My main reason of why I wanted to go into teaching was because I saw first-hand what a

wonderful educator can do a young mind. If a teacher is able to assist and go above and beyond
that will only invest in the future. My decision also came because as a family of teachers I
always knew at a young age that I wanted to be someone to make an impact on children’s life. I
always have loved children and being able to pretend play teacher with my siblings only further
reassured me that my destiny was to become a teacher. I have been so lucky to experience so
many opportunities to work with young children from working in an after school program, to
volunteering, to joining ROP preschool and to finally fieldwork hours.
As an educator my teaching philosophy centers around shaping the mind of the children
and developing them to further prosper in life and school. My goal is and will always be to do
good by each individual student and the needs that they need. I believe that each child is not the
same and because of that, I as the educator should alter my teaching to adjust to what each child
needs. In order to be an effective teacher, I will teach my students how to feel empowered and
motivated by learning.
To be able to make an impact in my students and the way they interact with learning my
goal is to be a culturally responsive teacher. Doing so I will not just recognize the cultural
background of my students but I will create a learning environment that is engaging and
accessible to a broad range of students (Ladson-Billings, 1995).” There are many ways to be an
effective teacher and to do so, I will invest in getting to know my students and what makes them,
them. “Our culturally diverse students may require a relationship with us, their teacher, before
they decide to learn us and they may be confronting personal issues about we are unfamiliar
Davis, 2012, p59).” If I am able to break the barrier of the students that will only allow for
myself to impact their lives and become a better educator for them. Also, I want to be able to
interact with their culture so I plan on making their culture something that we learn in the class.
My teaching style can be described as progressive and as student centered, my class will
consist of my students being able to discover, make predictions and being able to carry out an
idea to get the answer they are looking for. For my students to learn, as the teacher I have to be
able to take a step back and guide them rather than just tell them and explain to them why things
work. I hope to teach my students the skills to be able to critically think and figure things out on
their own so that they are able to succeed on their own. This will give them the confidence to
take challenges, ask questions and to go beyond their learning capacities.
I hope to be able to teach and display equity in my class, that will mean putting in a
system to ensure that every child has an equal chance for success. That will require myself to
understand the barriers and challenges faced by individual students to provide the additional
support that they need to overcome barriers. With that I will make sure there is fairness in my
class, which means providing every opportunity I can to make sure that my student has every
resource possible to reach their academic potential. Also, I will make my class inclusive by
making sure all student is being taken care for in their education regardless of their background,
personal characteristics or circumstances.
 References

Davis, B. M. (2012). How to Teach Students Who Don't Look Like You: Culturally Responsive
Teaching Strategies (2nd ed.).

Ladson-Billings, G., (1995). But that’s just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant
pedagogy. Theory into Practice, 34(3), 159-165.