Teaching Philosophy: Dignity, Diversity, and Safe Learning

Introduction: The Scope and Limits of Teaching

There is only so much a teacher and a school system can do for a student, but schools and their employees should do all they can to inform and prepare students for adult life, the workplace, and their place in society. Much of what appears in the news and other media is discouraging and disheartening. While some of that reflects the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality of modern media, there are practices and ideologies that genuinely need to change. To help put education on a better path, this philosophy and plan will focus on several important ideas: that everyone is worthy of dignity and respect, that our differences are a source of strength and inspiration, that bullying behavior is never acceptable, that all students need to be informed and prepared for the world they live in, and that society should not be allowed to dictate what people "should" or are "allowed" to do — including gender role expectations.

There is a great deal of emphasis and burden placed on the school system when it comes to what children learn, how they learn it, and how schools adapt as circumstances change. However, clear limitations and barriers exist. Some of those barriers are firm and exist for good reason. For example, the public school system is generally barred from instilling or enforcing any given religion (James & Benson, 2014). That responsibility belongs to parents, depending on their own beliefs and values. Other areas are more ambiguous. Teachers, as agents of the state, are implicitly or explicitly restricted from certain conduct, while students — not being school employees — operate under somewhat different rules.

That said, it is the duty of the school system to teach core subjects such as English and language arts, mathematics, civics, and related disciplines. Regardless of where authority begins and ends, it must be understood that influences outside the classroom — parents, other family members, friends, neighborhoods, and broader social conditions — have a direct and profound effect on what happens inside it. These include whether parents are engaged in their children's learning, whether the child lives in poverty, whether the child comes from a high-crime area, and other social factors such as interactions with police, race, and ethnicity. Despite individual circumstances, teachers and administrators must focus on maximizing both learning and safety. Even when the school's formal role is limited, notifying police or social service agencies when necessary is something schools sometimes must do. And while external factors cannot always be controlled, teachers and administrators can always control the learning environment — and they must do so properly.

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