Overview

If there is one thing I learned from my experience at Teachers college so far, it’s that the theories that comprise our education system are constantly evolving. Not one practice, theory, or curriculum is designed to accommodate every person, school or teacher’s needs. When thinking about my teaching philosophy, I was reminded of a Ted Talk I watched by Christopher Edmin, a professor at Teachers College. In it, Edmin talks about how teachers and the education system, in general, will try to make big promises about educational reform and challenging pedagogy (Edmin 2012). However, he points out that when we come into a classroom with preconceived notions of our students and the classroom, we can oftentimes miss seeing what it is they actually need from us. I would agree with Edmins' points as I think that the best teacher is one who actually addresses the needs and desires of the students based on how they actually see themselves and not how we see them. In the example Edmin uses, he asks his students to take pictures capturing their world outside of the classroom, expecting them to photograph terrible things in their community as a way to turn them on to schooling. The response was quite the opposite; they took pictures of sunsets over the projects, big brothers walking their little siblings to school, the community telling stories, and various other beautiful and powerful aspects of their lives. I hope and intend to bridge together that disconnect with my students through teacher and student dialogue. Especially in a community of language learners, I get to see so many different beautiful and challenging perspectives and views of self and life in respect to language, not of which take priority over the other.