My philosophy of teaching puts the focus on the student. Students are more than vacant receptacles for information, they are people that lead full and multifaceted lives. These lives present them with many choices, both in and out of the classroom. They cannot be forced to learn against their will. It is an act they must decide to actively perform. As teachers we must make our invitation to learn more interesting and attractive than the alternatives. When students respect, trust, establish strong partnerships with their teachers, they will accept these invitations. To accomplish this, we have to pay attention to, listen to, and care about what students have to say. When we are interested in them, the courtesy is repaid in their interest in us and in our teaching.
     A student's creativity, higher-order thinking, and natural curiosity all contribute to his motivation to learn. Students are intrinsically motivated with tasks that they deem personally relevant and challenging. It's our duty to identify these tasks and communicate its relevance to each student, molding curriculum this way. By doing this we help students who are uninterested in learning become naturally motivated to learn. We should get to know our students well enough to make these connections. This way we can find appealing and challenging work that is relevant to a student's interests or long-term goals - while allowing for personal choice (of career, expertise, etc.), competence, and control in one's life. We'll find ways to make learning interesting and teach our students to never give up on it.
   I believe that it is importanto to help students "construct" knowledge. We have to become familiar with their student's capabilities and strengths and then find ways to build upon them. We should teach students to make connections with their own beliefs, and also to reevaluate them as necessary. We also need to help students discover how they learn best and how they might learn better. Students learn more if we guide them in how to become self aware, recognize, and get familiar with their own strengths. When we do this, we also show them how to build on them independently. In addition, we are more effective when we help students create and use repertoires of thinking and reasoning strategies in order to achieve complex learning goals. While imparting to students the importance of reflection about their thinking strategies, we should provide them with guided instruction. We need to teach students to think about thinking.
    We should seek to challenge, guide, and motivate each student. We should set appropriately high and challenging standards for assessing students and their learning progress, and make sure that these and the course and school standards are well aligned. We need to communicate high expectations to all our students, and encourage them to do the same. In addition, we should help students to set these goals in appropriate increments and frequency to achieve greater goals. The end result is showing students a ladder of steps, part of which they have already ascended, that extend beyond classroom and school goals and lead to their dreams. If this type of leadership is the priority, students will follow on their own.