Eudcational Philosophy

    When it comes to teaching children with special needs, I believe the strongest attribute an educator can maintain and develop is their relationship with each child in the classroom. To me, the stronger and more comprehensive the relationship a teacher has with each of their students, the higher the level of academic, social, and overall success of each student can be achieved.
    As a current teacher in a behavioral special education classroom, I have come to believe that the more I know about my students the better I can relate to them. When I am able relate to them on a more concrete level, I can more easily foster a stronger sense of confidence in their abilities, better manage their behaviors, work to increase their positive, prosocial behaviors, and challenge them academically without receiving as much of a negative behavioral backlash.
    It is my belief that these ideals would hold true in other educational settings as well. I think that the better any teacher is able to connect with their students individually, the more easily they will be able to connect with their students as a cohesive unified classroom. When this is the case, the educator is more in tune with not only the collective needs of the classroom, but how the individual needs of each child fit together to create, develop, and challenge the dynamic of the classroom. To borrow a notion from Gestalt psychology, it appears in this way that the sum of the parts is always greater than the whole. However, to me, it is knowing the shape, dimension, shade, and edges of each part that make the whole successful in the end.
   It is my aim as a teacher to better the life of each child that is in my classroom, even if it is in a minute way. I know that most of the children I currently teach have histories so severe that their options for the future have already become limited because of their behavioral issues. However, I feel that if I can help each child to leave our program even just a little bit more able to control their anger or with the ability to identify their negative feelings without engaging in disruptive behaviors then I have done my job. When I can see these moments in my students, moments where things change and become better for them, I continue to have a purpose to keep teaching through even the most challenging days. This is why I teach, to see these small victories, these tiny steps of improvement, especially in this environment where so little can actually mean so much.