My Teaching Philosophy

By their very nature, people are inquisitive. The goal of education should be to
encourage seeking answers, as it is in this way that we advance. I seek to
facilitate this advancement of knowledge, and the main theme of my teaching
philosophy is reasoned thought.

In his book, To Know as We Are Known, Parker J. Palmer quotes Thomas
Merton, who says, The purpose of education is to show a person how to define
himself authentically and spontaneously in relation to his worldnot to impose
a prefabricated definition of the world, still less an arbitrary definition of the
individual himself. In other words, the main goals in education is to enable
the individual to discover who he or she is, discover what the world is, and
discover his or her place within the world. I fully agree with Mertons
statement. The reason we have public education is so future generations may
grow into functioning members of society and humanity will continue to grow
and prosper. By establishing a relationship between the self and society, we, as
teachers, are equipping the individual with a strong sense of self, which will
enable them to lead lives of purpose and significance.

Whether in the classroom or in meeting groups of the general public, my goal is
to encourage thinking in rational ways, so that this can be applied in other,
unfamiliar situations. I particularly emphasize learning to think about trends
and directions (e.g. increasing this will decrease that), rather than rote
memorization of facts.

In order to further encourage seeking answers to the questions around us, I try
to encourage the questions themselves. All teachers should do so, but it is
difficult to "allow the time" for this to take place, especially in a classroom
setting. One way in which I have done this is to design a course based on
answering questions.

Another important element of my teaching philosophy is encouraging reasoned
written and oral work, especially in developing logical arguments. A major
factor of this is spending my time making suggestions, as students can only
learn to present their ideas more effectively if someone shows them how and
why modifications could be made to their natural style to make it clearer.

Finally, I aim to encourage a sense of surprise in the world around us. We must
continue to ask the "how?" and "why?" questions in order to advance. Only if
answers to these questions continue to come (either from the teacher, or, better
yet, through reasoned thought on the part of the one asking), will the questions
continue to flow.

MEDINA, Erwin L.