This quote symbolizes what the profession of teaching is all about.  I can know all of the fundamentals on being a good teacher, but without the love for my  job and my students, it is all worthless.  I can make the best bulletin boards and make my students read from their textbooks every day but that does not mean that they are learning.
    A classroom should be an active learning experience each day.  Hands-on demonstrations should replace traditional rote memorization and worksheets.  Students can memorize how to do a math worksheet and still not know how they arrived at the answer to the problem.  I hope that I do not  fall into the category of most teachers and teach only by rote memorization.  Worksheets are simple for the teacher, but not productive for most children.
    My goal as a teacher is to provide opportunities for all types of learners to learn in the way that they acquire the most knowledge.  At least one aspect of each learning style should be included in the lesson format.  Audio, visual, kinesthetic, and tactile learning styles should be met.  For example, for visual learners there should be overhead transparencies, posters, diagrams, etc. and for the kinesthetic learners there should be opportunities for them to be moving around the classroom and not punished if they need to get up from their seats.  My idea of a productive classroom does not necessarily mean one that is always quiet.  I do not want to be like most teachers and not allow students to speak unless they are spoken to.  What children have to add is a valuable part of the learning experience.
    My philosophy of what schools are for follows a progressivist approach.  I believe that the student learning about their own lives is just as important as the learning about people in another country.  Students' interests are important in helping them to succeed as a student.  If I find out that a student enjoys a topic and I can incorporate that topic into my lesson, that child is going to be more interested and excited about learning.  The school is also there to promote moral and social values.  Teachers must act as role models and demonstrate the behaviors that students are expected to follow.  Some students do not receive such instruction in the home and need to be taught the proper way to behave in society.
    In my own philosophy of teaching, teachers are not the sole givers of  information.  Teachers can also learn from their students  just as the students learn from their teachers.  The subject matter and the  fundamentals of teaching are components of teaching, but they are not the most important.  The most important things about teaching are creativity, the love of learning, and the love of what you are doing in the lives of today's young children.