Teaching Philosophy

History has always been one of the many subjects in life that truly intrigues me. It was

once described to me as a never-ending book that is constantly creating new chapters. While I

felt that history was a necessary are that crucial to the education of students, many classmates

felt that it was of no importance or was too boring to have interest in. I want to be able to

change that perspective of students and show people why it is important to study history. I feel

that it’s being neglected by the education system and should be promoted more by schools and

educators.

Today historical study is not seen as something that is central to the education of

students, especially in secondary schools. History is such an important area of study that should

be essential for students to learn as it is the key to understanding the events and way of life of

people today. Through studying the past, we can learn to fix our mistakes and create better a

better future. We can see study places like the United States to understand how it developed

and changed over time or we can turn to places like Africa and trace how the practice of

colonialism affected the present state of many of the countries. History can also give people an

inside look at different cultures form around the world. You can study ancient cultures such as

the Mayans or Sumerians through their language, inventions, or architecture to understand

what it was like to live during the time period. From there we can get a better understanding of

the norms of their societies. Most of all studying history can inspire each and every one of us.

History has no shortage of challenges that ordinary people had to overcome in order to get to

their goal.
 While history offers all of these lessons and insights of the past that can help better our

future, it can teach students valuable critical thinking skills. Thinking historically is the best way

to accomplish this and can be done by presenting students with controversial topics. By doing

so, students can engage in debates and provide arguments for different sides of history.

Students will then be able to form their own perceptions of history through participating in

these various critical thinking driven activities. They also learn empathy. I don’t mean empathy

in the way that students will learn to feel sorry for other, but that they will be able to

understand the needs and wants of people. This will not only help in studying history but in the

outside world as they learn to become problem solvers.

They way to ensure that history is learned this way is embrace the practice of history

education today. In the past learning history depended on the use of textbooks in classrooms.

These textbooks though were not suited to give students the best education in history as they

were broad and couldn’t capture the perspective of different people within the events. History

today should introduce primary documents that students can dive into and better learn to

empathize with people from the past. Only when history education in secondary schools can

accomplish this will students be taught properly.

That is in fact one of the challenges that history teachers and students face in the

classroom today. Textbooks are used so often in the classroom that history teachers tend to

rely on them too much to deliver students the content they need. Most teachers today aren’t

prepared to or have enough time to plan lessons around primary sources which would be useful

to education. History teachers are also often placed into subjects that they aren’t well informed

on which makes it that much harder to lean on primary sources and more towards textbooks.
 My responsibilities as a history teacher will be to take on these challenges head on to

offer students a quality education in history. Primary documents will be the main component

that will drive my lessons throughout the school year. Not only will they be able to learn the

importance of history, but they will acquire the necessary comprehension and language skills

that history classes are now partially responsible for today. I plan on creating an engaging

environment that will promote debate and thought-provoking questions. I will ensure that

students ask questions and not be satisfied with the answer a textbook gives them but dig

deeper under the surface. One of the ways I will try to accomplish a creative and engaging

environment for students is to use Nearpod to deliver lessons. The program allows for the

insertion of videos and images as well as activities such as quizzes to check for content

understanding.

As a history teacher I have many goals that I would set out to accomplish. The biggest

one being to get students to think historically and improve on their critical thinking skills. These

skills aren’t just necessary for history but for the everyday lives of people. Critical thinking is a

much-used tool in many professions and one that can be acquired through practice. Another

that I have is to change the perspective of students and others who feel history is of little

importance. I want students to be able to walk away at the end of the year understanding that

history offers us many solutions to present problems as well as insight to cultures and lives of

the past.