I once completed an apprenticeship at the middle school in my home county. During the time I spent teaching, shadowing, and reading up on EPSY know-how, I was introduced to the concept of a Philosophy of Education. The idea fascinated me—that every teacher keeps an evolving, written record of how he or she approaches teaching. I was allowed to read the Philosophy of a teacher or two, and it seemed so formal, so learned. Theirs were polished. They had jumped through the hoops of k-12 life for so many years that everything they had to say seemed so sagely. As I wrote my first edition, I couldn't help but wonder how long it would take for me to reflect the same wisdom my favorite teachers did. My initial Philosophy of Education had blanket statements in it, such as “I will strive to meet each of my students where they stand,” but I never knew all of what that involved. Now, with two years of college down, I have words such as “the Zone of Proximal Development” and “scaffolding” to further describe my intentions.
But it has been the process of putting my toes in the water that has changed the way I think of teaching. My time at Classic City was a fantastic opportunity for me to realize that there's more than one model of today's high school, and there's more than one way of reaching people. It also preached the diversity that can exist in a generation of students. The students that I had a chance to encounter were radically different from each other. One had a can-do attitude, another claimed he wanted to be left alone. One would ask me questions, another would try to rush through things she didn't have complete mastery of.
A part of me wishes that I could have spent all of my time catering to one student's needs. I would have loved to help a single person grow and feel that they had a true friend in me as opposed to leaving a series of students with the notion that I was there for a rainy day—to usher them through the last chapter of ENGL2020 or to function as a quick fix for a low grade or lagging percentage-complete. I also realized that I would never be satisfied as a teacher in a PLC-modeled school. I crave those interactions with students where talking it out leads them to epiphanies, and learning carries a Socratic give-and-take. I hate to see the student who may not feel that school is a comfortable arena for them faced with nothing but more questions that equate the value of knowledge with a quiz score.
This experience has reassured me that I am on the right track. I want to be an English Education major. I want to teach high school kids who are right at that threshold where they are still able to be convinced that their efforts can build something. They are still able to realize that through reading others' words and producing their own, they can feel like a part of something. I want to teach them that communicating will not always have a numerical score attached to it, and stories can be good for something other than inspiring multiple choice questions. But when there are tests to be had, my time at PLC has taught me how I can inspire students to stick with it. They can arrive at the right answer on their own with a bit of critical thinking.
I found it best to approach students with the attitude that I know they are capable of great things as opposed to challenging them to prove themselves to me. As one of our books mentioned, “All students want to be loved and accepted by their teacher.” And while I was only a tutor, my students exemplified a need to simply be encouraged to take pride in their work and develop a consistent rhythm to get it done. PLC opened my eyes to the fact that education always has its rewards, but so much of it comes from a feeling of empowerment that is only present when teachers and tutors make it their mission to create it.
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