Not the Beginning of the End (End of the Beginning of 5060)

What is/are the most significant thing/s that you learned which you plan to use in some way in the future? That is probably the toughest question that I’ve been asked for this whole semester. That’s probably because it’s so hard for me to narrow things down.

            It’s so tempting to say everything, so I won’t say everything. Instead, I’ll just take a cue from Jessica and mention that the teaching philosophy assignment was a good experience for me. Teaching is a job that any English major will have to do regardless of what you want to do with that degree. It seems that you have to teach if you’re in graduate school, if I may paraphrase the final rule of Fight Club. So the exploration of pedagogies in an effort to create your own pedagogy was something that I ended up finding beneficial in the long run.

            With the teaching philosophy, I was able to set up what kinds of pedagogy traits were helpful to me. I had never really heard of a philosophy of teaching before taking this class, which was why I chose that option for the extended analysis. Learning to write a philosophy of teaching felt like this essential skill if I was going to keep remaining an English major. The whole concept felt daunting at first, but I think that I was able to get a good grip on teaching philosophies in general. Looking at Dr. Rice’s philosophy was a good enough primer that helped me develop my philosophy of teaching in a way that looked next to professional.

            The reason that I chose a philosophy of teaching for this blog post was because I signed up for a part-time teaching thing when I applied for the English program here. I am on a tentative list, last time I checked, so hopefully that won’t change for the worse any time soon. From what I’ve learned in this class, a teaching philosophy is an important tool to have when applying to be a teacher. Since I’ve done the project, I’ve managed to learn about the usefulness in finding out what kinds of college programs support the type of teaching philosophy that I have. Apparently, teaching philosophies are Darwinian in concept, since they are supposed to adapt to the environments that they are sent to. If I get a teaching job here, I’ll at least have a headstart with the required teaching philosophy. I won’t even have to write it from scratch. I’ll only revise the one I did for this class. That, or leave it alone. Or find a college composition program where my philosophy fits. My choices are kind of limitless in that regard. But I should still keep my fingers crossed in case I tempt the almighty gods of fate (whatever those are). In closing, this first semester and this class in general gave me good enough baby steps to get through the hectic world of graduate school, so it does feel refreshing to have a philosophy of teaching finished.