Learning and Teaching Philosophy

I believe teaching is both an art and science. While it is good to plan lessons, use proven methods, and be meticulous about details, there is also an art to teaching. As the saying goes, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”. You can teach as hard as you can, but if the students are unwilling or uninterested, they aren’t going to learn anything. Its up to the teacher to make the student excited to learn, to get them engaged in the material, and find ways to make teaching creative. It is in these ways teaching is an art and a science.

I also believe for the student to truly learn the material, not simply regurgitate it for a test and then discard it, they must actively engage with the material several times. They must first be introduced to the topic, then be shown it in other ways. Next, they must be able to manipulate it on their own and be able comfortable with it enough to teach it to someone else. Only then have the students truly learned the material.

I believe STEM is pushing too much science on both the students and the teachers. STEM gives little wiggle room for teachers to be creative in their lessons, and gives students literally too much science and not enough arts and humanities. In this situation, I believe all suffer from the negative consequences. The teachers become more stressed and burned out, while the students end up not being as well rounded as they should. This is a topic I hope to expand upon and do more research on throughout this class.