Serenity Martinie

EDU 201

10/30/15

Educational Philosophy

1. Profession

Teachers are defined by the success that they help others achieve and by the legacies

they leave behind. I selected this profession because I am passionate about inspiring and

influencing the minds that will one day lead this country. In every child I see potential and I

always wish I had the time to spend all day expanding their knowledge and teaching functions as

the most efficient occupation to achieve that goal. My first inspiration to become a teacher came

at a very young age on my first day of kindergarten when my teacher Mrs. McGregor told us to

go get a mat and sit down while she read us a book called, “Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for

Kindergarten,” for some reason the way she read that book gave me the thought of, “I want to

choose the book and get to read it to the class, and I want to choose the mats. So obviously I

should be the teacher.” Later on in middle school I was homeschooled all of 8th grade but didn't

really learn anything from my K12 program so freshman year I was extremely behind on

mathematics. I had a teacher named Mrs. Lawrence at Arbor View High School, she spoke math

like it was her first language and never gave up on a student no matter how they challenged her. I

truly respected that, and I not only gained my entire understanding of arithmetic but she became

my mentor and confirmation of wanting to become a teacher.

My personal knowledge and experience started out as me being a teen pregnancy. I also

have grown up in a in low socioeconomic household but have been able to defy statistics and

become an outlier of my “millennial” generation both socially and academically. I have made

connections with people of all different statues, from millionaire CEO’s to homeless people that
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stop by the pantry I work at. My family is very culturally diverse both immediate and

non-immediate, including Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Native American, and a

mixture of other nationalities. My personal knowledge and skill motivates me to see the

prospective successor in every student not just the “good ones.” I can utilize these skills when

relating to students of all different backgrounds and circumstances. I also have been given

various leadership and teaching positions within my church including; preaching, supervisor of

clothing pantry, youth leader, and Sunday school teacher. These positions have given me a lot of

experience with teaching children, interacting with adults, and speaking in front of a large group

of people which are all vital teaching skills. My field observation helped me see the situations

that teachers are given such as students who don’t speak English, limited space with a surplus of

students, and having to provide your own teaching supplies for not only yourself as a teacher but

the students who can’t buy their own. I had known the perspective of a student but the

observation gave me the real life perspective of a teacher and that served as a truly valuable

piece of information.

2. Teaching

My educational philosophy consists of a constructivist's view and starts with construction

of knowledge, building my lesson upon students interests, prior experiences, and current

understandings. A student won’t retain what they don’t deem relevant. I tend to have a very

positive view of my students and give them the benefit of the doubt, however that doesn't mean

I'm naive. In epistemology I would use logic and reason more than anything else because despite

my own education being based on divine revelation, I want to teach my students based off
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unbiased facts and let them develop their own philosophies. In my teaching I would heavily

focus on using axiology especially aesthetics and reasoning because quality always comes before

quantity. Every day students are forced to absorb temporary knowledge just to regurgitate it onto

state tests shortly after, but when that’s all said and done they only retain a fraction of the

information, if any of it at all. So my goal would be to give my students knowledge that they will

be able to utilize consistently but also do it creatively and artistically. I tend to lean towards

existentialism as my philosophical orientation of teaching because I want to focus on letting my

students have an individual way of thinking and giving them freedom in education amongst our

school’s prison like structure. My knowledge of historical events allows me to see the changes

over time, what political powers influenced the education systems and how students have

fluctuated in their personalities and understandings of the knowledge educators are supposed to

teach them.This sets the stage for me to think highly about the potential, and both positively and

negatively about the state of education we are in compared to our past.

3. Instruction

The strategies I will implement will have a large quantity of projects, games, and

repetition incorporated into them. My classroom will have a strict structure when it comes to

behavior and routine. My instruction and their learning will be very informal but still organized

and that’s also how I will govern my students. There will be a variety of both group and single

activities and they will have different partners as often as possible to increase peer relations. The

focus on peer relations will make students less prone to discrimination based on diversity or

variability. Because they will be at a relatively young age this means they will have a higher
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probability of displaying that acceptance as they get older. I won’t single out my students in a

large class setting but rather discretely handle issues during class and then address them one on

one or to the parents at a more appropriate time in order to avoid confrontation. When it comes

to assessment my students will have to partake in state required tests and occasionally I will have

them complete a traditional paper and pencil tests, but most frequently I will assess them based

on how efficiently and creatively they completed the projects I assigned them. However, if a

student seems to excel more by taking a written test or other methods I will assess them in an

alternative way because I understand that not all students learn the same way.

4. Future

The qualities I need to possess in order to move forward in this career include being open

minded, accepting of constant change, unbiased, positivity, a love for knowledge, and a love for

children. In addition to that, a substantial amount of knowledge about the subject I am teaching

is also a key element in moving forward. I want to become a highly qualified teacher so I need to

obtain a bachelor's degree, a full state certification, and knowledge of each subject that I teach. ​I

also need an academic degree, most likely a Bachelor of Arts, followed by a one-year or

two-year postgraduate teacher education course.​ I plan to start out as a substitute teacher so I can

get a better idea of what grade I would be best suited for, currently I’m opting for 1st-3rd grade.

Then I want to obtain a teaching position in a school that qualifies me to get any student loans

forgiven. Finally, I will have to get a new teaching license and use my collected experience to

get a teaching position in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The summation of everything above is my

educational philosophy.
Serenity Martinie

EDU 201

10/30/15