Date of Award

Spring 3-2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Dr. John D. Long

Second Advisor

Dr. Yvonne Gibbs

Third Advisor

Dr. B. Patrick Conley

Abstract

This study came about as the result of my belief that my philosophy as an educator was no longer in alignment with that of the school district in which I taught. As a result, I decided to conduct a self-study that incorporated my own reflections of myself and my teaching, as well as those of my then-current and previous colleagues and thencurrent and previous administrators/building leaders. Participants varied in their positions and in their number of years of teaching experience, roles, age, gender, and then-current teaching status. It was important to me that I had people with whom I had worked previously as I wanted to know of possible changes I had made internally and externally; I wanted to learn how others viewed me and this data would assist me in my conclusions about myself, my philosophy and its congruence with that of my school district. I created a ‘Perspective’ template for uniformity in the manner in which I reflected upon specific teaching events and a survey for my participants, as well as interviews. My findings were that there may have been slight or minute differences in philosophies of education and of a teacher’s role; however, there were vast differences in the prioritization of goals, missions, commitments, and visions. This difference in prioritizations and the timeliness in which commitments were fulfilled created frustrations and triggered an inordinate amount of stress and continuous trauma of varying types. In this dissertation, I will discuss my research, as well as the calculated measures I took to obtain data to help me determine if my philosophy was in accord with that of my employer. In addition, I will also make suggestions for those who may extend my study or use it as a foundation for future studies.

Rights

Copyright 2019

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