will be progressive in my teaching.

Progressive thinking is a mentality that

would benefit any individual in any job or
any position. Things are always changing
and evolving to the newest and, often times,
best; this is one of the few guarantees in life.
The classroom should be set up to initiate
the students journey in education, rather
than the entirety of it. If the minds of my
students are trained to think innovatively,
and in an problem-solving manner, then
they will be well equipped to face and
overcome obstacles and will be practiced in
looking at problems in different ways.

The Root of My
Passion: Philosophy of
Education
Thoughts of Emily D. Ropp
The classroom should facilitated by the
educator in order to ignite and sustain a
student's journey in learning, rather than be
the entirety of it.

I believe as an educator it is my job to fuel

and expose the different strengths of my
students and to shine light on the
differences among students. I believe the
key factor in generating student
individualism that is driven by educators is
the encouragement to think progressively
through challenges with confidence. I
believe that nurturing this thought process
in the classroom is something that will
better the next generation of architects,
inventors, scientists, writers, entrepreneurs,
and so forth.
Children come from all different types of
backgrounds, regions, cultures, and life
experiences; no two children that I teach
will ever be the exact same. In this certain
diversity in the classroom, as an educator, I

Students need to learn from their educators,

just as educators need to be accepting of
progression and modification of their own
teaching style in the classroom as reflected
by students. As an educator, I need to
prepare my students for the world they will
soon be a major influential part of. In order
to do this I need to set-to-motion their
potentials and strengthen their weaknesses
by experience and involvement with others
and with their community. I also believe
encouragement is a huge part of creating
lifelong learners. Nobody wants to devote
time to something they think they are
terrible at. It makes me so sad that some
students think they are dumb and that
school isnt for them. I know if I
encourage my students by highlighting their
strengths and praising them when they do
well, they will begin to w
ant to please you. I
have seen this happen in classrooms. I have
seen the beautiful benefits to establishing
relationships and growing confidence.
In my undergraduate degree, STEM based
education was my largest course emphasis. I
think learning about how to teach science
really helped me frame how to teach with an

inquiry model in all content areas, and to

teach it well. When teaching science, it is
especially important to take a progressive
approach as science is an area of study that
is subject to growth and change. When
preparing a space for learning science I will
set it up with the frame of science as a cycle.
This cycle is that science starts with an
observation and then that observation leads
to a hypothesis, or questions made by my
students. Then, one must test their
hypothesis and seek to answer their
questions through hypothesis testing. This
can be done through classroom simulations,
interactions with models, researching the
topic, or small hands-on experiments.
Making observations during this hypothesis
testing stage will provide the student with
answers to their questions and hopefully
generate further questions to fuel their
interest in the topic and lead them to other
topics in science.
This process can be frustrating if the student
isnt engaged, similar to every other content
area, that is why as an educator and leader
of the classroom I will need to create a
learning space that is intentionally planned
and well thought through. To keep my
students engaged I will build experience in
my classroom through hands on,
collaborative work. I believe that if I push
my students to be vulnerable with each
other through sharing work it will create a
safe and empowering classroom
environment.
Education is an evolving tool, weapon, and
mean of worldwide connectivity. Malala
Yousafzai, a world-renowned advocate
sharing importance of education, puts it this
way: Let us pick up our books and our
pens. They are our most powerful weapons.

One child, one teacher, one book and one

pen can change the world. The power of
learning joins all people together to form an
operational and powerful force, capable of
empowering others and improving ones
self. Active creative thinking and application
in a students education leads to
distinctiveness, which fuels success in the
students future. Real life encounters
through field trips, connection with the
community, and hands on learning will
solidify the importance of learning through
experience. It will positively ignite the
mindset of a continuous desire to keep
learning through, and, more importantly
past, the standard education systems
instilling the realization that we as people
should never stop learning.
Teaching is hard. Its not some pushover
task that should be taken without deep
consideration. The skill set used to create
the best learning atmosphere for ones
students is of utmost importance.
Generating intimate student-to-student and
teacher-to-students connections can be
achieved by creating a safe and flexible
classroom through collaborative work and
student-tailored engagement throughout
and beyond the school year in every area of
study.