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Nicole Ritchie Dr.

Carr Education 450-01 October 2, 2013 Personal Philosophy For a teacher to be able to successfully teach a room full of students, its important to find which styles and methods work best for them. If they try to force using styles and methods that dont fit their beliefs it could affect how effectively they teach their students. So its important for future teachers to consider what they would consider their own personal teaching style would be. They can then compare and contrast this with existing teaching philosophies, and if they find a philosophy they connect with, then they can also try to implement other aspects of that philosophy in their classroom as well if they are not already doing so. As is probably the case for most everyone, my personal philosophy for teaching may actually agree with aspects from several different philosophies. To help determine which education philosophy I agreed with the most, I took the McGraw-Hill assessment to see if my beliefs agreed with Essentialism, Perennialism, Progressivism, Social Reconstructivism, or Existentialism. Progressivism scored the highest on the assessment, meaning that my beliefs about education matched up the most with ideas that make up Progressivism. One of my personal educational beliefs is that students can highly benefit from working with and learning from one another which connects with the community and collaboration aspects of Progressivism (Kohn). The belief of community would also be an aspect that would

fall under the Social Reconstructivist philosophy which works to create a better society (Diehl). In Progressivism though, building community is to help develop the child, not necessarily create a better society. Working collaboratively as a community of learners that respects one another can help students to see many different perspectives of different topics and allow them to grow as a person. This contrasts with the ideas of Existentialism where the focus is only on the individual (Diehl). While Progressivism promotes the development of the whole person, just as the Existentialists do, Progressivism also wants students to work together and be interdependent as well as independent. Community and collaboration could take many forms in a classroom. It could consist of students working in collaborative learning groups or could involve the whole class working together. My personal preference for implementing collaboration and community would be through collaborative learning groups because both can easily be combined and collaborative learning groups also give students a chance to build responsibility. Another of my personal beliefs is that the information students are learning should be relevant and students understand why they are learning what they are learning. Students should also be able to apply what they are learning to situations outside of the classroom. This belief follows along with Progressivism ideas that students need to be active learners and learn by doing (Diehl). To learn by doing would require students to have to apply the information they are learning, which would in turn require the teacher to explain to students why they are learning what they are learning and how it can be used outside of the classroom. Science would be a great subject to illustrate this because most of the things students learn about can be applied to the world outside of school. This could possibly contrast with Essentialism, where there is a common core of knowledge that needs to be transmitted to students in a systematic, disciplined way (Diehl) which is basically saying that it does not really matter if students understand why

they are learning what they are learning and how to apply it. It is saying that students just need to learn the information, which is how many students are taught in schools today because of the curriculum and standards that teachers are required to teach students so they can pass the end-ofthe-year tests. A third educational belief that I have is that students should be allowed to make choices and have a say in matters in the classroom instead of the teacher making the executive decision for everything. This would be a Progressive belief because Progressivism puts an emphasis on the importance of democratic relationships in the classroom setting (Angus). This could also take many forms in the classroom. Some examples would include the teacher giving students options and then allowing the students to vote and to make the final decision or students being allowed to come up with the options and then voting upon them. For example, at the beginning of the school year, the teacher might allow the students to develop the rules of the classroom. With the teacher being a guide and maybe grouping responses together, students would volunteer responses for what they think the rules should be and then the class could vote upon it. This belief of allowing democracy in the classroom would contrast with Essentialism where the teacher leads the classroom and teaches students respect for authority, and discipline (Diehl). While I believe that the Progressive view where curriculum content is derived from student interests and questions (Diehl) is a great idea and would most likely keep students very interested in what they are learning, I also believe that it could hurt the students if they are not learning information they need to help them to be successful in the future after they have finished with school. Thats why I agree more with Essentialism in this aspect where there is a common core of information that students will learn. If there is a common core of knowledge, students will all then be learning similar information as well as important information to help them

succeed in life. Where the common core of knowledge really benefits in the classroom is that teachers and students both have a clear understanding of what the objectives for each day is and what information needs to be and will be learned. As a future teacher, discovering and analyzing what my personal educational beliefs are is important to becoming an effective teacher because I need to know what beliefs I have and what I believe will work in my personal classroom. Everything little thing that goes on in the classroom will revolve around my own personal philosophy, so it is vital that I recognize and understand the beliefs that I have and how they can be implemented in the classroom. As I discussed, most of my beliefs follow Progressivism, but there are occasionally a couple other philosophies that I agree with as well. Now that I have a clearer understanding of my educational beliefs and what my opinions are on several philosophies, I have now gained important information to help me on my way of becoming the teacher that I want to become.

References Angus, D. (n.d.). Progressive education-philosophical foundations, pedagogical progressivism, administrative progressivism, life-adjustment progressivism. Retrieved from http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2336/Progressive-Education.html Diehl, D. E. (2005-2006). A study of faculty-related variables and competence in integrating instructional technologies into pedagogical practices. Retrieved from http://www.hccs.edu/hcc/System%20Home/Departments/Teaching_and_Learning_Reso rces/CTLE/Faculty_Professional_Development/learner_centered_workshop/comparison edu_philo.pdf Kohn, A. (n.d.). Progressive education. Independent School, Retrieved from http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/progressive.htm

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