Essay on Educational Goals and Philosophies

In order to become a teacher, an individual must take education coursework, evaluations through student teaching and passing state teacher examinations (Samson & Collins, 2012).

I can still remember coming home from school after an exciting day in the first grade. I would go straight to my room, line all of my dolls up in the floor, and “teach” them everything I had learned earlier that day. But of course, not every child who pretends to be a teacher in his or her early years actually becomes a teacher. So although I enjoyed “teaching,” I never really considered it as a choice for my life-long career.

The nature of students is that of an instinctive ability to learn. Students of ages and all grade levels reflect their surroundings and respond according to their interpretation. Naturally it is not only the influence of a classroom that shapes a student but many outside factors that determine students’ goals and abilities; for example, healthy encouragement from parents. Students may find a natural ability to perform in one area of education and with help may fine tune their ability to better their understanding of other areas. Students have a better understanding of education when it is relevant to their needs and everyday life.

For me, the decision to become a teacher is more of a way of life than a career. I have always loved school, practicing at being school marm from a young age, and voraciously devouring every shred of education offered me in my career as a student. If it were possible, I would be a student for the rest of my life. And then I still would not have learned enough. As a teacher, I hope to instill this appetite for knowledge in secondary students. They are, after all, the future leaders of the world, and what better place to expand the minds of the generations to come than here in Appalachia where education programs, especially the sciences, which I plan to teach, are poorly funded and children’s dreams

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.” MLK Jr. did a good job summarizing a huge portion of my beliefs in preparing to become a teacher. I believe that teachers must teach students basic knowledge to increase every individual’s intelligence and to teach kids character. There are many ways a teacher can approach these which I will later explain. One huge way I plan on approaching it is the big idea of trust. My beliefs can really fit any classroom environment and I think I want to start in elementary education specifically upper elementary and then work my way up to a secondary teacher. The art of teaching is very powerful and I plan on mastering it from discovering the true purpose of school, learning my roles as a teacher, wondering how students learn best, and what should be taught in schools.

Education entails individual human development in the cognitive, emotional, creative and social areas. All children are entitled to a free education regardless of race, cultural background or handicaps. For education to be an effective part of the students life, the student and teacher must be actively and enthusiastically involved in learning. A teacher needs to be well prepared and organized. They need to know the perspective goals for each student and ways to achieve these goals. Teachers need to work with students to help them grow and develop ways to use their knowledge.

Did you know that becoming a teacher you have to go through fieldwork (bls.gov)? The fieldwork is when you come to a school for a certain amount of days and observe. Then as time goes by you get to teach the class yourself. After a month of teaching your professor comes and evaluates how you do for about 2 days a week. But while you’re there you work under an experience teacher for a semester it’s how you learn while teaching. While you’re teaching there’s still classes you have to take (teaching degree.org). The classes you can take are normally open to you in high school. Like a class that teaches you what you need to know to pursue your dream. You could also take sample courses. You need a bachelor’s degree (bls.gov). The degree has to be in a certain field. Like English, history, or sciences. Then you get to go to degree program where you can train and take classes to get your next degree. The classes would be a big help but that’s when the expenses come along.

Different plants grow in different environments. Their differences are accommodated by their environment. There should be an understanding that students are the same way. Each student thrives in different environments of learning. Alicia is a sixth grade student who is not thriving in her environment. She refuses to participate and becomes anxious at the thought of school. Academically, Alicia struggles to coherently express her thoughts, and she becomes lost in mathematical problems. Alicia is not thriving in her environment. By looking into the specifics of Alicia’s behavior and academic goals, one can see how she will be able to meet her goals and flourish in the classroom.

My desire to become a teacher began while I was in junior high school however; my family, friends, and coaches basically turned me against it. They said it was a jobless market with no future. At that age, those people were very impressionable on my decisions, and because of this I became disillusioned about my career, and at that point I just knew I wanted to attend college.

I have already started this process, because my friend, who recently graduated and is now teaching, told me that there is much that teachers must know that isn’t taught to us in college. I probe his mind, and read articles on the internet, look at teaching web sites, and I am always thinking of affective ways that I can teach people.

Knowledge is a very powerful thing, and to be able to deliver this to today’s youth has been a dream of mine for a long time. There are many advantages to teaching. I feel that is a very fulfilling profession. I have seen my sister in the classroom, and it greatly inspired me to want to make a difference in some ones life. Through watching my sister in action I was inspired to follow in her footsteps.

Education is inevitable. It is all around us because we can learn from virtually anything. When you are cooking, dancing, talking or any other activity you have actually had to learn several things to be able to do them. In the educational perspective, I am a pragmatist and I tend to follow after Dewey's footsteps. The concept of Pragmatism is one that developed in the 20th century. My philosophy is based on the idea that learning should involve real-life situations. Learning becomes more concrete to a student when they apply it to real-life situations, as where learning things that do not connect to them has more of an abstract sense. Personally, I would have to agree with Dewey when he said, "I

Marc Prensky's article “the goal of education is becoming” is about the poor decision of how schools are teaching children. The article by Diane Ravitch named “the common core costs billions and hurts students” has the same theme, but they do have some differences that really make them their own article with their own points. One of the differences is Ravitch mentions how people from poorer places or in poor black and hispanic neighborhood have worse to no schooling. She states this by saying “policy makers encouraged the firing of thousands of teachers and the closing of thousands of low-scoring public schools, mostly in poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods”. While Prensky doesn’t mention this point, he mainly justs focuses on how schooling

English class has always been my strength, but I’ve had difficulty excelling in math classes. One year in high school, all of a sudden it was the opposite. I was not doing so well in English, and flourishing in math. I couldn't figure out why, but I realized that it was the teacher. I was always told that everyone learned differently, but I never understood why until that moment. I realized, teachers and their teaching methods are the reason a student might do well in a class or not. This process of realization also led me to the conclusion that our current education system is flawed and to understanding what kind of teaching method works for me.

“The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done” – Jean Piaget (From remarks at a conference on cognitive development at Cornell University, 1964), and so that is still true of learning in my workplace today. But how does the learning being offered create these men you may ask, and what place does Kolb’s experiential learning cycle take in it all? As I work in a tough railway ‘safety critical’ role the learning can be broken down into several phases each with its own goals.