Natalie Korus

Critical Issues
EDU 601
Summer 15

Curriculum Philosophy
I believe that the three most important aims of education are learning
styles, building relationships, and community. One aim of education is the
different learning styles that student have and seeing where the students
achieve the best. I think it is my duty as a teacher to know where my
students learn the best. I can provide for those students. If I know how my
students learn the best I can focus on their strengths and also work on their
weaknesses. I observe over time on how they achieve the best or I could use
the multiple intelligence model. The multiple intelligence uses a quiz/test to
help identify where the student learns the best. It is a great way to see where
my students are at and where I can begin. Then I take the results from there
and start planning my lessons around their strengths. Second is to build
relationships with your students. Building this background knowledge with
them to see where I come from and where they come from help me down the
road. I like to build that relationship because it helps me understand where
they are coming from and when I need to have a deep conversation we can
just sit down and talk about it and not let it just pass by. The third aim is the
importance role that school plays in the community. I have to have parent,
staff, colleagues, principals, and supervisors to build a great community for
my school that I am teaching at. If my school builds that community right
away we will have great communication between everyone and be on the

same page. I believe that having great community builds trust. It makes me
work harder to know that I have people that have my back on situations.
Knowing that each student is unique they all have different learning
style. There are many ways of teaching students and here is one way. I like
the model I teach, you watch; I teach, you help; you teach, I help; and you
teach; I watch. This way the students are getting a model on how to do it but
then slowly getting freedom and independent time to try it themselves. As a
teacher I look at it if I was in their shoes I would not like to be lectured all the
time because I am not that way and many are but as a student I wanted to
be moving around and doing it myself because that is how I learned the best.
I want my students to have experiences that they do themselves and teach
each other something new. This is important to me because thats how
students learn is coming from experiences and peers. I think experiences has
shaped the way I am today and I believe that for students.
Students come from a different race than me, sometimes they do not
always know what school is all about or might not understand what I am
saying. I am their advocate to help them achieve to the best of their ability. I
always tell them that they can learn from me but I am also learning from the
students also.
I believe a child is a sponge filling with good or bad knowledge coming
from the environment the child grew up in. The first five years of life are the
most crucial because the brain is just a sponge taking everything in. I think
that once students come to school they have ideas in their head. I need to be

able to guide my students to become successful students and have them

become the best that they can be. As I look upon myself I am learning
something new every day and sometimes it is a review of things but yet
people are still guiding me to become the best I can be as an individual and
teacher. I do believe that some students do come into school without
knowing anything but that is my job as a teacher and push myself to see
what I can make this student become.
The role of a teacher changes all the time. I believe I need to be an
advocate for my students, which includes some of these: caring, loving,
supporting, encouraging, trustworthy, and faithful. These are what I need to
be successful as a teacher. I think teachers play many roles in the education
system. I believe that teachers need to do this because of where many
students come from, they may not have this in their life so I think teachers
play a huge role in our students lives and can make a huge difference. I
think that being a teacher takes a special person because we have so many
roles to play and takes lots of patience.
I would define curriculum being the base of our teaching. Defining
curriculum in a school system depends on the state and district you are in.
This is what we are supposed to teach our students but I can decide on how
to teach it to my students. I believe that students need to learn
mathematics, science, social studies, reading, writing, art, music, etc. I think
students need to be well rounded students. I think ultimately students can
decide for themselves when they get older on what they want to learn and

what they do not want to learn. When the students are younger then I can be
there advocate to provide them an excellent education. Each student is
different and I need to be able to know where that student should be
achieving and not achieving in the curriculum. That is my job to know where
the student it slipping. The curriculum is very important because it gives me
a base of where to start and gives me a guideline to where I should be at in
the school year with students. As the curriculum evolves, I should be too by
going to conferences or going back for my schooling to get new ideas to use
in the classroom with my students.
I believe assessment should be targeting our state standards and our
objectives. I assess my students on the Nebraska state standards and also to
students with individual needs. I assess my students so they are student
centered and personalized. I assess my students with an ongoing mentality
because then I can see where they are before, during, and after instruction.
Once I know where they are I can modify my lesson or assessment to fit the
students needs. I also use assessments to collaborate with students,
teachers, parents, and administration. Assessments should alter the way I
teach because if students bomb a quiz I need to go back and see what that
child missed and change the way I taught it.
I assess my students to demonstrate the students strengths,
weaknesses, and growth. I assess students to drive my instruction and
evaluate my teaching. I assess my students to provide positive and specific
feedback in a timely manner. Assessments help motivate students to

continue to be lifelong learners and to push them to the best of the students
ability. Assessments help students take risks in their learning by seeing what
the students can accomplish. I believe that assessment help me show how
well my students learned and when they did not learn the material. I can
always go back to the drawing board to better my lessons to make the
assessments more successful for the students.
Like I stated above an effective school is one that is community based
because the school collaborates together to make it a great school. It also
shows the parents that the school wants the best for their children and are
willing to work together. An effective school is a school that shows empathy
towards the students, become life-long learners, individualized, caring,
trustworthy, respectful, and kindness. As an effective school I think a school
needs to have these characteristics to become a great school. I believe an
effective school supports students to graduate many students with honors.
An effective school wants the best for their students and pushes them to
their full potentials. The school and I need to have high expectation for the
students to them achieve to a level that will be able to function well in the
real world. Effective schools will push each student so that students will not
be illiterate when they graduate from high school.
When I first started this class I had to write about diversity. When I
think of diversity, I think of race and disabilities. After taking this class and
talking about diversity. Diversity is such a new and broad topic. You start with
the world, then country, state, city, and town. Then you can talk about all the

different things that are diverse in your own little world. Knowing that in my
town I only had one person of half white half black but once everyone said
diverse is so much more than just the color or disability. My town is more
diverse than I thought. We have single mothers and fathers, we have
homeless people, traditions, and different religions views. Now I know my
world is very diverse in multiple different ways.
Another issue was thinking about the social skills that we teach
students. We had the discussion if we as teachers were responsible for
teaching them but no one has stopped us from teaching them. As I was
growing up I always thought it was my parents duty to teach me social skills
and maybe a little bit I got from my teachers growing up. Now that I am in
the profession I see teachers taking on the responsibility of teaching social
skills to students. I believe humans are becoming more and more reliable
upon teachers teaching their children everything. Due to working two jobs to
pay the bills, come from a single home, the children are homeless, and many
other things that could come into play. I believe parents need to take some
responsibility to teach their children at home and as teachers we can always
cover it.