My philosophy is that material serves students and that students do not serve the material. I have had success in the classroom because I respect every person I teach and I truly want to know what their goals are and how they learn as individuals. As an undergraduate and in graduate school, my best experiences have been those where respect was shown to me as a student. From that respect, my confidence was allowed to grow and self respect for my own growing abilities flourished as well. Only then did I come to understand that taking a programmed approach to students was not the key to success. Seeing each student as the unique person they are means that I have needed to teach with that central fact in mind. Beyond that, this is how I want to teach and my methods work.