Education Philosophy
In our global world, those who embrace challenges and learning will have significantly enhanced opportunities for shaping their future. My role as an educator is about helping students to be critical thinkers, inspiring them to take action and helping them become the best that they can be.
My strong passion to make a difference to people’s lives and help people to reach their full potential began more than 20 years ago when I started working as a Disability Support Worker, and then later obtained a Bachelor of Social Work and worked helping young people to confront social problems. For all of my professional roles I have gravitated towards education and empowerment, where I have always been inspired to enable people to make positive life choices regardless of adversity.
As an educator it is my responsibility to inspire, motivate and facilitate student learning so that they achieve success beyond their expectations. I have a strong work ethic and a great sense of fun. Teaching is a part of who I am. At the heart of my philosophy is the image of the child as powerful, capable and full of curiosity about his or her world. My role is to tap into this natural curiosity and cultivate a growth mindset, by encouraging and rewarding effort and persistence.
My family and I are now in our sixth year living and teaching overseas. I am a proud member of the international education community because our changing world requires everyone to be interculturally competent and to be critical, reflective global minded individuals. I am very passionate about teaching the PYP curriculum and its focus on global mindedness. I see my role predominately as providing culturally responsive education to develop critical and reflective global minded students that will be adaptive to change in our global world and have a shared goal for social justice and equality.
I show my strength as a teacher by creating a rich, learning and responsive community in and out of my classroom that fosters mutual respect, social skills, kindness, perseverance and critical thinking. I begin each day with a Morning Meeting that sets the tone for the rest of the day. We all start with the same-shared goal, to begin another successful school day. Sharing news and participating in cooperative activities develop lifelong, transferable skills and creates a climate of trust, where students are more likely to support and encourage each other to be courageous. As a long-time promoter for building communities within organizations, I am committed to developing supportive learning environments that allow all to contribute and generate excitement and curiosity for opportunities for learning.
I challenge my students because I know that all of them have the ability to meet my expectations. I value challenge seeking, learning and effort above perfect performance. Easy is boring. Challenges are exciting. I am an optimist. I embrace change and problem solving. I focus on the positives and foster collaborative development and sharing. I celebrate effort, creative approaches, resourcefulness, persistence and helping others.
My greatest commitment is to myself as a role model and recognising that students shape their attitudes from their observations from us. Interest and enthusiasm of a group is contagious and children will learn to associate learning and challenges with fun.
The focus of my assessments is to encourage metacognition. My students know that my classroom is a safe place for mistakes, and see mistakes as an opportunity to learn. I create multiple opportunities for mastery. All students are different.
I recognise how important it is to know my students, know how they learn and to be professionally engaged with their families and community so that I provide rich, meaningful learning and personal development opportunities. Open daily communication, a welcoming classroom, parent surveys, class website and forums and parent evenings help me to tap into the diversity of families as a resource for learning, building partnerships, responsive dialogue and a mutual commitment for joint action.
I have enjoyed developing curriculum, which connects students to current global issues and motivates action. I aspire to develop powerful units of work that directly impact the lives of students and our school community. I am energized by being part of a growing global organization that is changing the face of education in the world – one classroom at a time. I truly believe the IB Mission Statement about creating a better, more peaceful world and am so excited to be part of that.
Learning is my life-long passion. One of my current goals is to explore more ways to incorporate educational technology in my classroom to help develop intercultural understanding through authentic interactions. Last year I initiated contact with a PYP school in Australia that studies Mandarin and our Grade 5 classes connected and created bi-lingual resources about their own countries. I want to foster more links with our local, national and international communities.
I am very active in our school community and work hard to give students countless opportunities to explore and broaden their experiences. I regularly contribute to a wide range of extracurricular activities such as coaching, and Saturday soccer.
This year I have taken on the role of our PYP Student Council Liaison Teacher, and have very ambitious goals for our students to take a much more active role in our school community. My first goal is to connect with our MYP and DP Student Council and create a whole of school community where students can work together on such projects as developing and maintaining student committees for fundraising, yearly events, Action Teams, website development, developing a peer support program and establishing more links with our parents and wider community.
