Leigh Fryling

My Frame of Reference comes from the perspective of exploring my personal teaching philosophy.
Philosophy is a personal belief that is shared with others based on experience, inner reflection, and
experimental thought resulting in testable meta-decisions. Philosophy is;
What I think
Why I think it
What happened that made me think it
How that thinking extrapolates outward to people and in time
What is that thought good for?
1. - is it a foundational thought upon which I build/create further decisions?
2. -is it an experimental thought that I will test with experience and discussion?
3. - is it a tool of thought that is proven to help me?
So my philosophy of education falls into three realmsConcrete:- my unassailable beliefs that I have gained through experience, or are extensions of my own
moral code. These are beliefs that I am willing to defend without regard to myself.
Tools of Thought-: my beliefs which are the result of practical application in dealing with people/situations.
These have been tried and tested through experience, but are also resultant of the wisdom of my mentors.
These have been proven to be useful, and do not require further testing. They are my toolbox for life.
Experimental thought- This is the necessity of experimental thought- the things which we believe but
cannot yet prove and require bending, molding, flexing, breaking and remaking. They will eventually fall
into Concrete or Tool categories if they hold up, and be discarded if they dont.
My concrete beliefs are constants that I find inherent in my worldview. I grew up in an academic
household, excelled in school, and am as comfortable in a classroom as I am at home. I deeply believe that
the classroom is the safe place in which we must practice the risks we will take in adulthood. My teachers
and parents were adamant that I try new and risky things in academic settings to give myself a foundation
for how I would handle myself in adult life, and I try to impart that ideal. Because I want my students to
feel safe and willing to take those risks in my classroom, I must always be honest, authentic, and clear;
there is no room for deception or illusion in the teacher/student relationship if there is to be true respect and
trust. To achieve that trust, I will always do what I say I will do, and expect the same of my students. It is
also important to me that students understand the development of a person is always of greater value than
the achievement of a grade. As my father likes to say, Not all who try succeed; but none who try fail. I
reflect this through my belief that assessment should be based on individual student improvement,and that a
student's measureable efforts should be valued just as much as their skillsets or inherent ability. Because I
myself was not gifted in math, I was only able to pass because one of my own teachers appreciated how
hard I worked and how much I improved, rather than my actual test scores. I wish to apply this in my own
teaching, so that my students will never feel they have failed if they have given their best.
I want my students to approach learning from the desire to form a whole person rather than achieve
a benchmark. I aim to teach students how to learn what they need to know. The value is in the learning and

application of the process, not the acquisition of the data. In teaching them how to learn, I must demonstrate
that any process for learning must be applicable in more than one situation. We learn for life, not for
moments. I also must demonstrate that we have a responsibility as human beings to care for, nurture, render
assistance to, and support any other human being that requires our efforts, regardless of circumstance. In
this way I hope to develop students not only as scholars, but as persons of worth. I have always done this
when I have the opportunity to teach by highlighting the behaviours that I want to encourage in my
students, rather than praising academic ability. I often hear from my students how much they appreciate that
I see them as themselves, and specifically acknowledge their personalities and virtues rather than marks.
You made me feel like a powerful person, wrote one instead of just a kid.
My toolbox is mostly comprised of those habits or skills that have proven their worth in my years as
an arts instructor. I have found that a calm, accepting, and non-judgemental approach to individuals and
their problems/beliefs/questions is the best tool for creating rapport and understanding. This has come out
of my understanding that emotion is inevitable, valid, vital, and precarious. Emotional situations handled
with calm logic (a listing and examination of facts, not feelings) will diffuse the tension and lead to
discourse and understanding. How someone feels is as much a fact as eye colour or height. We should never
dismiss emotion as being less real than empirical evidence; humans respond first to emotion and instinct,
and have only trained themselves to seek fact. Given all of these factors, my ultimate view is that all
complex situations can be unravelled by judicious application of the questions what, where, when, why,
who, and how. Asking these questions (accepting only answers that are factual in nature) until the true
kernel of a problem is revealed results in answers that are just, logical, and strong. This has often resulted in
making me an agreed upon mediator in student conflicts as well as conflicts between my colleagues,
because I am known to be even handed and logical. For example, last school year I was able to diffuse a
tense bullying issue by gathering all of the students involved in one place and initating/mediating a
discussion as to why the bullying was happening, making sure to use neutral language and keep the floor
open for all points of view. By the end of the discussion, the students were able to walk away maybe not as
friends, but with a greater understanding of and respect for each other's positions. The bullying stopped.
Lastly come my experimental philosophies; these can only be tested by time and application. My
classroom is a direct reflection of my teaching self; if my classroom doesnt match my energy and
approach, it will create dissonance for myself and my students. I suspect that my energy informs the
dynamics of the classroom, and want to test that theory to see how classes respond to my energy. I have also
created an acronym that I would like to try in my lesson planning. I call it the FIRST approach to ordering a
lesson; Fun, Inquiry, Reflection, Study, Trial/application. I am looking forward to having opportunity to
flesh it out as an ordering tool.
To sum up, I have created an excellent set of concrete and toolbox philosophies to buoy me through, but I
will be the first to admit that there is much I need to learn and acquire. As stated in my favourite quote from
Socrates, They know enough that know how to learn.