The ultimate purpose of education is to produce individuals who strive for excellence, not only for themselves, but also their peers, and their community. Socrates said that "the unexamined life is not worth living." My philosophy of teaching relies heavily on self examination. For learning to happen, students need to feel that the material is important.

I believe that students need to be treated as people and that respect must be given as well as taken. The relationship between student and instructor is grounded in mutual trust. The instructor ought not to engage the student for the sole purpose of imparting his knowledge. The instructor must be skillful in pulling knowledge from the student - according to Socrates, the student has knowledge. The role of the instructor is to force the student to reveal that knowledge through a process question and answer. This process is built on trust and mutual respect. If such a process is not honest, then the process of education may fall victim to the warning of Cicero: "the authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn."

The teacher must treat the student as an extension of himself. In this way, the improvement of the student is necessarily the improvement of the teacher. This explains why I teach since I too am a student in search of self-improvement.

Children are the future of our country and world and as such must be taken care of. The first rule of writing is write what you know. I believe this is also important in teaching. Of course a teacher must have a strong command of the material, but he or she must also be able to use experience as an instructional tool. Teachers need to lead by example. As a coach, I understand that players learn more easily when they see what to do. Students should be questioned. By questioning students, we force them to think critically about the material, but also about themselves. The student must be taught how to learn and how to think.

I believe that all children can learn, but I understand that children do not learn by the same methods, or at the same speed. The classroom is not just the place for books and tests. Core values of respect, tolerance, responsibility, caring, justice etc. should be at the fore of every lesson.