not something that can be mastered overnight.  Each stage of learning is characterized by different levels of success and failure.  If teaching is passion, then learning is living and students should thrive with life.  I stride to incorporate both passion and living in all of my students and hope to awaken a passion within them.  My goal is to promote student learning as well as teaching them how to be expressive knowledgeable adults.  If communication is the key, then creativity is the door: a door that leads to many opportunities of success and failure.  Failure is not defeat...it is learning.  The educational philosophy expressed in my teachings is that of constructivism, which incorporates student learning and student driven activites with emphasis on hands-on involvement.  I believe that with proper guidance, student learning and success has no limits.  As those people before me and those before them, I must create the footsteps in the sand for them to follow.

   As a teacher of English, student instruction closely addresses all the English content standards.  Such instruction allows flexibility while continuing to address all logical reasoning, and media knowlege while also being able to explore their surrounding world.  As a Family Consumer Science teacher, my students practice the same skills as well as adhering to those practices encompased in the family role.

   I believe that instruction can be both individual and whole-group directed.  I believe that it is my job as a teacher to empower my students to manage the challenges that living and working in a diverse global society requires.  My mission is to prepare these young adults for the many struggles hey will face in their daily lives by teaching them to be responsible citizens and caring individuals.  They will learn to use critical and creative thinking skills to address those problems along with other skills that satisfy the stand and national curriculum standards.  As a teacher, I am required to expose my students to various materials encompassing the curricula and situations of dat to day living.  For this reason, I choose literacture such as A Child Calle It by Dave Pelzer, The Giver by Lowis Lowery, and Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause.  Through these choices, I am albe to address standards of both English Language Arts and Family Consumer Science content areas while also promoting the continuation for the love of reading.

"You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives."

Clay P. Bedford