Earlier this year I began my twelfth year as a teacher. For nearly one-third of my life I have dedicated myself to creating memorable and lasting learning opportunities that shape how people see themselves and interpret their surroundings. I began my career as a middle school language arts teacher in Maize, KS. Working in a middle school comes with its own occupational hazards. The middle years are often a minefield of emotions and hormones that pose a serious threat to an adult’s sanity and livelihood. However, the greatest risk that one must contend with while teaching at a middle school is that it is dangerously endearing.
The pace and rhythm of a middle school language arts classroom requires a great attention to detail and a focused game plan. The work is excruciating but doubly rewarding and I point to these first four years at Maize South as perhaps the most influential in shaping my teaching practice. From these first years of classroom experience, I have built a dynamic and meaningful teaching practice that has informed my professional development and my academic work. The pages that follow will illuminate on the high points of my academic record—the spirit of which was born in room A-101 of Maize South Middle School.
Foundations
Learning, the best variety of it, happens naturally throughout the course of a person’s lived experiences. We teachers are lucky to witness that moment, when “a-ha” meets bliss, within the limitations of a normal academic term. However, much to the frustration of the most passionate teacher, it can take years for some learners to finally grasp a critical concept once covered at length in an academic class. I understand much of what we discuss in my classes at Elizabethtown College may in fact be realized in the minds of my students well down the road in another course or in their lives beyond college. It is, therefore, my teaching mission, and ultimate intended outcome, to create quality, memorable and lasting learning opportunities for all learners—in class, online, or in attendance at a professional conference. This important goal is founded on three simple principles that characterize my philosophy and methodology of teaching.
- Experience is often a great teacher.
- Great teachers know when to teach and when to guide.
- The imagination, when accessed and exercised regularly, can unlock new worlds of possibilities.
These three principles overlap and weave in and out of all aspects of my teaching practice. They are present in the construction, enactment and reflection of every course, workshop, or presentation. And they are the foundations that I hope to pass on to the next generation of classroom teachers.
In the next three posts of this series, I will expand on each of the three foundational points listed above.