My Core Teaching (Learning) Beliefs

I was reading a blog today, Mrs. Bainbridge's blog to be exact and she asked if we would state our beliefs about teaching. I am very passionate about education for several reasons. My parents instilled in me a love and thirst for knowledge through reading, through history, through any source available. My father was a minister and because he had not had the formal seminary training (although he had been to Columbia Bible College and a missionary in India planting churches) he often felt that his knowledge was not equivalent to his peers. The result was he would study words, their etymology, their history and he taught himself enough Greek and Hebrew so that he could glean more for his sermons as to the meaning of God's written word. My mother was an eclectic woman of many talents. She had a trained voice, was trained as a pianist, she had a degree in music, was a wonderful cook and also as a missionary with my father she ran an orphanage and ran a school for native Hindustani children. Both of my parents had a British education and could quote poetry from memory that they had learned as children. So with all this as my background and early life, I desired to know why, when, where, who at an early age. I devoured books as a child because the took me places and I gained an awesome amount of knowledge just from reading. My first choice in a career was not to be a teacher, but to be a lawyer. I happen-chanced on teaching, by starting a nursery for my father in his church and it was there that I saw the young child learning and discovering and I was smitten by teaching the young child.
 It is with all this in my upbringing, family life, and experience that I state my core beliefs about education:
1. I believe that everyone can learn.
2. I believe that everyone has an unalienable right to learn.
3. I believe that a teacher must teach the whole child, that is to say not just the brain, but the body, the emotions and the brain.
4. I believe that learning is exciting! It is like finding money in your wallet when you thought you were broke and that for me is an awesomely joyful experience.
5. I believe that learning one thing leads to a desire to know more and that the thirst for knowledge can really never be quenched.
6.I believe that learning is a group effort. Learning comes from the learners and the teacher.
7.I believe that everyone should be accountable in learning...the teacher, the child, the parents and the community.
8. I strongly believe that learning is empowering, evolving and exhilarating.

  So along with Christina at Mrs.Bainbridge's Class Blog, join us in listing your core beliefs about teaching, learning and education.