One of my instructors in the Teacher Preparation Program, TPP, told us that – If it is not written, it does not exist, when he asked us to write our teaching philosophy. I was already practising as a teacher, but I’d never heard of teaching philosophy. That was my first time. 

To explain the whole idea of teaching philosophy, he started by asking questions:

What guides your teaching?  What is it that should not miss in your class that ensures learning?  How do you make learning happen? What is your goal for the students? What will we see if we enter your classroom? What are your beliefs about teaching? 

I had never thought about these questions before. I was just teaching. At this time, I had already been teaching the Mozambican National Curriculum. I was just doing things (teaching) and not thinking about what I believe makes learning happen (philosophy). One thing I was sure of is that I would not be a teacher that just sits and looks at student’s work, I would join them during the lessons, play with them, think with them, and feel their difficulties, challenges and successes. 

I liked to play with my students, laugh, and celebrate great moments. I consider myself happy, and I believe that if the students were happy, effective learning would happen. All this happened naturally. I never thought about writing it down. It’s like implementing DEIJ (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice)  in teaching and learning. Even before hearing about it,  we were already exploring dances from different countries, tapping into diversity. All students participated in lessons regardless of their abilities or disabilities. We adapted our lessons to meet student’s needs, ensuring they all had the same opportunities. We encourage all students to participate in lessons and think critically. All these aspects are related to DEIJ, but we were doing them without writing them down or consciously thinking about them. But when you write, plan or think about them it improves your approach. And it is the same for your teaching philosophy. That is why you should write down your teaching philosophy. 

I am sharing my teaching philosophy below. I hope this gives you a clear idea of how you can formulate and structure yours.   

Teaching Philosophy

I believe that teaching is about fostering a good relationship between me and my students. Fostering this cordiality with my students is imperative. It has positive implications for academic and social development. A good relationship with students contributes to better communication, and students are likely to trust me more, show more engagement in learning, behave better in class, and achieve a higher level academically. Positive teacher and student relationships lead students into the process of learning and promote their desire to continue learning. 

I believe that for effective teaching, I ought to ensure a neat balance of mastery of content and concepts. I ought to foster collaboration and cooperation as well as individual initiative to instil accountability and independence of thought in the learner.  It is important that I continue learning to ensure that I am up to speed with the changing dynamics in best-practice approaches.

Through collaborative learning, I expect my students to share common goals, perceiving that working together is individually and collectively beneficial, and success depends on the participation of all the members. I use cooperative learning to help my students to build positive relationships among themselves, and it will also provide experiences that develop learning skills and social skills. 

I believe that the learning process will be more productive if I use student feedback to help me reflect on and improve my teaching practices. Using my student’s feedback will help me to be sensitive to their individual needs and gain clarity on how to teach better, and more effectively.

I also believe that we learn from each other. Developing peer learning will help my students to understand that the learning process it’s not always about the Teacher teaching and student learning, but they can engage each other intellectually, debate each other’s views, and among them, they can easily create an environment of open communication which is very important for learning. 

As a teacher, I believe that being involved in class mentally and practically is crucial, and will contribute to fostering better teacher-student relationships. The student will see me as part of the process of learning. This will make the learning environment better, fostering trust. When we have someone that is leading any activity also involved, we feel more engaged. 

So this is my teaching philosophy, one important thing that you need to take into consideration is that your philosophy can change with time. The more you learn, the more you will be able to identify different ways of facilitating learning. 

I hope this article was helpful to you.  And now you work towards putting down your own teaching philosophy, think about the questions I shared before and elaborately respond to them. It makes a huge difference to have it written. Any time I read my philosophy, it’s like a reminder. Sometimes you might forget what you believe in because of various reasons, but when you have a place where you can go back and remind yourself that will help you. You can use that time to reflect on why you forgot. What happened? How can you ensure that you don’t forget again? 

A reflection is a powerful tool that allows you to go to the past, see what happened, and help you to change the future in a better way. Be reflective.