Joseph Lindsey

9-22-2019

Teaching Philosophy statement

I became a health and physical education major because I want to change the generations

that I teach during my carrier. I want to inform them to make better health decisions than the

ones my generation has made. I believe that in k-12 school they teach you a lot of information

that could not be important for some people, and the things we teach that are going to be

important are taken to lightly. Physical education is one of those things that I feel that the school

systems take for granted. As a physical education teacher, we have the knowledge and ability to

teach these students to be active for life and make it enjoyable so that the students will want to be

active throughout their lives. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in the school systems,

but I believe that with great physical education teachers and reforming the curriculum we can

change the way people think about physical education.

Students learn in all different kinds of ways a few examples of learning styles would

include visualization, performing the task, talking about the task, and others. Students learn in all

different kinds of ways and as a teacher we must understand this and bring all different kinds of

learning styles to each lesson to reach as may students as we can. I do believe that one way that

connects all of us as learners is to see the action being performed and talking about it openly as a

class. This allows the students to talk about whatever topic that we are talking about and bring to

the surface any questions or concerns that they might have. This I believe helps the material stick

with the students better than just assigning work for them to do independently. When the

students are involved in the conversation on the topic they are engaged and attentive to the topic
and this means they want to learn. The teacher’s job is to make sure that they keep interest in the

topic so that they students stay engaged and learning. This way the students are also enjoying

what they are learning and are more likely to use it out in the real world.

Why do I want to become a teacher? I want to help students be active throughout their

lifetimes. I want the students to find something that the love to participate in that they can do

throughout their lifetime. The reason I want them to be active is because of their health. To talk

about that I must talk about my own story. My genetics are very tough, on my mothers’ side of

the family there are illnesses like dementia and diabetes for the females on my other side of the

family. For the males on my mothers’ side of the family there are cancers (even though most

aren’t hereditary) and strokes. For this side of the family it is either that you are healthy

throughout life if you do the proper things for your body, or you will suffer from illness starting

in your 60’s. I know that these don’t even meet criteria to be a risk factor for me in a medical

sense. They do mean that I should be cautious with the choices I make concerning my health.

This is just my mothers’ side of the family. My fathers’ side of the family on his mother’s side

has similar issues as my mothers’ side of the family dementia, cancer, and stroke. My father’s

fathers’ side of the family is where I run into the biggest issue. Every male on that side of the

family, which include my great grandfather, my grandfather and his four brothers, and my father

have all died from massive heart attacks. The ages they passed away span from the ages of 51-

56. These all meet the criteria to be a major risk factor for me.

I say all of this not just to share my lives tragedies or hardships, but to inform why I am so

passionate to teach students to be active throughout life. I remember seeing my father in the later

part of his life and what not being active did to him and how is quality of life diminished so

quickly. His death was preventable and so are most of the people that die of heart attacks every
day. I believe that a quality physical education curriculum could have given people like my

father the tools to lead a healthier life and change their fates.

I believe that you should learn may other things while in physical education. I think that

physical education is a great place to become more social and gain the tools to be interactive in a

healthy way with other individuals. The world today almost requires you to be social in nature

and some people don’t want to openly communicate with other people. A quality physical

education program will open students up to becoming more social and gaining the ability to

speak in front of a crowd. Physical education/ health can teach you the importance of what you

put into your body. This is one of the biggest ways that you can lead a healthy life is by eating

the right foods.

Why do I want to be a teacher? I want to make the world a better place by informing the

students the benefits of regular exercise and what can happen when you don’t take care of

yourself. I want to make the quality of life better for the generations that I teach and the best way

to do that is by teaching them physical education and making it enjoyable and instructive enough

that they continue being active for a lifetime.

I believe that the teacher sets the tone for the learning that will take place in their

classroom. I believe that to get the best learning environment in your classroom the teacher must

be enthusiastic about what they are teaching. When the teacher finds what they are doing boring

then the students will find it boring to. Teaching as all derived from the teachers own philosophy

and why they became a teacher. What I mean by this is teachers who became physical education

teachers to be lazy are not going to be able to teach students the things needed to make their

generation better. The teacher must be enthusiastic and have the drive to teach students the

importance of physical education.

classroom. Throughout my years I have always been fascinated with medical knowledge and

have spent a lot of time learning about medical problems and how they are caused. This helps me

with certain health topics, because I can go into detail about why the diseases or problems can

occur. Another “skill” that I have is that I am an avid reader on topics that I must teach in the

health classroom. For example, when we started the lesson on vaping, I dove in to learn all the

knowledge that I could on vaping so that when I taught the lessons, I know what I am talking

about. I am really interested in the history of things and how we can change the future and make

this world a better place to live.

The things that I need to teach health class is the knowledge and understanding of the

topic that we are discussing and the information to direct the students towards the facts on the

topic. Without these things I can’t have a positive and informative learning environment in my

classroom and won’t be able to teach as effectively as I would like to. When I teach, I like there

to be a lot of discussion on the topic in the classroom. I have found that group discussion keeps

the students involved and learning about the topic, but if I don’t know everything that I can about

the topic then the students will shut down and not be as open to discussing. The thing that I need

most to teach the students it the knowledge on the subject before teaching the students.

In conclusion, health and physical education are in my opinion the most important

subjects that you have in k-12 education. The teacher must be enthusiastic about the subject and

have the knowledge to be able to teach the students. We need to change physical education and

make it more enjoyable and knowledgeable for the students. I have the drive to make health and

physical education better and I believe that is the only type of teacher that we should hire to do

the job.