Perceived Philosophical Positions of Three Teachers From

¶ … Perceived Philosophical Positions of Three Teachers From Your Educational Past (elementary,

I have had a number of memorable teachers throughout the course of my academic career. From elementary school to college, I was fortunate enough to encounter pedagogues who actually were able to enhance the learning process and disseminate didactic lessons for life in general. Although not all of the philosophical positions of the teachers that had the most impact on me were congruent, they all were able to strongly contribute -- either negatively or positively -- to my regard for formal education and the myriad connotations it can take on.

The best teacher I have ever had was my Latin teacher in middle school and high school. The bulk of my secondary education was at a learning institution that spanned from kindergarten to high school, so I was fortunate to have this particular teacher for six years. Perhaps due to the fact that these six years were at a crucial stage in my cognitive and social development, I was really taken by this teacher and her style of pedagogy. Philosophically, this teacher's mantra was to make learning fun. She always had an agenda and knew more about the Latin language and culture of the ancient Romans than anybody else I had encountered. But she always made a point to incorporate the formal study of these facets of her class with a good deal of contemporary enjoyment for preteens and adolescents. Due to her attempts to make the learning process enjoyable, my Latin teacher taught in a way that was personable and full of positive reinforcement. She made her students feel good about themselves and about learning Latin, which attests to the virtues of self-esteem (Bronson, 2007). As such, for as much class time that we spent poring over textbooks, learning declensions and verb conjugation, we spent reading entertaining literature written in Latin (classics as well as contemporary newspapers), or traveling to statewide conventions in the subject, or playing educational games in a fun manner. Mrs. Groschupf's adherence to positive reinforcement was at the base of all of these activities, which is significant because empirical evidence indicates that positive behavior has a successful adoption rate of getting people to try new things (Lindsey, 2008, p. 2) -- like learn Latin. Even when she was writing progress reports, she would always frame her remarks in a way that they were construed as helpful, if not outright encouraging regardless of the level of the student (I was able to see some of my friend's progress reports as well). The overall effect of this teaching style is that not only did I adore Mrs. Groschupf, but I also adored Latin. I readily find Latin word roots in English, and even have many of the same texts that I read with my Latin teacher -- including our primary textbook. There are few subjects which I have as much enthusiasm for as Latin, which is a direct result of the enthusiasm Mrs. Groschupf always injected to her classes.

Perhaps not coincidentally, one of my other favorite teachers I had was during the tenure in which I was taking Mrs. Groschupf's class. My seventh grade history teacher had a pretty significant impact on my educational career and current conceptions for education in general. Her philosophical position was that the subject she was teaching -- despite the fact that it actually occurred hundreds of years before -- should be as relevant as possible to middle school students. Her own personality was extremely congenial, and the fact that she was in her early 20's helped her to imbue her curriculum and specific methods of preparing students to learn it with a degree of modernity, that made it seem important even in our own lives. She went out of her way to know her students, including understanding crucial factors of their home lives that may have impacted their learning prowess (Baum and Flores, 2011, p. 171). In practical terms, then, she used a lot of interactive didactic methods (debates, presentations, etc.) alongside less conventional reading and writing assignments (journaling, creative writing) to help her students incorporate U.S. History into their own lives. The overall effect was that the material, which is timeless in this country, had more of an immediacy for me and for most of the other students. History is currently one of my best subjects, and I believe I can relate my initial interest in this discipline to much of the experiences I had with my seventh grade history teacher.