My Teaching Philosophy (Revised)
Submitted by Kay Dean
In Partial Fulfillment of the Class
EDU 255

Even though I have been teaching for 41+ years and have completed three major degrees, I find it interesting that this is the first class where I have been asked about my “Teaching Philosophy”. Lots of inquiries about my “Educational Philosophy” have come my way. But, I guess no one cared about what I thought about teaching.
Teaching is my passion. I believe that every child can and will learn. . .something. . .Madeline Hunter gave us some ideas about Effective Instruction in the 80’s. www.humboldt.edu/~tha1/hunter-eei.html. Shortly after Madeline Hunter’s seven-step lesson plan, William Spady espoused Outcome Based Education (OBE), which almost immediately drew fire from Christian groups http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/obe.html
for Spady’s radical indicators that man’s nature might not be fixed and unchanging. In 1985 Madeline Hunter wrote an article for Educational Leadership entitled, “What’s Wrong with Madeline Hunter by Madeline Hunter”. There have always been methods, buzz words and ways purported for effective instruction – even as far back as Adam and Eve, God used the “direct instruction approach”, by my way of thinking.
In my opinion, there are no magic formulas for effective instruction. There is magic in teaching, however. It is that moment when the teacher and the student come together in a minute of “A-ha”. To achieve lots and lots of “A’ha” moments is the trick.
Students know if you care about them. The old adage is true “Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”.
I have been known to use lots of drama in my teaching. You can’t believe how quickly you can get students to watch your every move once you pop out your lower dentures just far enough for those watching closely to see! Then they want you to do it again and they watch you closely so they won’t miss it the next time. Banging my head against the white board always draws attention to the front of the room. In a literature study of Where the Red Fern Grows , no matter how many times I have read it, I still cry unashamedly. Yelling “Hallelujah” and raising my hands skyward, always gets a response when we have all gotten the concept. I have been known to throw myself on the floor in a dead faint – which always gets their attention.
Students are like sponges, they are able to soak up information – IF it is relevant to them. Relevance isn’t always easy to show, and in these days of High Stakes Testing, it seems to me that we are teaching irrelevance at times. I have found that if I have built rapport with the students, and show the importance of the subject matter by my enthusiasm, that for the most part, students will journey with me in learning and acquiring knowledge.
Since I love teaching, and I love children of all ages, and since my lifetime passion has been teaching, I am capable of relating to most students. Two school years ago, though, I ran into one eighth grader who was really getting under my skin. He was a huge kid, and could have wiped me out with one flick of his wrist. In my opinion, he was lazy, didn’t care about being in school, and frankly was “wasting my time” (I said to myself). I threw him out of class several times because he wouldn’t do what I asked him to do. Well, I was teaching in a school with an administrator who believed in Choice Theory by Glasser. http://www.choicetheory.com/ So, after the third time the student appeared in her office with a library book to read, I was called into the Principal’s office!
She asked me “Dr. Dean, what is the problem with you and this student?”
I answered passionately, “I just can’t get him to do what I want him to do”. “And, just what is it that you want him to do?” she asked me with a wry smile. “Well, I want him to learn mathematics!” I blurted out.
“Oh, and you think you can force him to do that?” she countered. Well, she had me! I knew that I couldn’t force anyone to do anything. I’d learned that when I was forty years old and in a graduate level Child Psychology course! (I’m a slow learner).
“Well,” I shot back at her, "in the old days I could force my students to learn.” I knew I was on spongy ground with that statement.
“No, Dr. Dean, you didn’t force them to learn, they just let you think that they were learning”. I knew she was right. My administrator told me that this student had the right NOT to learn, if he didn’t want to. As long as he did not disturb the class, he was to remain in my room, doing nothing. I walked out of my principal’s office, head whirling. This student had the right to sit in my class and do nothing! That would take some major adjustment on MY part. MY students ALWAYS did what I told them to do. . .or did they?
To make a long story short, Abe (not his real name), stayed in my classroom doing nothing but staring out of the window. I ignored him completely. If I called on him and he didn’t want to answer, I just quickly moved on. Finally, after about two weeks of this (it was killing me), one day at lunch recess Abe walked into my classroom.
“Dr. Dean,” he said very respectfully (something he had not done all semester long was be respectful). “May I talk to you?”
“Sure”, I said, nearly falling off my chair. “What can I do for you?”
“Do I have any mathematics to do?” Now I am picking myself up off the floor.
“Why yes, I believe you do, Abe. Shall we look in the grade book and pick out a few assignments that you would like to do?” I really wanted to believe that it was because of my wonderful teaching that he had come around. I found out later that was not true. There was an 8th grade trip coming up and he had received his motvation from that trip – he had to be passing all of his subjects, and he knew in his mind that he wasn’t passing mathematics! The rest of the story is really the good part, though. We became best friends, on a teacher/student level. He would volunteer to come in during lunch and we would do his mathematics together. During these times I found out from various sources that he was culturally deprived and that there was no one at home to motivate him to do his work. Unfortunately, he did not make it through his Freshman year of high school. He dropped out and says he is going to some kind of Boot Camp High School this Fall. When he told me that recently, I asked him (a la Glasser). “So, Abe, tell me, if you couldn’t do the work at your high school, what makes you think that a Boot Camp High School will be better?” His reply was interesting,
“I really want to graduate from high school" he said. "I will be first one of my family to do that.” I occasionally see him around the town where I taught. He will drive around the block to come greet me with a big hug (and, remember he is big)! So, my teaching philosophy over the last 41+ years changed in one short two week span of time. I still catch myself every once in a while wanting to “force” a student to do it my way - mainly because of the era in which I grew up. But then I hear my principal’s words, and I use the wonderful questions that author Glasser provided us with. “What are you doing” What should you be doing? What do you want to do? and “How can I help you do it?”

WEll, that was eight weeks ago and detailed 40+ years of teaching. Now my teaching philosophy has been illuminated by the wonderful tools available on the Read/Write web. I am just astounded by all that I have been missing, by not involving my students more directly in the Read/Write web. I am hopeful that as I substitute teach this next year that I can (after checking the school policies) utilize Wikis, Blogs, Podcasts, etc. in my teaching.

At heart, I am still a teacher and will always be! This week I worked with my pre-kindergarten grandson in reading. Next week, I get to work on long-division with another of my sixteen grandchildren. And the beat goes on. . .