My Teaching Philosophy
Teaching is my chosen career path. I have been extremely passionate about teaching right from my childhood, when I used to help my sister with her schoolwork. I believe that each child is unique and special in their own way. Hence, as a teacher, it is my responsibility to see to it that I provide all my students with a safe, nurturing and stimulating environment where they get a inclusive educational experience. I strive to inspire my students to think critically, analytically, and creatively, and become active and life-long learners.
My mission is to educate every student to their fullest potential and to empower them with a diverse set of perspectives to succeed in today’s multi-cultural and multi-dimensional environment. I strive to provide a safe environment where my students are invited and encouraged to share their thoughts and ideas and embrace themselves and others as who they are. I often leverage strategies like the morning meetings, classroom jobs, etc. to ensure the building up of a strong classroom community. I see to it that they make practical connections between their studies and the real world so that they become creative, critical, and reflective thinkers. I like to empower them to take charge of their own learning by approaching each reading critically and imaginatively. I try to provide my students with tools that they need to realize their potential, to gain confidence in themselves, and to solve problems by analyzing different situations. I strongly believe that my role is not only to provide them with answers to their questions, or solutions to different problems, but also encouraging and motivating them to frame and ask questions in order to solve problems.
My experience of teaching and mentoring high school students in India empowers me to contribute to this mission. I have previously taught in both small settings with less than ten students as well as much larger classrooms containing more than fifty students which enables me to adapt to diverse learning environments. Having completed both my bachelor’s and master’s degree in English Literature, a second set of bachelor’s degree in Education from University of Calcutta – a Grade A university in India, and a second master’s degree in Secondary Education from DePaul University, Chicago, I am confident that my educational credentials are at par with requirements for a High School English Teacher position. Given my international background and heritage as well as my upbringing in a multi-lingual household, I always try to incorporate my real-world experiences into my classroom lessons as they help making different lesson topics seem more relevant. This has helped me approach my students with a global context and mindset. Growing up in a multi-lingual household and learning to communicate fluently in English, Hindi – the national language of India as well as Bengali – my native tongue, I can identify challenges that multi-lingual students often face and can guide them appropriately to overcome such challenges.
I create all the activities and assessments for my students in such a way that these help them strengthen their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. This in turn helps in fostering a strong ability to express themselves to others and to understand what other people are trying to say. My lessons and instruction also helps develop both their analytical and critical thinking skills, as well as, their social, communication and collaborative skills. I also try to ensure that they get ample scope to think creatively by providing them with opportunities to make predictions about a text/story. I believe that students can deepen and strengthen their learning when they contemplate what they have just learned to find its meaning and connections to past courses, lessons, or experiences. Hence, I also plan to include ample scope for them to record their reflections throughout the lesson.
Teaching is a life-long process of learning, and I am aware that I need to be familiar with and learn new moves, strategies, classroom tools, etc. My teaching philosophy will also evolve over time, as I firmly believe it should. I strive to have an open-mind and always be flexible to adapt to new changes.