Vision Statement: Teaching Goals \"You

Vision Statement: Teaching Goals

"You changed my life." As a teacher, some day I hope to get a letter from a former student emblazoned with these words. Teachers can make a measurable and memorable impact upon the lives of others. They interact with children during some of their most vulnerable and formative years. I want to be the kind of teacher who is remembered years afterwards by students as a teacher who made a great impact upon their lives, who made them understand that learning is fun and rewarding, and opened up new possibilities and infused them with hope for their future.

To meet this goal, I want to use creative and innovative techniques in my classroom. I need to use a variety of different techniques that cater to the different learning styles of students, including students who are visual learners, spatial learners, kinesthetic learners, and also students with special needs. I intend to reevaluate my performance in light of my student's achievements, and also learn from my students. I would rather draw upon student's innate interests than simply discipline students. I want to motivate them to work by making them want to try hard. Of course, some discipline is still necessary to instill respect in the hearts of students -- not just for me as a teacher, but also for their fellow pupils.

Meeting standardized test benchmarks is necessary, however, for a teacher and a school to succeed in the modern educational environment. But although a teacher may not have discretion over state and district benchmarks, she can still use exciting and engaging ways to reinforce basic skills. Using word problems that make use of wizards and witches (if that is the students' main interest); assigning reading comprehension passages that students can relate to; and making the learning process interactive (such as having different students represent different parts of a sentence, such as noun, adjective, and adverb) are all examples of these principles.

I would say that my greatest strengths as a teacher are my commitment to improving the lives, learning, and attitude of my students and my determination to engage in intense self-scrutiny about my teaching methods. I am determined to make school a dynamic and welcoming place. Balancing the individual needs of students with the need to create an integrated and fully-functioning classroom is my challenge and the challenge of so many educators today: we must meet pre-determined standards in terms of what students can learn, but are coping with a more diverse population than ever before.

I hope to use that diversity as a strength to make my classroom a better place. Using team assignments enable stronger and weaker students to work together and create a more cohesive sense of unity. I also intend, on the other hand, to encourage students to engage in independent activities, such as research projects, which will empower them, and give them control and direction over their learning. It will also enable them to personalize assignments to make them more interesting. Students must be able to work with one another and independently to succeed in the workplace today.