Philosophy

Teaching, to me, is a constant learning experience and that is how I feel as though it should be. Even though I will be teaching and the students will be learning, I feel it is important that I learn from my students.

I had an eye opener in one of my classes that affected my way of thinking. The first eye opener for me in this class was our community builder that Amber had done. Our object was to get everyone to the other side of the river on these floaties, but some people had a disability such as blindness or hearing loss. I did not think and took my first instinct and asked the “able bodied” people what we should do, and excluded the people who had a “disability”. What I didn’t think through is that the people with the disability might have good ideas of how to get us all across the river. I just assumed that the able bodied people were the most capable of the job. When I was confronted with this act, I knew what I had done, and was horribly embarrassed. I tried so hard to hold back the tears that were welling up in my face. This experience at the time mortified me, but now that I look back and realize what I had done, I have learned from my mistake. I now know that I can not stereotype people into a category because everyone is different. No one person is the same as someone else, and I should accept them for who they are and not discriminate.

I have learned many new ways of classroom management and how I want to run my classroom. I want a very child centered classroom where my students share the classroom with me. The classroom is just as much theirs as it is mine. I want to give them real life situations to learn from while I teach simple things they need to know. If I am going to tell them something, it is going to be the truth and the real reason why. I am not going to keep secrets from them.

Sara Baker
Email: Bake1755@mail.plattsburgh.edu
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Last Updated: February 5, 2008
© 2008 Sara Baker