The Classroom: An Intellectual Community :: Education Teaching Essays

The Classroom: An Intellectual Community -Perhaps I should have become a professor of Literature rather than a teacher, but for me that would be taking the easy way out. Literature promotes the discussion of ideas, something which most other subjects to do not. So, I want to take those aspects of the college classroom which have most affected my learning process and apply them at a high school level. I believe that the healthiest classroom situation comes not from a philosophy of teaching, but a philosophy of learning. To apply a philosophy to the teaching to literature, then, will be a gradual process for me as I spend more and more time in the classroom. What I do know thus far is that engaging students is crucial—they must be actively listening as well as participating. There needs to be a balance between listening and discussing. Because literature can be so subjective, it is important that I create an environment in which the student feels comfortable with forming and expressing his or her own observations and conclusion, not merely saying what they think I want to hear. If I can accomplish making this type of an environment for learning, I believe that students will be able to learn about an array of ideas about ideas, other people, and themselves. Conflict is essential: both within the classroom and within the subject. Not only do I want to facilitate honest discussion of texts and ideas, but I want to be able to present those conflicts that we may find in the texts themselves. Through these discussions, I hope to encourage my literature and composition students to think of themselves as producers and transmitters of culture rather than as just consumers. They get to have and express their own ideas as well as have their own opinions about someone else’s. This is what reading and writing are about, and as a teacher I feel it is important to teach this by example. I will need to throw myself out there as well, even if that means addressing those subjects which I may feel uncomfortable with. In an attempt to keep students actively involved, I may turn to the internet as a source of learning. In my own experience here at college I had a professor who required us to keep up discussions via the internet. She had a discussion board where students could tell of their interpretations and findings within our readings.