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Teaching Philosophy

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32 views1 page

Teaching Philosophy

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api-430201895
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Catherine A.

Kurilko
1963 Ardmore
Trenton, MI 48183
[email protected]
(734) 778-3417

Throughout the course of my career, I have worked as a music teacher in many different
capacities. I have taught classes entirely online, used a hybrid (in-person & online) model of
teaching, worked with students as young as infants, and guest lectured at a university. Although
these methods of teaching have differed, and the students come from different cultural
backgrounds, ages, ethnicities, genders, races, and formal musical educations, the purpose of
education remains the same; a pursuit of humanization.
The purpose of education always about human enlightenment and human liberation.
Education invites us to know and be more, to see, to understand, to become more capable. By
receiving a high-quality education, we are more compassionate, more courageous, and more
active participants in our work, society, and lives. Education opens a path away from ignorance
and prejudice, and opens doors for students to envision an ideal world, then help to create it. By
believing that the goal of education is creating self-sufficient citizens who work toward creating
a better world, we must root our teaching practices in social justice. Rigor, reflection, and
relevant teaching practices will continue to open doors – education is good for each of us, and it
is good for all of us.
I have worked in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for four years, and have seen firsthand
the powerful influence that music educators have over the formation of students’ identities,
musical and otherwise. I have seen classrooms morph into sites where young children envision,
enact, and renew life. As John Dewey philosophized, the purpose of education is not only to gain
knowledge, but to learn how to socialize in a safe and comfortable environment. For elementary
students especially, we must be aware that we are an incredibly powerful influence in how they
see school, themselves, and their interactions with each other.
Students must be taught as they are, not as they will be. If we validate students as they are
when they walk into our classrooms, refer to them as not as “boys and girls” but as musicians,
mathematicians, readers, scientists – we embolden the independent learners that lie within. We
can create self-sufficient citizens who work toward creating a better world by teaching them as
they are, by normalizing mistakes and missteps, and by dismantling the notion that musicality is
a gift bestowed to humans at birth. By situating our belief systems upon the idea that each and
every child is already musical when they enter our classrooms, we live up to our claim that
music is, indeed, “for all”.

Catherine A. Kurilko

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