While I believe curriculum and content is most essential to teach, I am morally obligated to

step into a classroom with the highest expectations for my students; therefore, with dedication and
perseverance, students will rise to the occasion to strive towards their academic goals. Aside from
curriculum, self-reflection and interpersonal relationships are themes I practice in my teaching
community for students to thrive mentally and socially. I encourage our future generation to follow
their stimulating passions; in addition, I also make an extensive effort to build relationships between
my students and I by reassuring their welcoming presence in my class.

My classroom environment is a safe space where students are free to speak their minds in
order to flourish socially and academically. Respect is a core agreement in my class, allowing my
students to develop open-mindedness for their environment, peers and for themselves. In addition to
respect, forming interpersonal relationships with my students is crucial to stimulate productivity in
the classroom. For example, giving students opportunities to formulate new perspectives through
reflection journals and expressing the events happening in their lives through poetry has been
extremely rewarding throughout my pre-service teaching career. Being able to give feedback and
words of affirmation to my students for sharing parts of their lives in these activities has led me to
grow deeper connections with each individual student. The value of human connection is essential
to my safe space; therefore, I believe encouraging dialogue between peers and myself is the key to
becoming successful.

Along with establishing meaningful relationships within my classroom community,

providing engaging lessons and differentiating instruction are valuable assets in order to strive
towards academic growth and success. Throughout my daily lessons, I ensure to scaffold instruction
and provide effective teaching strategies for all types of learners. For example, modelling
instruction and expectations for each activity is implemented every day for my students to grasps
concepts in a visual, auditory and kinesthetic way. Also, strategy groups during reading time will
also be implemented to focus on my student’ needs. In addition, integrating hands-on learning and
cooperative group approaches is key to my curriculum as these instructional strategies activate
critical thinking, and are relevant to students’ lives. Furthermore, asking Bloom's Taxonomy
questions to aid students in making logical predictions and conclusions is imperative towards my
curriculum.

Every classroom has their own unique community. Being a minority educator, I stress the
importance of diversity and culture in the classroom. My role as a teacher is to act as a guide for
students to develop their own learning experiences. To ensure students understand and respect the
perspective of individuals from different cultural backgrounds, multicultural education is
incorporated within my lessons to provide students with the opportunity to explore cultures outside
their bubble. For example, giving students the opportunity to engage in texts from various cultures
and time periods is essential in my teaching.

As a prospective educator, I believe my philosophy and teaching styles may change

throughout my career. I will remain receptive to suggestions from my colleagues to not only better
myself as a teacher to students, but also improve as a team member for my fellow peers.
Communication is essential with colleagues, parents and children; therefore, this skill area is one I
plan on improving and reflecting in order to perfect my craft. It is a commitment to myself, team
members and future students that I become an impactful and ethical role model inside and outside
the classroom.