INTRODUCTION

Have you ever though about defining your educational platform? Your beliefs, opinions, values, and attitudes which provide a foundation for your teaching, and the reasons you deem them important. Many educational platforms cover the following points, but more in a narrative format than a listing. Educational platforms try to be honest about ones beliefs in action in terms of how they actualize these beliefs in practice, or why they don't act on some beliefs to the extent to which they would like, or about inconsistencies they know exist.

Here are some thoughts about an educational platform for supervisors. All platforms need not contain all these elements, and can contain other elements you consider important. The important thing is to have a sense of what your own platform is, rather than to construct a perfect, consistent statement. (see the reading for detailed descriptions

) 1. The aims of education: the three most important aims of education, for the youngsters in your school system. 2. Major achievements of students by the end of a year in your classroom. 3. The social significance of the student's learning: how they will fit in the big picture. 4. The image of the learner: how do students learn? 5. The image of the curriculum: what is it important to learn. 6. The image of the teacher: your part in the big picture. 7. The preferred pedagogy: how will learning progress in your classroom? Approaches? 8. The preferred school climate: tone, discipline, morale, classroom to school to outside. 9. A unifying image or metaphor embedded in your practice.