Special Education Philosophy

The job of a special education teacher may be very difficult and challenging at times. The profession requires patience, creativity, and adaptability. To be successful in this profession, I think you have to have a true passion to teach special education. I believe I have that passion. I fell in love with working with students with disabilities when I volunteered at a summer camp for people with disabilities. Through the courses I have taken at Fontbonne University and my own experiences, I have developed my personal philosophy that I plan to implement in my own classroom. I want to be a teacher that makes a difference for students. I believe all students want to learn, and it’s the teacher’s job to figure out how to engage students. I might …show more content…
I want to commit myself to assuring every student is given the resources and skills to succeed. I feel my teaching style strongly supports progressivism and Howard Gardner’s ideas of Multiple Intelligences. Progressivism puts the emphasis on the students, rather than the content (Parkay, 1998, p.134). By focusing on the student, a teacher will develop a child as a learner. Progressivism gives students the skills needed to learn and think on their own. This philosophy insists that I teach students skills and strategies to become efficient. I also think Multiple Intelligences should guide instruction. Multiple intelligences identifies which learning style best supports a student’s learning. We all learn in different ways, and that is especially true in a special education classroom. I plan to assess students’ preferential learning style to guide instruction. Each student has a different set of strengths and weaknesses, and strengths should be identified and used in the classroom. When a student is learning in his or her preferential learning style, the student is much more likely to remain engaged in the lesson. Lessons should be differentiated to target multiple learning styles. I, as a future teacher, want to use progressivism and Multiple Intelligences in my classroom to make learning individualized to each …show more content…
While I have a great deal of experience managing a large group of children, I have not had the opportunity to have my own class to develop my own sense of classroom management. I feel confident in my ability to control a class full of students, but I look forward to the opportunity to organize my own classroom and set classroom expectations. Since I have not had my own classroom, I feel there are many little things that happen in a classroom that I have not gotten to practice. There are procedures developed for everything students do in the classroom. I want to see my own growth in classroom management because classroom management can make or break a classroom. Strong classroom management skills make a class run smoothly. One way I plan to work on classroom management is to develop my own plan before I begin my clinical experience. It is best for me to be over-prepared with procedures to implement before I begin my clinical experience. Another important part of classroom management is to reflect on the plans I have implemented. If the plan does not work, I need to find a new plan that will work. I hope to grow in classroom management so I feel confident and in control of my class in the future. A future employer will expect me to develop an effective classroom management plan. By creating my own plans, I will have evidence of effective plans I have implemented. I