30 Goals 1: My Teaching Philosophy

Earlier this year I read about the 30 Goals Challenge on Teacher Reboot Camp. I waffled between "THIRTY goals?!  That's so maannnny!" to "Cool, maybe I'll try it!" and back again.

When the first goal was posted, I was super busy with schoolwork (well, when am I NOT busy with schoolwork?) and it sounded like way too much work.  A video, poster, or presentation about my teaching philosophy?  Sounds like a grad school assignment!  I don't have time for that!  Maybe I'll see what the next one is... Besides, I already write a lot of posts that give peeks into what I believe about language teaching and teaching in general.


However, around that time, I read Brad at Edulang's challenge to post a quotation that defines your teaching.  Awesome!  I LOVE quotations.  Of course, I love them so much that I couldn't possibly pick just one... so I held off on that too.  I eventually came back to it about a week later and managed to narrow it down to two, which I just posted by commenting because I was too lazy/busy/tired to write a whole blog post about them:

1. "The greatest gift one can give to another person is a deeper understanding of life and the ability to love and believe in the self."  (Fred Rogers)
2. "You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure." (Henry David Thoreau)

Perhaps someday I'll get around to sharing some more of my favorite quotations.

Then the second goal of the 30 goals came.  Highlight a favorite inspiring teaching moment?  Powerful.  That really spoke to me.  Haven't done it yet, but it really got me thinking.  I know just what to write about -- that amazing girl. The one where I wish I would've been blogging while I worked with her because those few months were the most incredible teaching moments I've ever had.  Of course, that's a daunting task.  I just have so much to say about her. So of course, I haven't done it yet.

Still, she's been sitting in the back of my mind, bugging me to try out the 30 goals and get going.  So here I am today with Goal 1: My Me Manifesto.  I'm too much of a writer and perfectionist to really be able to write out or visually display everything I believe about teaching (at least, without spending inordinate amounts of time and energy!), so I decided to make it short and sweet by making a word cloud:

(view larger here at Wordle!)

I don't know if I'll ever get to the other 28, because that next goal is going to take a while.  I could probably write a book about my experience with R. and everything she taught me about life and teaching.  However, I'm looking forward to writing at least one post, or perhaps several, on my Magical Teaching Moment!

Until then... What are the major anchors of your teaching philosophy? Do you relate to mine?

Has anyone tried or completed 30 Goals in the past?  Are you thinking of jumping in this year?  We can give it a try together!