"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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Teaching PhilosophyTrue respect is earned through awakening a passion that the learner did not know existed. By challenging student thinking, impacting their learning abilities, and offering my own interest in each individual student, I believe that it will then create a strong self-worth and personal success. All the while, students will gain knowledge, and a motivated education experience to shape his/her future.
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The history |
Existentialism can be defined as, "a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will." This theory is adapted to fit the realm of education. throughout my teaching experience, I have observed that the student can only be motivated through self-motivation. The role of the educator is not to force or threaten, but rather encourage to achieve personal motivation. The existentialist teacher understands that each student is an individual learner and that differentiation must appear within the classroom. The successful teacher will implement this early on and give equal opportunity to each learner. This is not always the easiest option, or always plausible within the confines of the school day, however it is necessary.
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What I believe |
The students will and motivation determines his/her success, and it is my job as an educator to recognize this. During the course of my student teaching, I read an article that focused on the motivation of students and how various teachers experimented with the comments left on papers. Teachers handed back two sets of critiques: one simply said, "This material is not sufficient." The other said, "This material is not sufficient, you are capable of producing much more quality work. I know you can." The students were offered a rewrite, and the results revealed that more students with the second set of critiques redid the assignment. I decided to implement this experiment in my own way. I, however, focused on one student. This student was in my Elements of Composition course, a course designed as a "time to" for struggling juniors and seniors. My student lacked motivation in writing, and reading. I started the week writing generic comments like critique one in the article. I received the same insufficient work as I had been all unit. Then, after the next revision, I tried critique two. Not only did I see a a majority in the amount written, I received a written note that simply said, "Thank you." under my comment. Now, this was just one student that I tried this on, but the reflection was significant. What we invest in the individual, the individual will invest back through his/her own motivation to do better.
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