My Philosophy on Education Essay -- Learning Personal Teacher Essays

My Philosophy on Education â€Å"Wake up! It’s time to get ready for school.† I loved those words as a child but grew to hate them as a teen. As a child, school consisted of hands-on activities, mingling with others, and enticing lessons. As a teen, school consisted of being forced to remain seated, reading a chapter, answering the questions at the end of the chapter, and completing a worksheet. I found school to be boring and excessively routine. Therefore, I never aspired to be a teacher. I cringed at the thought of that routine! After graduating from college with a degree in recreation and spending ten years in wonderful jobs that always led me back to children, like working at a child-care center for the abused, a children's museum, and a youth organization, I’ve finally stopped resisting what I’ve now considered to be the inevitable. I’ve embraced the idea of being a teacher. Unlike the cookie cutter approach, I want education to be a different experience for stude nts than what my experience was. Education can be and should be so much more. Education should include acquiring knowledge, processing knowledge in order to become a critical thinker, having book sense as well as common sense and thinking skills, using a variety of techniques, curriculums, and/or structure, and measuring results through testing as well as application. No matter what the stage in development, whether prenatal, toddler, early childhood, middle childhood, or adolescence, I believe that given the right tools, every child can learn. My husband is a special education teacher of students with many different handicaps, including the behavioral or learning disabled. Our conversations often include: â€Å"There is something that can touch each one of... ...t teachers, we enter the profession for the child not for the money, prestige, or rank. I plan to acquire teaching certification for Language. Whether English, Reading, Sign Language, or Journalism, I believe that communication, written and oral, is key to student success. I’d also like to combine Language and Journalism with my recreation degree in order to teach Travel WV and to pursue various writing possibilities such as travel writing and children's literature. I’ve helped create a traveling exhibit on WV Writers. I’ve attended several Children's Literature Conferences. I’ve written various curriculums, press releases, manuals, agendas, and evaluations for workshops, camps, and classes. Upon certification, I’ll continue to be involved with WV Writers and Young Writers, will be affiliated with WVEA and the NEA, and will pursue my Masters degree.