Teaching Philosophy Statement

“I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.” Teachers are the starting point of every doctor, scientist, and all of the other individuals that make a difference in this world. Society can thank teachers for the scientists who cures cancer one day, or the astronaut who comes across new life forms on

Teachers create the environment that their students learn in. They set the expectations and they are the main deciding factors in a child’s future. The US has one of the worst educational systems in the world and there are many reasons behind this statement. The act of guaranteeing a teacher their job is called tenure. Tenure was originally created to protect teachers from administrators firing and replacing them with friends and family, but now, teachers abuse it (Home). Teacher’s union tax almost makes it nearly impossible to fire teachers and even if schools do, it is expensive and time-consuming. “During the 2006-2007 school year, New York City fired only 10 of its 55,000 tenured teachers. The cost to eliminate those employees averages out to $163,142, according to Education Week” (Home). Not all apples are bad, however. There are still teachers who want to teach. But with low salary rates in the US, it doesn’t give teachers much incentive. West Virginia ranks in the top fifteen lowest paid teachers in the US at a low $32,533 (“2012”). So this results in teachers becoming lazy, and with a classroom of around twenty-five children or more, there is no room for the teacher to slack. There are seven different learning styles that are as individual as the students. Students may be able to learn better visually, aurally, verbally, physically, logically, socially, or solitarily (Overview). Not every child learns the same, and with all of these different learning styles, teachers need to be focused and determined to guarantee success in their students. However, this is not the case in West Virgina, as one could see from their test scores. In 2011, 8th graders in West Virginia were tested in math. The scores put the state in the bottom five in the lowest scores in the country (States). The same result varies throughout the other subjects tested. Throughout the