Teaching Philosophy

So I haven't posted in a while, but I'm back! But this post will be a bit different than my other ones. After this one, I'll go right back to cooking. I've tried some awesome recipes that I'd love to share. In this post, I will be sharing my teaching philosophy, an assignment for one of my classes right now. I am currently working on my bachelors in English Education. I've had a lot of educational classes that have taught me so much about the best ways to teach kids and help them succeed. Something I think is not only critical in an English class, but also fun, is Small Group Collaboration. As a teenager, I loved getting into small groups and going over discussion questions (I may have loved it for the wrong reasons, but that's OK). Now I find that it helped me be able to vocalize my thoughts and opinions, which I have found very valuable out in the real world. I would like my students so be able to take a book (even if it was Farewell to Arms by Hemingway and they hated it) and be able to have a conversation about its deepest themes and big questions. What was Hemingway trying to say with this tragic love and war story? How can we learn from it, even if you had to put toothpicks in your eyes to stay awake while reading it? I remember as a teenager reading this book by Hemingway and thinking, "What an awful ending!". But now as an adult, I can start to relate to some of its themes and messages, even though I still hate the book. Hopefully when I do become a teacher, I will try to pick books that relate to my students' lives, but I still want them to be able to find meaning amongst chaos and confusion and be able to communicate that meaning to other people.