My Teaching Philosophy
By: Michael Cianci
I am currently attending Montclair State University, studying to be a physical education teacher. I have fell in love with the idea of being a physical education teacher while finishing my senior year of high school. I thought that being a physical education teacher would be perfect for me because of my burning passion for sports. In addition, I will continue to have a summer vacation and will be getting paid to play sports. However, the most important reason I want to be a physical education teacher is to impact the lives of so many children. When I decide to conclude my teaching career, I want to be remembered as one of the best physical education teachers there has ever been.
In order to be seen as one of the best, I need to have a full understanding of my teaching philosophy. I know my teaching philosophy will be what leads me to a successful teaching career. There are many characteristics that are a part of my teaching philosophy, but I will only discuss a few of the important ones. The characteristics I will talk about are being a resource to my students and to help them build a family atmosphere with one another.
The first value of my teaching philosophy is being a resource, which will make me beneficial to all of my students. One way being a resource will make me beneficial to my students is by to guiding my students to discover the passions they may have. For instance, I will be able to help students who are interested in joining a sports team. I will have information that is beneficial to my students on how and where to sign up. I will use the information I have to guide these students towards their passion by suggesting a youth sports organization for my students to look into. This will make me a resource by introducing information to my students about a sports organization that they can participate in. I want to do this because of my experience with Mr. Kropa, my middle school physical education teacher. I went to him very interested in playing little league baseball.
In return, he gave me information about my town’s little league baseball organization. He was a resource to me by guiding me towards an organization I could join. He knew I had a dream to play little league and he turned it into a reality. I fell in love with the sport and discovered a passion I had for baseball. I currently still have friends that I met through little league baseball, which I may not have met if Mr. Kropa never introduced me to the little league baseball organization in my town. The information Mr. Kropa had benefitted me tremendously and changed my life. I want to reproduce this experience for my students when I become a physical education teacher because I want to be the one that changes a child’s life.
The next value of my teaching philosophy is helping to build a family atmosphere between my students. Helping to build a family atmosphere will help my students care for one another, respect each other, and work together. I plan to accomplish this by using my gymnasium to show the importance of cooperation and teamwork. During high school, I remember participating in many team building exercises and learning so much from them. One exercise, in particular, placed our class into several groups and each member in your group had to get across the basketball court without touching the ground. There was different equipment each group was allowed to use to complete the objective.
Each group had to work together as a team in order to get every member of their group across successfully. We had to suggest ideas to our group and communicate to complete the objective. We used cooperation and teamwork to identify the best way to utilize the equipment we were given. Through this exercise we learned how important cooperation and teamwork are to the success of the entire group. We all learned that more can be achieved if we worked together as a whole, rather than as individuals. I will use team building exercises, similar to this one, to replicate the same experiences I had. This way I can teach my students they will be more successful if they cooperate and work with others. Hopefully, this will have an impact in their future classes, friendships, relationships, and professions.
The values mentioned above are best represented through a quote I will always remember and have posted in my gymnasium. “Help others achieve their dreams and you will achieve yours.” – Les Brown
