I am AWESOMELike this shark, I am AWESOME!
Ok, so now you are asking yourself, "really? Did he really just say that?" Yes I did. But it is because it is my philosophy on teaching. My two-part approach to the classroom is embodied by that one simple declaration under a menacing picture. In the classroom, enthusiasm and excitement are contagious. Who wants to come and sit in a room, listening to someone drone on and on? No student I have ever met! I want there to be excitement and energy in my room. The students should want to be there, or at least will enjoy their time in my room. To that end, I want to do fun things that engage my students, more than just recalling names and quotes from the text. I want them to be a part of the learning process, not just empty vessels waiting to be told what information I feel they should have. I want them to take a path to discovering information that they navigate themselves. I want them to be AWESOME in an AWESOME classroom learning AWESOME material that will one day make them even more AWESOME. The other part of my teaching philosophy is the shark. When chatting with a colleague of mine from New York, I made a reference to Anderson Cooper's autobiography where he said he was like a shark, constantly moving and on the hunt for the next news story. I told her that I often felt like that too. That was the beginning of what called "Teaching Shark-Style". When it comes to how I deliver material to my students, I am constantly on the hunt for the new, the increasingly more interesting and the effective methods that help me improve. It is important for me to keep it fresh so that I don't lose that edge. Because in the end, if my students aren't awesome, neither am I. |
