Leah Tabor

Dr. Sandra Lampley

ED 307-01
14 March 2016
My Pedagogic Creed
I believe that education is the process of giving (teacher) and receiving (student)
stimulating material in which one can discover ones place in the world based off of his
strengths, weaknesses, passions, and divine talents. In addition, I feel that education is learning
not only about oneself, but learning about everything related to the world in which one is
surrounded by. I believe education should culture students in a way in which one may learn to be
empathetic and understanding of others and their background, and in order to do this I believe
education should involve a generous amount of social interaction. I believe education should not
be bound to a certain physical classroom, in fact, I believe students should be exposed to many
different environments in order to help them expand their horizons and make topics more easily
understood. I believe in many ideals that are learner centered. I believe in children being allowed
to move freely about the classroom in order to develop responsibility and introduce freedom. I
also truly believe that learning is more important than knowledge. Not only do I agree with this
because I feel that just memorizing knowledge is not stimulating, I also believe this because if
one can learn how to appreciate learning, he will be opened up to an entire new realm of
knowledge. I also believe that people are naturally good and that mistakes are just a part of
learning, and people who have made mistakes over and over again are those who were not
guided properly. I also identify slightly with Social Reconstructivists. I believe that education
should bring light to social injustices and allow students to think of ways in which they can

change the world. I believe young minds can see situations more clearly than adults can often
times. I strongly believe in the idea of letting students brainstorm over ideas that help change the
world.
I had a difficult time narrowing down the core values that will help guide my work, but
here are the ones that I found mainly central to my future teaching: Community Involvement,
Compassion, Continuous Learning, Creativity, Fairness, Honesty, Independence/Teamwork
(balance), Leadership, Making a Difference, Communication, and Responsibility. Out of all the
values I have listed, the one that is the most important to me has to be leadership. Leadership is
something that my parents always stressed to me growing up. It took a long time, and a lot of
constructive criticism, but I learned how to turn my bossiness into leadership, and it is something
I value about myself still to this day.
With that being said, I think leadership can be many different things. I view myself as
more of a Type A leader, but I truly believe that everyone has some form of leadership.
Leadership does not have to be loud and in your face, it can simply be anything from making
sure one is modeling appropriate actions to others in the class, to quietly talking to people oneon-one to motivate them, to being patient because one has taken the time to look at anothers
situation and realize they need a little bit of extra love.
Thankfully, this is very easy to translate into a classroom. Before implementing studentspecific activities, it is important to observe and give tasks to determine which leadership roles
kids fall into. These tasks can be anything from allowing students to take personality quizzes to
asking them in a questionnaire what ways they feel most comfortable leading. I feel it is not until
after students have already been observed that they should be given assignments and tasks in
which the students can work to expand their skills and learn to feel confident in their leadership

positions. What I feel should not be done is push students into leadership positions in which they
are not comfortable. Oftentimes, teachers want to push everyone to be the Type A leaders, and
that is not in everyones comfort zone. It is important to meet students where they are and help
shape them into who they want and are meant to be versus what we as teachers think they should
be.
Activities that can help determine leadership strengths and weaknesses are assignments
such as group-presentations/assignments. Through this, leaders can be found in who keeps their
team on task, who motivates the other students, who is inclined to research, who presents to the
class, and who helps keep the harmony. Another form of leadership can be found in observing
students oral individual presentations. This is a great way to look for those leaders who are or
have the potential to be comfortable speaking in front of a group of people as well as those
leaders who do a good job breaking down the information they are presented. These leaders may
be good at tutoring and working one-on-one with other classmates to help guide others through
challenging tasks. A big one that I have always found to be interesting is observing students
within a heated class discussion. It is important to note which students can remain calm and
value others opinions regardless of if they are different from their own as well as which students
let others speak without interrupting. Possibly the easiest and most important way of finding
leadership skills and assigning appropriate leadership tasks are just observation of regular
everyday actions. Students actions will help guide me as a teacher to serving and meeting their
needs more. I have stated this before, but my teachers have determined my strengths throughout
the years more than most others. I want to be that teacher.