My Teaching Philosophy

I'm currently doing a Capstone project in my TESOL Certificate- Teach English Now! from Arizona State University (ASU) - Coursera and the first assignment is about teaching philosophy.  I'm not sure how is it it but I thought of sharing it anyway.

My Teaching Philosophy by M. Ocampo

‘When one teaches, two learn.’ When I was in second grade, my teacher asked me to stand in front of our class to complete a sentence that she wrote on the board:” When I grow up, I want to be a _____.”
I was hesitant at first because as a young child, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to become and I don’t know how my classmates would react with whatever I write on the board. I paused for a while and thought hard then  I went up straight to the board, grab a chalk and wrote “a teacher”. I remember some of my classmates laughing.  They probably expected me to write doctor or lawyer or probably an engineer which would be quite the popular reply from kids our age then.

My passion for teaching grew considerably stronger when I reached high school because we were given an opportunity to teach the less fortunate children in our city.  I joined several teaching outreach programs catering from street children in the slums to the minority tribes up in the mountainous part of our town.  This experience has taught me a lot, not only about the simple facts and lessons we give them but most importantly about lessons in life that later on became more significant for me as I matured.
Coming from a poor family, I was not able to take a degree in teaching during college and instead, I graduated with a bachelor degree in Pharmacy.  But because teaching has always been a passion of mine, my first job was as an Instructor of Pharmacy in the University.  I believed that teaching is not a one way street where only the teacher provides information and facilitates learning for the students. Rather teaching and learning is a wonderful exchange- a two way street between the teacher and his students.

Although I am abroad practicing my profession as a Pharmacist right now, I plan to teach again when I go back to my country. My passion for teaching has not withered over the years even though I neither had been in a classroom nor had a chance to teach students for a long time now. I want to pursue my desire to teach and learn “again” at the same time.  For me, teaching is an opportunity to both teach and learn and for this, being a teacher becomes a privilege. Teaching is all about connection – a give and take relationship with all the knowledge and the ideals where love is the way forward and passion is what makes it real.
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Once I get back to teaching, my short term goals as a teacher will include being able to provide meaningful lessons, facilitate enjoyable classroom activities and encourage students to practice what they learn from the classroom.  On the other hand, my long term goals will be to help my students to explore their strengths and work out what their purpose is and to support them to have confidence, strong sense of self and positive outlook in life by inspiring them to become good citizens of the world, fostering a true way of being that I always hope myself to be.