portfolio // disposition 1 | reflection 1

“Candidates will exhibit behavior that demonstrates a belief that all individuals can develop, learn, and make positive contributions to society.”

// interpret
This disposition emphasizes the importance of having faith in all students’ abilities.  What all teachers must understand and believe is that all students are capable of learning.  Though they may manifest this capability in different ways, understanding material through a variety of means, there is no student that cannot be taught.  The effective teacher seeks to include and cater to this diverse spectrum of learning styles so that all students can maximize their ability to learn, grow, and ultimately contribute to society.

// select
To reflect the presence of this disposition in my own practice, I have included an essay on rules and procedures completed for EDUC 744 (Learner and Learning II).  [D1.R1.A1]

// describe
I wrote this essay to complete an assignment that asked students to develop classroom rules and procedures and examine the difference between the two.  I found the rules portion of the assignment somewhat difficult to complete simply because I did not want to develop a set of rules without consulting with my students.  They have a stake in the classroom just as I do, and we should discuss and codify our expectations as a community.

For the assignment, then, I more broadly explained the overarching philosophies I would bring to the table when creating rules with my students.  These philosophies stem from a common idea communicated by Disposition 1: that all students are capable of contributing positively to the world around them.

// analyze
In my essay, I make a simple statement that aligns with this disposition: we are all scholars.  I first encountered the use of the term “scholar” during my work with the Durham Freedom School in my first semester of the MAT program.  In the Freedom Schools, children are referred to as scholars rather than students to emphasize the important role they play in the educational community and the wealth of information and experience they can bring to it.  The terminology tells children, quite simply, that they have already known and done things that have inherent value.

I borrowed this concept because it embodies ideas I want to cultivate in my own classroom—ideas also found in this disposition.  By telling the children I work with that they are scholars, I tell them that they are capable of contributing to our classroom in a way that allows all to learn, develop, and grow.  The classroom thus becomes a community of scholars engaged in a common educational endeavor, rather than an audience of students whose allegedly empty minds are daily filled by an allegedly all-knowing instructor.

The two remaining points of my philosophy—“we are all different” and “we all make mistakes”—are based on the scholarly concept.  Both of these concepts acknowledge sources of learning for all students, and thus explain how and why all children are able to be scholars.  Because each scholar has had different and unique life experiences, they each have different and unique insights to provide to their colleagues.  Similarly, the mistakes each scholar makes during the learning process are useful and important for the further contribution they make to life experience and, in turn, the learning process.  Recognizing the importance of differences and mistakes, then, means recognizing the reasons why all students can learn.

// appraise
Thus far in my teaching career, I have not yet had the opportunity to put the ideas of my essay into practice, only because I have yet to obtain a classroom of my own.  When I do start my first real teaching job, however, this document will guide me as my students and I form a new classroom community.  If nothing else, this essay assignment was valuable because it forced me to explicitly state a plan of action. 

In all likelihood, I will find that my philosophy, though well-intentioned, is somewhat difficult to put into use due to its idealism.  Still, I at least have a point of reference that I can return to and revise as my own experiences in teaching help me to learn and grow.  Much like my students, I will use my mistakes to inform my philosophies and better my own practice.

// transform
It is difficult to say exactly how the ideas in my rules and procedures essay may need to change.  For some classes, these principles may work exactly as I intend; others may require different, more specific guidelines.  For this disposition, the specific transformations themselves are perhaps not as important as the fact that I remain open to transformation in general.  Indeed, my teaching career should be a perpetual cycle of creation, reflection, and revision.  At the heart of this cycle, though, will always be the notion that each student I encounter can positively impact his or her world.