Philosophy of Teaching: Guest Post by Travis DeZordo

Guest post by Travis DeZordo, AP Human Geography, American History I Teacher & Leadership in Action Director, Lake Norman Charter High School

Travis is in his 9th year at LNC and 11th year of teaching overall.  He was recently named the Lake Norman Charter School district Teacher of the Year.  You can follow him on Twitter (@TDeZordo). This essay was included in the Teacher of the Year portfolio. 

Philosophy of Teaching

by Travis DeZordo

Over the past few years, I have come to understand, that the way people believe about anything dictates much of the way people act in relationship to it. This sentiment rings true when motivational speakers saying things like, “if you believe it you can achieve it,” or “speak the things you desire into your life, and they will happen” and others means of changing one's thinking about themselves or their future. Largely, what they mean by this is that changing the way one believes will change the way one acts.  These ideas have sold millions of books and made millions of dollars and prove that I am not the only one who believes in this concept. The way one believes about anything vastly determines how one treats it, how one acts when they are around it, and how one feels about it. The reason that I was able to win Teacher of the Year in year ten of my career and not prior years is not necessarily due to a change in teaching philosophy, but in large due to my changing beliefs about students. Below you will find my three-part philosophy of who students are and thus who I am in relationship to them.

First, I believe that students desire a relationship with their teacher that is far more than the deliver and receiver of information. The latter is the job of Google and Wikipedia. They desire a mentor. They desire someone who understands them and respects them for who they are, not who they are expected to be. The relationship I am speaking of involves mutual respect, genuine care for one another, and a trusting partnership working toward an educational, athletic, or personal goal. This might sound a lot like a relationship of equals, because it IS a relationship of equals. Mutual respect, care for each other, and equality starts with the teacher not the student. I show my students respect by working extremely hard on their lesson plans, making sure I bring my best to them every single day, admitting when I have made a mistake, and making it ok for them to make mistakes as well. I show them care and respect by listening to them and allowing their voice to impact the classroom. I show them care and respect by advocating for them as well as encouraging them to advocate for themselves inside and outside the classroom. I show them respect by believing that even when they made a different decision than I would have made, they did the best they could with the tools they currently possess within the unique context of their lives. When students begin to see the care and respect that I have for them, they begin to see our relationship as a partnership. When this type of trust and respect is developed students begin to believe in the partnership we have created and thus feel safer in the classroom. This allows them to put forth their best effort without fear of judgement and failure. Only when these conditions are created by the teacher can all students truly obtain the relationships they crave and seek their passion fearlessly with grit and determination.

     Second, I believe that students want to succeed, but often have blurred vision of what success actually is. At the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year, I polled my students and asked them how they would determine their success in the classroom. Nearly all of them said the following or something similar:

“I will be successful if I get a 5 on the APHG exam.”

“If I get an A I will be happy.”

“I want to pass the final exam and have an A for the year.”

“I want to pass the class and be done with American History.”

These sentiments were the same if the student was AP or standard, high achieving or what society calls average, boy or girl, rich or poor. Their belief is that a grade gives them their self-worth. A grade is what determine success. Because of this misguided definition of success, my job as their teacher is to help them understand that they have massive self-worth simply because they exist on this planet. They’re valuable because they are people. Wonderful, amazing, beautifully creative, curious, hardworking, funny, sarcastic, determined, and often impulsive people.

In order to lighten the value that students place on their performance and begin to shift that value onto themselves as people, I have found that shrinking the emphasis on grades and over emphasizing relationships helps my students begin to share this vision. It is a long process to change this belief and not all students buy in. It is hard to get a 16-year-old AP student to believe that the relationships they make are equally as important as their grade or test score. I believe students should develop relationships through three specific connections.

     First, the student to teacher and student to student partnership. Second, the student’s relationship with the content. Third the student’s impact on the world around them. 

So, if students have a hard time defining success, I need to work with them to help them redefine it. If success is not a grade, a test score, or getting into the perfect college, what is it? I believe that students are successful in my classroom and really any situation in life, if they have accomplished five things. First, did they find something that they are passionate about? Second, did they develop a relationship with someone that they believe will last a lifetime? Third, did they challenge themselves beyond what they thought was possible? Fourth, did they give their best effort and grow from the experience? Fifth, do they know that they are valuable far beyond a test score, college acceptance letter, or a grade in the grade book. If my students can say that they have done these 5 things, this year was a success for them and if I can convince them that these five things are a better measure of achievement than a test score, I have had a successful year as well.

            

To measure my success based on the above criteria, I conduct an end of year student survey. The survey is substantial and takes about 40 minutes. One section of the survey asks the students if this year was a success and if so, why? The trick here that I ask this before they get their AP scores or before they even take their final exam. Out of 139 students only 7 said that they did not know yet if this year was a success. Before the school year almost all students said that success would be measured by their AP score or final grade. By the end of the year all but seven students, said that the school year was a success, and they had not received their final grades, or many have not even taken their final exams. Below are some samples as to why they thought this year was a success. 

“I found a love for African nations through AP Human Geography.”

“Mr. DeZordo cared about me as a person and not my performance. He made me feel special.”

“I saw American History in a way that I have never seen before. Understanding historical thinking skills and being able to interpret bias and make arguments has changed the way I view social studies courses.”

“I have challenged myself more than ever and know that I have grown a ton. I know that I did well on the AP exam even though Mr. DeZordo does not seem to care about test scores.”

“My primary group developed a great relationship. It was really fun.”

Now for my final belief about students, one that I believe has most drastically changed my teaching philosophy. I have tried to rephrase in my head. I want it to sound more profound and professional, but this phrase as be the mantra for the 2017-18 school year so why change now? Here it goes. “Students are AWESOME!” that is it. Plain and simple. They’re awesome. They’re smart. They’re funny. They’re loving. They’re caring. They’re inquisitive. They’re insightful. They will change this world for the better. They are changing this world for the better. They change me for the better. Most of them simply don’t know it yet.

This impacts my philosophy of education, because I believe that it is a huge part of my job to help them believe this about themselves. Many students put such an emphasis on their failures rather than their successes (as most of us do.) It is my job to help them see their successes and encourage them to learn from and overcome their failures. Throughout my time as a teacher, I have seen students make literally every mistake possible, but this is not who they are. They’re AWESOME.

It is this drastic shift in mindset that has completely changed my relationship with students. For many of my years as a teacher, I believed that students should conform to my standards and if they didn’t they were “bad” or at best, acting “bad.” The problem with this conception of students is that they will never fully conform to my standards and thus, students and I are at battle. I cannot win this battle, so why fight it. It is much easier to change my beliefs about who students are. If students are awesome, then it is my job to help them do the things that make them awesome and moreover, make our future far more awesome.

In conclusion, I believe that students want to develop meaningful relationships with teachers, students, content, and the world around them. I believe that students desperately want to achieve success and it is our job as educators to work with students to help them define success properly. In my essay about issues and trends in education I plan to discuss how society measures success as a major issue in education today. This will shed light on how I evaluate students and how that has resulted in major improvements across all areas of student achievement, regardless of how you define it. I believe that students are valuable just because they exist and most importantly I believe that STUDENTS ARE AWESOME.

Thank you for viewing.

The opinions shared in this blog belong to Craig Smith (or guest blogger) and do not represent the school or district in which he works.