Armenia A. Tabor believes that every student is unique and needs a caring and nurturing environment to grow in their own way. As an educator, her goals are to be a mentor and allow students to take ownership of their learning by making it relevant to their lives. She wants to promote learning through hands-on activities and giving students time and materials to discover answers themselves. By incorporating student interests and input, she can help create a richer curriculum that motivates students to reach their own self-set goals.

1. My Teaching Philosophy
By
Armenia A. Tabor. PhD
I believe that every student is unique. Each needs secure caring, nurturing, and
stimulating the environment in which every individual grows. My desire as educator is to assist
students meet their potential in the following areas by providing an environment, which is safe,
where they can share their experiences and supports risk-taking. These are the areas, which I
believe are conducive to establish an environment for learning: (a) teacher as a mentor, (b)
allows the student to own ownership of his/her learning, and (c) promoting values for all things
and people.
My role is to mentor so providing access to information rather than acting as the primary
source of information and the student’s search for knowledge is met as they learn to find their
answers to their questions. For students to construct knowledge, they need the opportunity to
discover for themselves and practice skills in authentic situations. The provision of students
access to hands-on activities and allows time enough time and space to use materials that
reinforce the lesson that they study creates an opportunity for individual discovery and
construction of knowledge to occur.
The importance to self-discovery is giving the opportunity to study things, which are
meaningful and relevant to one’s life and interests. In developing a curriculum around student
interests fosters intrinsic motivation and stimulates the passion to learn. One way to take learning
in a direction relevant is to invite student dialogue about the lessons and units of study. With the
input of opportunity, students generate ideas and set goals that make for richer activities that I

2. could have created or imagined myself. When students have ownership in the curriculum, they
are motivated to reach their goals.