Javan Carter

Current Teaching Philosophy

My current teaching philosophy is to challenge my students to grow emotionally, socially, mentally, spiritually and academically. I want my students to be aware of everyone's emotions, and to accept the social choices of others. In addition, I want my students to have the mental capacity to overcome challenges, respect spiritual views and have a growth mindset toward academics. Moreover, I am a no-nonsense teacher while being understanding of my students.

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Mission

My mission is to develop leaders, promote community engagement, and academic excellence while providing service and advocacy for our communities. My view on my mission is that I stand by this. I believe my students have leadership qualities and are still developing. Community engagement is my top priority. My fraternity donated an Apple Mac Book to my former student for becoming the valedictorian of her fifth grade class. In addition, the Morgan State University Football team donated a pair of cleats to one of the students I mentor. I take service seriously inside and outside of my classroom. My students have also served their community. For instance, my students created a video to bring awareness to police brutality towards unarmed African Americans. My students voiced their opinion to the mayor by writing about the Baltimore City Public School's budget crisis. My students will be exposed to service regardless of their age. Also, my former students earned the highest PARCC, state wide assessment, scores in the school. I am proud of my mission and I stand by it.

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Growth

My philosophy has not changed much, but my approach towards showing affection towards my students have. I was a complete no non-sense disciplinarian. That strategy would work with certain students, but not all. I had change my technique to fit different students. For an example, some students responded to harsh criticism and some students did not. I had to show affection after criticizing. In a sense after broke some of my students down, I had to learn how to build them up by letting them take a break or seeing an administrator. I have grown into a good teacher, but I am not satisfied. I have a ways to go to becoming a great teacher and educator.

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Refinements

I have kept and refined a lot of my methods of teaching. I love teaching my students about self love through the common core standards. For instance, I used the Charlie Chaplin poem of Self Love to determine the theme (RI3.1) and  unknown academic words (RI3.4). I believe self love is the foundations of a productive life. With self love, anyone will know their worth, self respect and will always want to grow. I have discarded not showing any affection. The lack of showing any affection to children can have drastic consequences because some students think that affection in the form of a compliment, lunch bunches or simply a smile is love. I made a promise to myself to be more affectionate and the results have been insurmountable. When I showed more affection, my students began to stay in class more, show more effort and they truly wanted to spend more time with me. This made teaching more enjoyable and created relationships that will last forever.