My Pedagogical Creed

Section 1: My beliefs about Learning and Teaching

I believe that there are no incapable students but there are teachers that need to learn more.  Everyone is born with an extent of various abilities. Some might be stronger than others in a certain area. Some might be lucky to be born with higher intelligences than others. Everyone has unexplored potential and the ability to work better than his/her current status. This is why the education exists and worth the time and energy of a lot of educators to study and research. However, it has been taken for granted that kids go to school, study, and learn. Not many people take it for granted that teachers have the same necessities. As a result, students are easily sorted by their academic learning ability, while teachers are rarely to be challenged as disabled. It seems that being a teacher deserves a higher position than a student. When there’s a difficulty in a student’s learning, the first to be examined is the student, but not the teacher. Being a teacher, I believe if you understand the student, you will find a way to help him/her improve or you are possibly inexperienced or incapable. So, I won’t judge my students before I examine myself.

I believe that the teaching can reach the best results when there’s a good interaction between the home, the school, and the society. There’s nothing that works better than contextual influence. Education exists everywhere. When all the adults at home, at school, and in the society share the responsibilities and demonstrate good deeds, the students are educated subtly and unconsciously. However, this is too idealistic. What I can do, as a teacher, is to care about my interaction with the students, their homes, and our society, and being a role model. In addition, incorporating students’ lives into my teaching makes learning meaningful to them. When they feel what their learning is meaningful, they have motivation to learn. And motivation is the key to continue with learning. Usually the greater motivation one has, the better result he/she can achieve.

I believe that teaching is sharing and learning. I always remember this “The students are not necessary to be inferior than the teacher and vice versa. They differ just in learning earlier or later and they differ in specializing in different fields.” by Han Yu of the Tang Dynasty. As a teacher, I just share what I learned with the students and they guide me to explore what I haven’t learned. I wasn’t a well prepared or a well trained teacher when I started to teach. Every time  the students have a problem in learning, that is a chance for me to learn to teach and to learn to be a more capable teacher. I am thankful to my students and my child. They have been directing me to be a better me.

I believe that learning should be a lifelong work. I think it’s very terrible if someone stops learning.  Only by keeping on learning/accepting new knowledge can make one’s life colorful. To me, this is an important notion to convey to the students. I don’t just teach my subject, English. Being a teacher, I think the most important task is to cultivate in students the correct attitudes towards their lives. Attitudes determine perspectives, and perspectives determine one’s destiny. I hope my students love learning, no matter in what field, no matter being in or out of the academic setting. Lifelong learning empowers one to be more confident and to be clearer about oneself. Lifelong learning could be in any form: studying, reading, actively interacting with people, contributing one’s abilities in the public services....

Section 2: My beliefs about Schooling and its importance

I believe that schooling is the standardized way to prepare our children to become a participant in our society. Schooling is formed based on the expectations from all the aspects: the country, the society, the educators, the parents. Therefore, students are learning under a structure with a common core wherever they are in the country. Students learn the traditional and cultural beliefs as well as updated knowledge in schools. It’s important because by education the quality of citizens can be changed: Education influences the group of people. The group of people creates the country’s future.

I believe that schooling should provide the fundamental knowledge for our children to survive in their lives and/or to acquire more advanced or specialized knowledge. It’s important that school cultivate children with fundamental knowledge in spite of their different backgrounds. Schooling equality is important to promote or improve the whole Country’s competency. In 1968, Taiwan extended compulsory education from 6 to 9 years. From next year, it will be extended from 9 to 12 years. The education reform of 1968 did foster a group of elite in the following decades and helped to create the economic prosperity of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. But the recent years, there are a lot of problems in our society: the economic decline, low competence in new generation, the political fighting...etc. I believe the education reform is needed, and I hope it will really function well.
I believe that schooling trains our thinking skills and living skills. Schooling has a broad view of knowledge. Studying different subject matters activates the different areas in our brains. It’s not only related to the subject skills but is also related to interactive skills with others. However, I feel it’s important that the evaluation system should be more open. The test oriented schooling system that we have, seems to always overlook the talents that students have that do not fit in to the standardized test system. Everyone has his/her valuable capacities. Everyone is entitled to receive critical thinking skills to confront their future. I think it is a terrible error to invalidate someone who can’t score high on the academic subjects. That will be a great loss of our society.
I believe schooling is the same as gardening. Throughout the adequate education, several seeds of capacities are nurtured and growing.  if there’s any limiting in schooling, only a few seeds can survive and grow by themselves. To take good care of our “seeds” (learners), we should identify them correctly such as by understanding their types, the necessarily nurturing conditions for the differing types...etc. Then, we give the appropriate water, nutrients, and sunlight to raise, support, and help our seedlings grow.  Sometimes we need to weed or/and trim them for better results. The gardening work is daily without rest. So is schooling, and learning.

Section 3: My beliefs about curriculum, its development, its delivery and its accountability

I believe that curriculum is the map in education. It guides teachers and students to go along the designated route to reach the destination. I don’t think the path will be a problem if the road markers and destination are correctly identified.  So, setting up the goal is a crucial work. Once the goal is confirmed, the curriculum starts to be developed accordingly. However, very often, the ones who set up the goal don’t take the concerns about the essential needs of our students and our society very seriously. Very often they are influenced by current or short term political issues. Thus, as classroom teachers, we are facing many challenges in the implementation of a curriculum. Eventually, the victims are students, teachers....and then the whole society.

Let’s say this, to develop a curriculum, we have to have a goal first. Second, we set up the objectives for different stages. To design as many various strategies as possible for each stage, we have to take the following into consideration: the students’ development, differences in inherent ability and knowledge, learning styles, support from family/community, and so forth. Formal and informal evaluation systems are also necessary. So we can fine tune our strategies to help students to achieve more, and fulfill the objectives.

I think the curriculum delivery involves the interaction between the teacher and the students. The teacher creates learning atmosphere and learning opportunities according to the curriculum. Reviewing students’ feedback, he/she knows what methodologies should be adopted and then help keep learning on the correct track.

I believe that all the educators involved in curriculum development and the policy makers are stakeholders in its accountability. Teachers are the ones who put the curriculum into practice. Teachers’ responsibilities include trying their best to make it work well on students’ learning and collect all the feedback from students and their own evaluation. The report of the results and the suggestions should go to the principal, and then become part of the curriculum developers review process. If there are any conflicts between the curriculum and the practice, the principle should check if the purpose of the curriculum is well understood by teachers. When teachers agree with it, they will work better on guiding students toward the goal. When the curriculum is dynamic under the circular system, it is more likely to be well developed and responsive to societal and classroom and student needs.