This statement should include: (i) Your understanding of what education is (ii) Your perception of your role as teacher

in forwarding the aims of education (ii) The underpinning values and beliefs that guide your practice

1) What you believe about: the nature of learners teaching/your role as a teacher schools the role of others (administrators, parents, etc.)

For example, are all students capable of learning? Do all learners have something to contribute, or is this purely the role of the teacher? Are learners innately curious or empty vessels to be filled with wisdom by the teachers, or from a textbook? Should parents participate in the schools or should education be left to professional teachers? This is where you might discuss philosophies you have studied such as constructivism and behaviorism. 2) What is knowledge and what is worth knowing?i.e. what you value and the goals associated with those values (your axiology) about: the purpose of education the content you will select the skills you expect your students to develop

For example, do students need to be trained to be critical thinkers/problem solvers? Do students need to be trained, socialized, shaped, and/or controlled? What sort of conduct do you expect from students? Do they need to learn a trade, a skill, how to follow rules, obey the law or perform a job? Do they need to learn the content of various disciplines, facts, how to

solve problems or how to cooperate in groups, make decisions, and interpret the world around them? Do they need to learn how to engage in social reconstruction? Should teachers actively involve parents and the community in their classrooms? Is life- long learning involved? You may want to consider putting something in this part about standards.

3) What methods you expect to utilize to accomplish your goals (an epistemology): lectures direct instruction cooperative groups problem-solving worksheets ability grouping etc.

For example, will you always use one method? Or a mix? How will this help accomplish your goals. Have you read or experienced something that supports your belief? Give reasons.

4) Finally, in keeping with LHUPs Teacher Education Programs Mission Statement and Conceptual Framework, you could conclude by explaining how your philosophy promotes you as a Reflective Decision Maker and how it will enable you to continue to develop professionally.

This structure can be used as a guideline for what a Philosophy of Education paper might look like. Basically, it is an opportunity for you to sit down and put in writing what you really feel about education in general and teaching in particular. So think about all that you have learned and experienced and begin writing.

Inserting reading of philosophy into my own philosophy John Dewey philosophy: John Dewey sees learning as being active [Emand & Fraser, 2000; James Neill, 2005]. I also believe that learning cannot occur in a passive setting. It involves reaching out of the mind.

James Neill (2005) further adds that John Dewey believed that children came to school to do things and live in a community which gave them real, guided experiences which fostered their capacity to contribute to society. Pragmatism - A practical, matter-of-fact way of approaching or assessing situations or of solving problems. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pragmatism)

Dewey said that an educator must take into account the unique differences between each student. (James Neill, 2005)

Instead, students need educational experiences which enable them to become valued, equal, and responsible members of society (James Neill, 2005).

(James Neill, 2005) past experience interacts with the present situation, to create one's present experience.

Dewey notes also that childrenare to be educated for democratic citizenship (Noddings N. 1998).

Paulo Freire This relationship involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient listening objects (the students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process

of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified. Education is suffering from narration sickness (Bob Corbett, 1993).

Teaching is a democratic process to avoid teaching authority dependence (John Lyons, 2001).

Knowledge is not a set commodity that is passed from the teachers to the students. Students must construct knowledge from knowledge they already possess. Learning is a process where knowledge is presented to us, then shaped through understanding, discussion and reflection. (John Lyons, 2001).

Plato Plato would educate every boy and girl to the limits of their abilitiesAll children would be taken from the parents and educated by the statethe aims of education are to produce future servants of the state; develop virtuous intellectuals among the future rulers; glorify courage and military skill among the warriors; develop competent, obedient, and temperate workers; develop a social disposition among all citizens; train the character of each citizen. Plato recommended making learning as close to play as possible on the elementary levels. Upon the higher levels of education, the students reason would be trained in the processes of thinking and abstracting. (CALS, 2011)

R.S. Peters Randall Curren, 2011 Education involves essentially processes which intentionally transmit what is valuable in an intelligible and voluntary manner and which create in the learner a desire to achieve it, this been seen to have its place along with other things in life. Teacher is the Initiate; student is the aspirant; process of being initiated into a particular tradition and what is passed along is based upon the values of that tradition.