Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire

Education is a field where it is constantly evolving and teachers improve with the more experience they acquire. I believe that my philosophy will always change to reflect my progress as a teacher. This philosophy will include the purpose of education, the role of the educator, the relationship between teachers and students, the classroom climate, and my personal curriculum designs. The purpose of education in my point of view is for students to be acknowledged of their special abilities and to build upon those talents to encourage critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration for the success of the individual student. According to John Dewey, students must be invested in what they are learning. He saw learning by doing.

Rafe Esquith, the author of Teach Like your Hair’s on Fire, has said that he shows his students that he is passionate about teaching so they become passionate about learning. Esquith also touched on building trust with your students. The teacher needs to show children that if you are going to do something with your students, you need to follow through and do it. He mentions that teachers should have a positive and patient attitude, being dependable, and fair. Esquith also mentions that when you become a teacher you are automatically a role model to your students (2007). Teachers need to act appropriately and in most cases a teacher can actually be teaching something without thinking that anyone is actually watching them (Esquith, 2007). After reading this book, I use a lot of his beliefs to help build a rapport with my students. If I demonstrate these qualities and expectations then we have created an effective school team or school

As previously mentioned, teachers need to build a rapport with their students. When a teacher provides these types of support they are creating a strong classroom climate. It is important to me for the students to walk through the classroom door and feel relaxed and comfortable. I work hard to make my students have that sense of home within the classroom. According to Jennings, the prosocial model proposes that teacher student relationships, classroom management, and social emotional learning are links of a healthy classroom climate (2008). A healthy classroom climate directly contributes to students’ social, emotional, and academic outcomes (Jennings,