The Creative Classroom :: Education Teaching Teachers Essays

The Creative Classroom When I was three years old, my parents and I made the most significant move of our lives– we moved from northern Ohio to my mother’s hometown in southern West Virginia. Many things about my life changed because of our relocation, but most significantly was my mom’s job. While in Ohio, she had stayed home with me, but once we came to West Virginia, she resumed her career as a teacher. Immediately, I was thrown into the school system. I remember being so proud that my photograph had been included in the 1987 Man Junior High School Yearbook– and I was just four. Since then, I have viewed the teaching profession through my mother’s eyes and consequently, the eyes of a teacher. I have seen the joy that comes with teaching as well as the frustrations, and I look forward to them all in my future as an educator. I consider my views of teaching to be realistic. I have seen firsthand the paperwork, confrontations with students, extra hours required, and the stress that comes with teaching. But, I have also seen a teacher’s entire day be turned around just because one student grasped a new concept. I have seen a student’s eyes sparkle when they discover something new. And beyond that, I have seen a teacher’s eyes sparkle when his or her pupil rejoiced in their newfound knowledge. I welcome all these experiences into my life, and cannot wait to make my own discoveries in my secondary mathematics classroom. Because of my observations of the education field and my own personal style, I feel that my classroom will best be served with a diverse group of philosophies including essentialism, perennialism, behaviorism, and social reconstructionism. Essentialism is the "back to basics" approach to education that concentrates on teaching primary skills to students. Essentialism tugs at the very heart of mathematics: in order to understand the more complex theorems and algorithms, you must first have a firm grasp of the basic principles of mathematics. I believe learning mathematics is both a step-by-step and conceptual process. With essentialism, I hope to highlight the step-by-step approach. In this, I will be constantly reviewing elementary mathematical concepts, building to a better understanding of the given concept and further building up to a more complex mathematical understanding. Perennialism emulates the belief that ideas that have lasted over centuries should be the concentration of the classroom.