Teaching Philosophy
I knew a student during my student teaching year that began in an Advanced Placement Composition and Literature class who decided to switch into a “normal” classroom near the end of the fall semester. He fancied himself as a STEM-oriented engineering type and reasoned that he “already communicates well enough” and “did not need to understand every cultural reference”. This student's conception of English Language Arts (ELA) as a subject in school that teaches the finer points of communication is accurate, albeit a bit narrow.
Elementary school teachers introduce their students to the alphabet, standardized spelling, and a baseline of grammatical knowledge. Middle school ELA teachers expose their students to various genres and modes of writing. High school ELA teachers equip their students with the tools necessary to decode dialects, assign meaning to symbols, and 'read between the lines' of a metaphor. In other words, ELA teachers help students understand what an author is communicating through text and proving students with the knowledge necessary to communicate through a written response. It's a discipline full of conversations between author and audience. These English Language Arts conversations are typically about the human experience. Which is excellent because a student should acquire as many life experiences as (s)he possibly can. All assigned readings in an ELA classroom explore a real (or imagined) experience that may challenge preconceived notions, encouraging students to look inward and consider how their lived experiences has shaped their worldview. In this way, ELA inspires student confidence and promotes self-awareness. |