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Essay about A Reflection of My Teaching Philosphy

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The purpose of education is to transmit both knowledge and skills needed to live in our modern world. Learning, such as critical thinking, should light a flame within the students that is a desire to learn, instead of smothering this desire through rote memorization. Just as Plato proposed that people must emerge from their caves of their own reality, students need to be brought forth out of their caves and into the sunlight by their guides who are teachers. Education is the process by which students learn more about themselves and about the world around them. Aristotle proposed that the purpose of education should be to help a person reach his or her potential. Without education, learners may not reach their full potential; they may …show more content…

Students learn through a variety of ways, depending on their own needs. Some students learn through modeling, for example, while others learn best by investigation. Students should be taught, as John Locke wrote in his Some Thoughts Concerning Education, “almost in playing.” Learning should not be in rote, but rather be a guided discovery. Students should be given the chance to use their imaginations to produce conclusions under the guidance of their teachers. In Emile, Rousseau describes the ideal student as thus, “If he knows nothing by heart, he knows a great deal by experience.” This means that a person learns the best through experience, not memorization. It is important for today’s students to go beyond what they have only read and to instead be able to use their education. Students also need a motivation to learn, or they may just absorb the knowledge mechanically without incorporating it into their thought process. This real world thinking should be expanded beyond their own realities and into the outside world, such as the wider community.
Students should be taught how to be citizens of the global world, rather than just a small focus on their own communities. Paulo Freire notes in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed that students must communicate with the world in order to achieve authentic thinking. Skills such as communication are necessary to understand the

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