Teaching Philosophy

I always wanted to be a teacher.  I loved school.  I loved my teachers – well most of them.   I wasn’t too fond of my 8^th grade teacher who sent me to the blackboard (yes – real black slate) and directed me to list all of Ohio’s 88 counties.  I loved writing on the chalk board.  My handwriting mirrored that of my teachers.  I played school at home.  My teachers said I was a “model” student.  Later I learned that these same teachers taught my dad.  He was very bright, but he was also mischievous, so these same teachers were just happy that I behaved myself.  “Model” meant quiet.

While I was being schooled, I didn’t know it, but policy was being developed and laws enacted that would have a profound effect on education.  As a first grader, Brown vs. the Board of Education became the law of the land.  In rural, white, Ohio, this ruling had little impact on me.  As a high school student, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was signed into law.  Again, without my realization, this law had a huge impact on my education.  It brought dollars into a school district that desperately needed support.  With the dollars came new teachers and new courses, both of benefit to me.  While I was taking classes for my master’s degree, IDEA was signed into law.  My professor, whether purposeful or not, frightened most of us by describing horrors that teachers would face with the opening of classrooms to children with disabilities.  Of course I would learn that none of this was true.  Students with disabilities are just like all the other students. 

In my hometown, it wasn’t a given that one would attend college after high school.  Boys usually went to work at the National Cash Register Company, one of the General Motors plants, or at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.  Girls were expected to get married and have families.  If I wanted to be a teacher, I would have to follow a non-traditional path. 

I tried going BGSU in northwestern Ohio, but it was too far from home.  To this day, I empathize with students who are homesick.  Furthermore, my parents could no longer afford college for me, so I came home, found a clerical job, and got married.  After just a year of tradition, I knew something was missing:  a career!  I still wanted to complete my coursework for a teaching license. 

Wright State was close to home, and my experience with education took up where it left off in high school.  I loved each and every day, each and every course.  A highlight was my student teaching.  My cooperating teacher was a synthesis of every teacher I had ever wanted to be. 

After 16 years in the classroom, with the latter years being disappointing due to poor leadership, I was given the opportunity to have an effect on the entire district.  We knew that elementary teachers in our district, and in many other districts, were not teaching science.  Working with the district curriculum director, we developed a proposal to create an elementary hands-on science program.  We took advantage of the area technology and invited local businesses to be partners in the venture.  We called our proposal “Curriculum Reform: Enhancing America’s Technological Education,” (CREATE) and sent it to the National Science Foundation for consideration.  Funded for three years, CREATE opened my eyes to the possibilities outside the classroom.  I liked providing professional development for my colleagues.  I liked developing curriculum.  I liked bringing people together to develop new learning opportunities.  Most of all, I enjoyed helping my colleagues overcome their fear and/or dislike of teaching science.  The result was children who delighted in learning science.

Encouraged by my curriculum colleague, I decided to work toward an advanced degree, but the question was, would it be in curriculum, where I already had a master’s degree, or would it be in something new, like educational policy and leadership?

With an advanced degree in policy and leadership, we were told that we were the “chosen ones,” expected to go forth and become superintendents.  This was not my goal.  I liked the policy piece.  I was working in a suburban school district at this point, and was given the opportunity to develop district policy and provide leadership in science.   In the next phase of my career, I become a principal, and that brought the opportunity to impact more students and more parents.  As a principal, I came to realize that not all students have the same opportunities and privileges that I had.  The was a revelation for me.   Who were these children?  What prevented them from engaging in education? I was on a mission to learn about this problem and develop ways to solve it.

By almost any measure, the time I spent working with students from cultures and languages different from my own has been transformative for me.  It has been the ultimate education.  It has made me a better person, and I have always learned more from this work than my students learned from me. 

After I left the classroom, I learned about the politics of education, the limits of education, and barriers to education. I learned that everyone is struggling to find a model of education that is effective and efficient.  Education is recognizing limitations and finding ways to overcome them.  All my years as an educator boils down to this – find a way to make it work for all children.  There is no single way to get the job done, and every child learns in a different way.  The interaction of learning with culture and language is a fascinating twist, but the same basics apply: overcome the barriers.