I believe that every child is a unique individual that has

something different to bring to the world. I believe that

every child needs a caring, secure and stimulating
environment where they will grow and mature
emotionally, intellectually, physically and socially. As an
educator, I wish to provide these children with the best
possible education and life skills to achieve success
during and after school, whether that be in university,
the work force or just everyday life. I believe that in my
philosophy there is 3 key things, (1) the teacher acting
as a guide, (2) allowing the child to direct his/her own
learning and (3) treating everyone and everything
around you with respect. Instead of the teacher
constantly feeding children the exact same knowledge
and being the primary source of information, the
teacher instead acts as a guide by providing children
access to information where the students search for
knowledge is met as they learn to answers to their own
questions. As individuals as well, it is important to allow
self-discovery for students to study things meaningful
and relevant to ones life and interests. Also Respect
and appreciation for others and their opinions is
something that should start in schools, teaching
children compassion and respect is pivotal in them
developing themselves personally and socially, and this
has large effect on who they will become during and
after school. Teaching itself is all about continued
learning and growth, as an educator I want to instil a
love for learning in my students, as I share my own
passion for learning with them.
My philosophy aims to incorporate bits and pieces from
many different teaching theories, the main two that

play a large role in my philosophy are Humanism and

Constructivism. Cortland University (2015) states the 5
basic principles of Humanism as being; Students
learning should be self-directed, schools should produce
students who want and know how to learn, the only
form of meaningful evaluation is self-evaluation,
feelings as well as knowledge, are important in the
learning process and that students learn best in a nonthreatening environment. The university of Sydney
(2014) states Constructivism as a learning theory found
in psychology which explains how people might acquire
knowledge and learn. It therefore has direct application
to education. In the constructivist learning theory, there
are mainly two principles 1) to focus on the learner in
thinking about learning (not on the subject/lesson to be
taught) and 2) There is no knowledge independent of
the meaning attributed to experience (constructed) by
the learner, or community of learners. These findings
link to my philosophy statement.
How I develop my classroom culture is mainly based on
being a teacher that the students feel safe talking to
and feel most comfortable learning around. I want all
students to be respected by other students regardless
of colour or religion, since these classmates also play a
pivotal role in the development of students. Everyone
in the class has a right to an opinion but must respect
the opinion of others, all students are allowed to voice
their opinions but must not be interrupted by other
students whilst doing so, and its about instilling
respect at a young age. When doing group activities I
will constantly be changing students between groups so
that they develop a relationship and respect between

each other, also these students can share their

knowledge and beliefs to greater expand the
knowledge of the classroom. Students that are
misbehaving will be given warnings and be let known
that they are distracting the learning of their peers,
after these warnings I would issue a one on one with
the student to see why they were being distractive. An
example of one of my conducted classrooms was a very
diverse year 8 P.E class; the class had one girl that
really distracted a number of other girls from
participating and listening. I always start my class off
with a small bonding activity which serves as a warmup game; the other teacher usually makes the students
run laps to warm-up, an example of a warm-up game I
use is knee tag. I always make students pair up with a
different partner each class to get them to spend time
with someone they usually wouldnt spend time with. In
knee tag students are trying to tag each others knees
for points, its a small game but it is very inclusive and
students are often very engaged and bond with their
partners. After every exercise or game I make in P.E I
ask the students what they liked or didnt like about it
so I can change it to make it more engaging and fun
next time, all students are encouraged to let their
opinions be known. During games, students are given
handouts relating to the game we are playing and they
get to decide what tactics and skills they use to play it.
Also during my theory classes, instead of giving
students one sport to study, I gave them multiple
sports that will be covered throughout the year and
they were told to pick their favourite one and write
something about that sport that they learnt. As for the
student that usually causes trouble in class, I was

forced to move her from her group and pair her up with
a student who was very shy and quiet, at first she was
very angry and saying I dont want to be with her I
dont like her etc. And I really felt for the girl I paired
her up with as she was a nice, respectful girl that
always engaged in class. I pulled the troubled student
aside and I spoke to her about the effect shes currently
having on her new partner without her even knowing,
after some time she understood that she was being
very disrespectful to not only her new partner but to
the whole class and myself, funnily enough the two
ended up winning the badminton round robin in my
class and that for me was very rewarding to see them
really co-operate well together. Children who are
misbehaving shouldnt just be thrown out of class, as
this is not how they learn, they are in a developmental
stage in life and a calm, friendly approach to discuss
the issue eventually helps the students see their wrong
doings, it might not work the first time but eventually
the message is brought across.
As teacher I understand my responsibilities, I am
accountable for my whole class and Im responsible for
way that my class behaves. When I speak, students
know to be quiet and respectful and they know the
same goes for them and their peers. I try my best to
manage my classes well but at the same time to instil a
sense of respect and care throughout the whole class, it
not only right to be a teacher but a mentor to the
children whilst conducting yourself in a professional
manner. If things really begin to get out of my control
with individual students and I can see my approach is
failing with them, then that is when I would need to be

assisted with the aid of the other teachers, staff or

someone higher in charge. However during my
teaching rounds, I have never had to resort to using the
assistance of others to manage my classroom. Over
the 4 weeks I have seen my classes develop, and the
interaction and respect between classmates have
shown great improvement. As I continue to teach, I will
learn and develop and see what new approaches I can
incorporate in my teaching to better my classrooms
and provide maximum development for my students.

References:
1. The University of Sydney 2014, Constructivism,
Viewed 26th May 2015,
http://sydney.edu.au/education_social_work/learnin
g_teaching/ict/theory/constructivism.shtml.
2. Cortland University 2015, Principles of Humanistic
Education, Viewed 26th may 2015,
http://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/HUMAN/PRINC.H
TML.