As I take the time to reflect upon my academic pursuits, I see constant reminders that my teaching style has been molded by my mentors.  In my academic pursuits, my mentors taught me to value education as a furtherance of life itself.  They also taught me that teaching is much more than simply educating the masses; it involves making an impact on the lives of students so that they, in turn, will leave changed and will better the lives of all they meet in the future.

As a teacher, I constantly instruct my students in a way that causes them to “think outside the box” and to develop their own philosophies about life and education.  My reminder to them is that it’s not what grade you receive for the course that is most important; it’s how you apply what you have learned to your life that will help you, and others, in the future.

As a teacher, it is my duty to improve upon my learning.  Learning is a process that still exists, no matter what level of education you attain.  As a teacher, I implement numerous methods in the classroom and field to determine if my actions as an instructor have been successful.  I also spend countless hours with mentors and other faculty who have multiple years of experience in the profession, learning about their successes and failures while adapting my lessons around these experiences so that my instruction is centered on reaching to the depths of the learning experience.

The classroom today presents an entirely new makeup of population as it once did.  As an instructor, I try to relate to each student in an individual way so as to make them feel that their needs, wants, and desires in life are as important to me as they are to themselves.  It is often difficult not to relate to one stance on an issue, but it is always my goal to maintain a neutral outlook on each circumstance that arises in the classroom.

In regards to specific educational discipline, physical education must be shown as being important before its principles will be adopted by the masses.  To show its importance, its intricacies must be related to each segment of the population, simply because each student learns in a different way but has also been raised to appreciate in a different way.  If students from multiple and various walks of life can find an area that they can apply to their own lives specifically, they will leave the educational experience, in turn, much better than when they entered it.

That, simply, is my goal!