My Teaching Philosophy Laura L. Bush

Wayne Booth’s observation that some of the most rewarding teaching moments often occur at unpredictable times aptly describes my own best experiences as a teacher. Although I work to construct daily lesson plans that facilitate meaningful learning, I can’t always predict which class periods will unfold as I had hoped or which students will experience the most success during any given semester. The best times often surprise me.

I remember, for example, one First-Year Composition class at ASU that met every night for five weeks in a computer writing classroom. The class consisted of young undergraduate students, several older returning students, and several international students from Malaysia, India, and Brazil. At least half the students felt reluctant to take English 102 in a classroom full of computers. Utilizing our combined computer skills, however, the class quickly became a community of learners who felt excited about their expanding reading, writing, and computer literacy. Through extensive online discussions, these students learned to appreciate difference, think more critically, and strive to communicate well. "I don’t want this class to end," Theresa* lamented on our last night. "I feel like we’re family." I didn’t want the class to end either. Recently, another best teaching moment occurred for me during the first rather than the last month of a semester. After one class period, a student brought me a thank you card with a picture of a water droplet making waves in a still pond. D.J.’s gesture of appreciation, offered surprisingly early in the semester, made all my teaching efforts feel worthwhile.

Even though memorable teaching moments such as these can never be planned, I believe that thorough preparation before and after teaching a class creates the possibility for positive outcomes to occur. Furthermore, I believe my own best teaching grows out of the effort that I expend to make teaching appear effortless. Preparing to run a seamless class has been especially important as I develop materials for teaching composition and literature in classrooms with computers. On the surface, technology may make my classroom appear more inviting to today’s college-aged students. Yet technology may also make my classroom appear more intimidating and difficult as well. From the perspective of a teacher, technology has rewarded me with increased student-to-student and student-to-teacher interaction. However, it has also increased the complexity of my teaching, requiring added effort from me to achieve the rigorous but relaxed atmosphere that I strive to foster in any classroom.

After more than a decade of experience, I have learned that teaching is challenging but also rewarding work. Students in any one class often possess widely differing knowledge, skills, and learning styles. I still remember two contrasting students, for instance, who took an English 217 "Personal Writing" course from me at ASU. I wanted to prevent the course from becoming mere self-indulgent essay writing or confessional story telling, so I designed the syllabus and class activities based on theories of autobiography that I had been studying. In addition to writing essays themselves, students were required to engage in close analysis of personal essays by professional writers such as Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Alice Walker, and Stephen Gould.

Because this was only a 200-level writing course and because some students had taken "Personal Writing" in hopes that it would be easy, I found myself addressing the work of both skilled and less skilled writer-readers. My attempts to complicate personal writing while also making concessions for the widely differing abilities evident in this class did not always succeed as I wished.

I soon realized, for example, that the class seemed neither to challenge nor interest one particular student, a gifted and aspiring screenwriter. Cori needed more intellectual stimulation and less basic writing instruction than other members of the class. Another student in this same course, however, found his writing voice for the first time. From what I observed, Daimon made great progress honing his language skills. I watched him begin the semester as a guarded and defensive writer, but end with enthusiasm and confidence. The memory of these two very different students stays with me. Since then, rather than try to teach to some illusory "middle ground," I have worked hard to find ways of individualizing instruction and of constructing small or large group activities that benefit every student. Even if a class period sometimes doesn’t go as planned, I want to ensure that all students in my class receive knowledge or skills that interest and reward them for participating.

As a teacher, my own knowledge, expertise, and pedagogical practices continually expand and fluctuate. Such changes occurred, for instance, when I first challenged myself to teach in a computer writing classroom. Eventually, I began constructing courses online. To prepare for and improve my teaching in computer classrooms, I took the required English Department training and attended university workshops on teaching with the Internet. I also took advantage of the individualized instruction offered through ASU’s Instruction Support to design web pages. Actually teaching in a classroom with computer hardware, software, proxima, VCR, whiteboards, and sound system can be a daunting experience for a neophyte. My first class turned out a bit like the first pancakes off a grill—they were edible, but not as good as the pancakes I turned out after the grill warmed up.

Regardless of the presence or absence of technology in a classroom, I believe the best learning occurs when teachers and students view each other with dignity, respect, and good will. By the third class period of any course I teach, I know every student’s name and expect class members to get to know each other’s names as well. From the outset, I become aware of which students are absent, which are engaged and energized, or which seem distant, tired, or bored.

Encouraging dignity and respect means that I rely on the earned knowledge, skills, and background of every person in the class, recognizing that, to one degree or another, each of our perspectives shapes the tone, direction, and learning outcomes of any course. As the designated teacher, I take responsibility for knowing my subject matter well and for constructing a course syllabus with clear objectives and assignments that challenge, but don’t overwhelm students.

Treating people with dignity and respect means that I allow flexibility within a course to respond to the evolving dynamics in my classroom. I also consider and re-consider the best means possible for assessing class members’ present skills, for tracking their improvement, and for rewarding their performance and progress. I work to make evaluation criteria evident before and after I grade students’ work, providing opportunities for class members to discuss the criteria and my evaluation in person.

Earning dignity and respect means that as a teacher, I work daily to be self-reflective about my teaching pedagogy and evaluation practices. I ask myself, for example, why a student may be struggling or dissatisfied with a grade, or why a class period may have gone poorly. To address my concerns as a teacher, I make a habit of consulting other colleagues and professional resources in person, in print, or online. From these resources, I learn tips about how to engage more class members in the learning process, how I can better model critical thinking, reading, writing, and revision, and how I can encourage students to examine the assumptions we all live and learn by.

With each new course, I work to pursue new questions, ideas, and teaching methods. Keeping courses fresh requires that I subject myself to some fear of the unknown, expecting happy surprises to result from conscientious preparation. I also trust that my students’ knowledge, interest, and insights will create synergy that I had not anticipated or been able to create on my own. Few teachers could teach well, for example, in a computer writing classroom without the willing engagement of multiple students assisting and teaching one another. At such times, students see that a teacher is not the only authority or resource for learning.

Although I recognize the importance of maintaining professional boundaries, I also work to deconstruct unnecessary barriers that impede learning. Authoritarian classrooms where a teacher dispenses difficult ideas from behind a podium (or podium-like computer) have never interested me. Rather than lecture students about how to write well or rather than insist that they memorize someone else’s interpretations of "great literature," I work, instead, to model critical analysis, inviting students to formulate their own interpretations and support their own conclusions by considering the strengths or weaknesses of multiple views. I expect students to examine all writers’ positions and evidence, including mine and their own.

From my experience, when I provide students with a well-constructed course that encourages their success and makes allowances for their occasional but inevitable failures, then the "best times" of teaching also inevitably occur and make the most challenging teaching scenarios worth all my efforts.

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*I remember the students that I name in this teaching philosophy well, but I use pseudonyms to guard their identities.