In our global world, those who embrace challenges and learning will have significantly enhanced opportunities for shaping their future. My role as an educator is about helping students to be critical thinkers, inspiring them to take action and helping them become the best that they can be.
My strong passion to make a difference to people’s lives and help people to reach their full potential began more than 20 years ago when I started working as a Disability Support Worker, and then later obtained a Bachelor of Social Work and worked helping young people to confront social problems. For all of my professional roles I have gravitated towards education and empowerment, where I have always been inspired to enable people to make positive life choices regardless of adversity.
As an educator it is my responsibility to inspire, motivate and facilitate student learning so that they achieve success beyond their expectations. I have a strong work ethic and a great sense of fun. Teaching is a part of who I am. At the heart of my philosophy is the image of the child as powerful, capable and full of curiosity about his or her world. My role is to tap into this natural curiosity and cultivate a growth mindset, by encouraging and rewarding effort and persistence.
My family and I are now in our sixth year living and teaching overseas. I am a proud member of the international education community because our changing world requires everyone to be interculturally competent and to be critical, reflective global minded individuals. I am very passionate about teaching the PYP curriculum and its focus on global mindedness. I see my role predominately as providing culturally responsive education to develop critical and reflective global minded students that will be adaptive to change in our global world and have a shared goal for social justice and equality.
I show my strength as a teacher by creating a rich, learning and responsive community in and out of my classroom that fosters mutual respect, social skills, kindness, perseverance and critical thinking. I begin each day with a Morning Meeting that sets the tone for the rest of the day. We all start with the same-shared goal, to begin another successful school day. Sharing news and participating in cooperative activities develop lifelong, transferable skills and creates a climate of trust, where students are more likely to support and encourage each other to be courageous. As a long-time promoter for building communities within organizations, I am committed to developing supportive learning environments that allow all to contribute and generate excitement and curiosity for opportunities for learning.
I challenge my students because I know that all of them have the ability to meet my expectations. I value challenge seeking, learning and effort above perfect performance. Easy is boring. Challenges are exciting. I am an optimist. I embrace change and problem solving. I focus on the positives and foster collaborative development and sharing. I celebrate effort, creative approaches, resourcefulness, persistence and helping others.
My greatest commitment is to myself as a role model and recognising that students shape their attitudes from their observations from us. Interest and enthusiasm of a group is contagious and children will learn to associate learning and challenges with fun.
The focus of my assessments is to encourage metacognition. My students know that my classroom is a safe place for mistakes, and see mistakes as an opportunity to learn. I create multiple opportunities for mastery. All students are different.
I recognise how important it is to know my students, know how they learn and to be professionally engaged with their families and community so that I provide rich, meaningful learning and personal development opportunities. Open daily communication, a welcoming classroom, parent surveys, class website and forums and parent evenings help me to tap into the diversity of families as a resource for learning, building partnerships, responsive dialogue and a mutual commitment for joint action.
I have enjoyed developing curriculum, which connects students to current global issues and motivates action. I aspire to develop powerful units of work that directly impact the lives of students and our school community. I am energized by being part of a growing global organization that is changing the face of education in the world – one classroom at a time. I truly believe the IB Mission Statement about creating a better, more peaceful world and am so excited to be part of that.
Learning is my life-long passion. One of my current goals is to explore more ways to incorporate educational technology in my classroom to help develop intercultural understanding through authentic interactions. Last year I initiated contact with a PYP school in Australia that studies Mandarin and our Grade 5 classes connected and created bi-lingual resources about their own countries. I want to foster more links with our local, national and international communities.
I am very active in our school community and work hard to give students countless opportunities to explore and broaden their experiences. I regularly contribute to a wide range of extracurricular activities such as coaching, and Saturday soccer.
This year I have taken on the role of our PYP Student Council Liaison Teacher, and have very ambitious goals for our students to take a much more active role in our school community. My first goal is to connect with our MYP and DP Student Council and create a whole of school community where students can work together on such projects as developing and maintaining student committees for fundraising, yearly events, Action Teams, website development, developing a peer support program and establishing more links with our parents and wider community.
