TEACHER BELIEFS STATEMENT 1

Teacher Beliefs Statement

Elizabeth Stapula
EDUC 612
George Mason University
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As an educator you are often asked why you decided to be in the classroom. What made

you decide to teach? For me, and for many the answer is simple and simultaneously complex: it

is a vocation and a calling, a passion, and our life's work. Therefore, then, the question that must

follow as a teacher is: What do you believe? Why is this work important to you? What we

believe about teaching and learning should be reflected in our lives and in our classroom. Our

practice should mirror our values and should be apparent in our organization, our speech, and our

interactions.

If our practice must reflect our values then it follows that our practice must evolve as we,

the world, and society evolve. I do not want to teach the same course year after year. In my

undergraduate studies I saw teachers in their twentieth year teaching the same PowerPoint slide

presentation they had been using since year one to teach the same concepts the same way. They

took pride in this. They saw their curricula as static. However, I believe that, “when we practice

critically, we regard curricula as constructed and tentative, as framed by human agency and

therefore capable of being dismantled and reframed by teachers and students” (Brookfield, 1995,

p. 40). Therefore, each day, quarter, semester, and year, is a chance for reframing curricula.

Curriculum does not, as Brookfield describes, “just happen”; rather, it exists “because particular

people in a particular place at a particular time believed that someone else should know about

something” (Brookfield, 1995, p. 40). And so, as I will expand on further when I talk about my

beliefs about student choice, we must be responsive to the students in the room as we consider

our practice. We must then continuously engage in a thought process that addresses not just the

how of teacher, but also the why. Of course, this is not a stable, static practice and so it means

that “we never have the luxury of regarding ourselves as fully finished critical products who

have reached the zenith of reflective evolution” (Brookfield, 1995, p. 42).

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This process of understanding the why of what we are teaching, is one that is especially

difficult for me, in that it often feels that I have very little control over the curriculum. However,

through collaboration, teachers can bring those isolated thoughts into action on a larger scale,

which one of the many reasons I believe that collaboration is essential for teaching and learning,

for both teachers and students. “Although critical reflection often begins alone, it is ultimately a

collective endeavor” (Brookfield, 1995, p. 36). In my practice, this looks like working with an

instructional coach to work through instructional practices and improve teacher-talk, working

with parents to create a school community that is supportive and transparent on all fronts,

working thoughtfully with my co-teacher, and being open-minded and thoughtful during

collaborative team meetings to plan for the English curriculum.

In my school district the Collaborative Team (CT) is an essential component of the

organization of curriculum pacing and planning. When these teams are effective, they allow

teachers to reflect as a unit, sharing both strengths and struggles. Indeed, “checking our readings

of problems, responses, assumptions, and justifications against the readings offered by

colleagues is crucial if we are to claw a path to critical clarity” (Brookfield, 1995, p 36). For me,

being a productive member of this group means coming to meetings prepared by looking at

lesson plans and planning documents ahead of time with thoughtful commentary. It also means

being completely open and honest about my reservations and criticisms of the standing

curriculum and how it is being implemented. It means putting students before test scores in

discussions.

However, in collaborative teams there is the opportunity for backsliding, frustration, and

stagnation. The dynamic of my CT in my first year of teaching was frustrating to say the least.

Most of the time, we talked about how to get students to pass standardized tests, or complained
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about why the tests were unfair, rather than focus on why we taught English Language Arts and

how we could do our best to teach it in a way that would get through to our students. Instead, our

meetings became on obligation that bred frustration and isolation with teachers largely doing

their own thing, and reluctant to share. I believe we must do the opposite.

In order to be collaborative in a more pragmatic sense, we must first come to

philosophical conclusions together. We must agree on what student achievement is and what it

looks like. However, I also want to acknowledge that even in seemingly successful collaboration

between teachers, we run the risk of creating an echo chamber. “In this situation, our

conversations with them becomes an unproductive loop in which the same prejudices and

stereotypes are constantly reaffirmed” (Brookfield, 1995, p. 29).

I believe that by providing students with choices in their learning you allow more

opportunity for students to become lifelong learners because they are often able to identify their

own why in and for their learning. I do this in my classroom by opening up classwork to choice

as often as I can through station work, choice boards, book clubs, and in the cocreation of

requirements and rubrics. However, I think as a teacher I must be careful to create choices that

are all equally rigorous. Additionally, I have run into many teachers who believe that student

choice allows to too much autonomy and that there should be an aspect of schooling that means

doing things we do not necessarily want to do. Within this belief I have identified a core belief

that is that one of the purposes of school is to create lifelong learners who can ultimately

contribute to society.

Essential to my belief system as a teacher is the idea that learning should be relevant to

learners and to the world at large. Brookfield states that, “we reinvent our practice to take

account of what we have just found out so that the relevance of an activity is clear to students”
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(Brookfield, 1995, p. 43). Indeed, I believe that we should reinvent our lessons around the

practical needs of students entering the workforce. I have pragmatic conversations with my

students about what the world looks like, and how adults function within it. We talk about how

jobs are evolving all of the time. One way that I do this more formally in the classroom is by

introducing students to different content area jobs in English. I know when I was in school, even

at the university level, I didn’t know anything about the actual job market. In my classroom it

essential that we talk about all the varied options out there even if they aren’t the standard doctor,

lawyer, teacher, and nurse. Ideally, this also takes shape through public speakers, using current

events and articles in the classroom as reading material, and field trips.

If the classroom is going to be a relevant space, which I believe it ought to be, it must

also be a safe space where students feel cared for. I believe that creating a space where students

feel open to express themselves and feel emotionally and physically safe, allows for student

learning to flourish. In my classroom, this manifests in many ways. One of my favorite ways is

through meetings. While I am in the secondary world, I believe that the morning meeting at the

elementary level is a great tool for fostering community and growth in your classroom. While at

the middle school level I cannot have a meeting every day I instead do Monday Meetings where

we do team building and talk about our progress, frustrations, and what we are looking forward

to in school and specifically in English Language Arts. I think students are able to speak honestly

because I build relationships from day one using anonymous feedback surveys as well as

communicate via writing through dialogue journals. As Brookfield (1995) confirms, “after

students have seen you, week in and week out, inviting anonymous commentary on your actions

and then discussing this publicly, they start to believe that you mean what you say about the

value of critical reflection” (p. 34).

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So far, this is what I believe as an educator. This assignment has served me well as I enter

my third year of teaching and my first year of co-teaching. I am excited to enter these upcoming

conversation about what our classroom will be like with a renewed understanding of what

matters to me and why.

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Reference

Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey - Bass.