Kailey Buttrick

2/4/15
I believe that teaching is an art form. Art is an expression of a passion, an expression of the creators heart.
Its a tool to communicate to an audience the magic and wonder in the world around them. I believe that in
order to be a good teacher, I must be a good artist. A good teacher is imaginative and original, always looking
for new ways to share their knowledge with their students. Developing these elements in my classroom will
be vital to me being an effective teacher.
What originally inspired me to become a teacher was my love of language and literature. I wanted to share
this passion with my students, so that they could experience the adventures of Old Dan and Little Ann from
Where the Red Fern Grows, or identify with Lauras painful invisibility in The Glass Menagerie, in the ways
I did as a young learner. However, not every student will be drawn to literature in the same ways I was, and it
is the students who are more wary of the content that I will need to reach. Language Arts is more than just
reading books or rote grammar instruction, it is a vehicle through which students learn how their voice can
shape the world that surrounds them. As a teacher it is my responsibility to take my love of literature and
translate it into meaningful learning. These great authors who pepper the syllabi of our classrooms may not
have known how much their voices changed the world, but my students will know that if they communicate
with passion and poise their words can make a difference. My students will write with purpose and know that
the work they do in my class will prepare them to be the leaders of our future.
In some ways learning never ends, students dont stop learning when they leave the halls of my school.
Students are constantly learning about social expectations and limitations, about their own passions and
potential, and about how they fit into our community and the world. Learning doesnt cease at the doors of
the school building for my students, and it shouldnt stop for me either. I am always a student of my craft and
I only get better by working and finding what works best for me. It is vitally important to me that, as a
teacher, I am always learning how to best serve my students. Whether that be in the form of continuing
education, the resources colleagues or administration use for support, or learning from the experienced and
masterful educators that I will get to teach alongside. In teaching there is always room for growth, and to
stop learning is to stop growing. I need to set this example for my students, I am here to learn as much as
they are; this is a journey that I want to share with my students in our classroom. We are all on a shared path
and its important for my students to know that learning doesnt end when they receive their diploma, it is a
lifetime process.
What is most important to me as an educator is showing my students the power that lies within knowledge.
Students have to understand that their education empowers them to look at the world critically and question
what they are told. I want my students to leave my classroom knowing that they have an obligation to
themselves and their community to make the work they do worthwhile. In the short block of time I will
spend with my students each day I hope to develop a classroom culture and climate in which my students
know that it is safe for them to take these kinds of risks and speak their minds. Our classroom will be a place
where every student will know they are free to express themselves because we have developed a respectful
and inclusive environment. Classroom culture and climate is just as vital to me as the content I teach,
because if my classroom is not a place where students are prepared to speak openly and honestly then they
we will never be able to think critically and deeply about content.
This philosophy is an amalgam of my education and experience as a teacher both inside and outside the
classroom but I feel it is also heavily informed by my desire to bring art into everything I do. It is right there
in the title Language Arts, its more then a discipline, its the way my students will communicate with
world in which they live and the environment I create in my classroom will shape that experience.