Everyone has his or her own idea of the best way to teach, and the best way to learn. Often, this idea is birthed from his or her own experiences with what worked and did not work in his or her own education. I believe, however, that no matter how firmly anyone believes in a single philosophy of learning, it is important to be open to change and to be able to mold one's personal philosophy and teaching strategies to that of the students. I also believe that a philosophy is something that comes from within each of our own minds, not that of others. If we all simply tried to copy the philosophy of others, we would fail to fully understand and master it. This does not mean that our own philosophies are not influenced by others', and cannot be changed to incorporate others', but rather that these influences and changes are what make our own individual philosophy. Our philosophies, therefore, are really a secret recipe, incorporating and mixing our influences together for a final product that purely our own, creating the main ingredient from within our own minds, and adding to it ingredients from others.

As mentioned before, the root of my philosophy is openness to change and individualized application. My biggest influence comes from Jean Jacques Rousseau, and his book Emile or On Education . One of the things within Rousseau's book that I most strongly agree with is the process of learning through self-discovery. My role as a teacher is not to instruct, but to guide the students to their own self-discovery, focusing on depth and understanding, rather than breadth and memorization. This need for depth in understanding is also influenced by Bloom's Taxonomy, which describes many levels of understanding and thinking that may exist in a lesson.

In language arts, I hope to use a whole language approach to inspire children to enjoy reading, although I plan to incorporate many of the skills lessons that can be found in a program like basal reading. Through activities and participation, I hope involve all of my students actively with daily exercises such as the morning message, and other routine writing exercises. Here, the focus is on practical experience in both writing and reading. Students work towards being able to comprehend what they read, and effectively express themselves through writing.

Studying with Dr. Takahashi at DePaul has allowed me a thorough knowledge of Japanese methods for teaching math, which stress depth over breadth and are based off of self-discovery. These methods, instead of requiring students to memorize formulas for various calculations, ask students to solve a problem that requires knowledge beyond what they have already been taught. Usually, these problems are solved in small groups, allowing students to throw ideas off of each other, and work together to get an answer. As a teacher, I would observe and interact with the students as they worked, perhaps guiding them if necessary, but leaving the problem to them. As a class, we then discuss the various methods that worked, or didn't work. Even though the students may only solve a few problems throughout a class period, they have a true understanding of how to solve the problems, and more importantly, a comprehension of why that method works.

I hope to use this influence in areas beyond math. As I work throughout my career, particularly at the beginning, I hope to take my open mind, and my education, and continually develop a philosophy that truly enlightens my students. I hope to create a philosophy where my students not only learn the material that they should gain in their year with me, but learn methods that will help them continue to learn for the rest of their lives, regardless of the teaching methods they may be exposed to later in life.