1. Watch this TedTalk as inspiration for writing a philosophy statement
2. Write only ONE paragraph of a teaching philosophy statement that you would someday include in a larger teaching philosophy statement as part of a job application. This one paragraph should not have the general statements about teaching that you’d include in the other paragraphs of the document. It should ONLY include statements pertaining to reasons why you would use music in elementary education.
1. Open with a broad sentence about the value of music to humanity and specifically to students in education.
2. Follow that with a logical flow of ideas, transitioning well from one point to another. Provide some of the reasons you would use music in teaching various subjects (e.g. inspiring creativity in students, energizing students, providing creative writing examples, addressing topics and concepts in specific fields, behavior modification, facilitating transitions, etc.). Explain how music achieves these different types of learning (e.g. as a catalyst to address social emotional learning subjects, in memorizing facts through lyrics of songs, in understanding concepts through doing singing and movement, helping students to identify with social emotional learning, etc. Think of all the lesson plans, lectures, discussions and materials in the course to help you remember the wide range of ideas you need to cover.
3. End with an overriding statement about the value of incorporating music in your classroom.
Remember again: This paragraph is designed to form a section within a larger document about many aspects of your teaching philosophy besides using music. However, this one-paragraph document should focus only on integrating music, not all the other aspects of your teaching. This is a formal writing assignment. Proofread. Check spelling and grammar. Imagine a school principal reading this and deciding whether to hire you or not. (You’ll be more likely to be hired if your writing is of a high standard.) Avoid broad philosophical generalizations about teachers in general, students in general, or classrooms in general, as these may sound too broad and unconvincing. Instead, you need to personalize each sentence by referring to yourself e.g. “I integrate…”; “My students”; “As the teacher, my role is “; “In my classroom, I …..”. Also, use ONLY the present tense. Avoid “will”, “can”, “hope to”, or “plan to” as these are less convincing. Remember that, having done at least one teaching demonstration video, you need to now consider yourself a teacher. By the time you use this statement for a job application, you will be student teaching. Therefore, refer to yourself and what you do in the present tense, as that will be perfectly applicable when you use eventually this statement in the real world.