Educational Philosophy Reflection Paper

A large part of my educational philosophy is based on the fundamentals of Progressivism. This philosophy, founded by John Dewey, organizes schools around the concerns, curiosity, and real world experiences of students. I agree with these ideas because people must continually learn to keep up with today’s fast paced world. I believe that when learning is relevant and enjoyable students are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning. Progressivism has respect for individuality, a high regard for science, and a receptivity to change that I feel is critical to successful education. As a Progressive teacher I will facilitate learning by helping students formulate meaningful questions and devise strategies to answer those questions. In my opinion, answers are best discovered through real world experience, especially hands on learning or pragmatism. I believe that there is a time and place for book-learning; however, there is no substitute for actually doing things. I

My life has been influenced greatly by teachers. Since I was a child, teaching is all I wanted to do. My mother is a fifth grade teacher. I have quite a few friends that are teachers. I have been fortunate to be influenced by some great teachers throughout my academic career. I love to be around kids and I like participating in the process of learning. I appreciate learning even today. I enjoy the learning process and hope to one day influence students in the future. I hope to one day become a high school social studies teacher. I enjoy history and geography, and I especially love politics and discussing current events. I like class discussions and letting different opinions express themselves.

As postmodern educators feel their way through an ever changing multicultural classroom environment, it is imperative that each hold firmly to their philosophical positions and do not let society influence them in a negative way. At the same time all teachers should be continually reflecting inwardly to make oneself accountable to their profession.

In my experience, I believe that knowledge is best learned from real life situations. That is why student learning should be focused around real life. When students are able to relate to information from their own experiences, it allows for the environment to evolve in which the students feel free to express themselves. I plan to use a wide array of learning styles and activities to accomplish this type of learning by including group work, dramatizations, and out of class projects in the curriculum. I think that when students are exposed to information they feel relevant to their lives through different types of learning, they are able to expand their knowledge because they already have the information from their experiences.

Each student has their own unique needs and distinctive styles of learning, and progressive education allows both the teacher and student to work together and form a learning experience. In a progressivism classroom, students are thoroughly learning not only about the curriculum but also about each other. Students collaborate with each other and learn to be accepting of each other and be more accepting of differences. Another teaching philosophy that I believe in is existentialism. Existential philosophy emphasizes a student's creative choice and provides them with individual freedom. The students are then required to ask their own questions, conduct their own experiences, which in turn helps them draw their own conclusions. Although we can provide various opportunities for students, in the end it all comes down to the student's own choice. I know from my personal experience this was true for me. Although, I was afforded many great opportunities, in the end many times, I chose not to take them. These choices can end up defining the students and as teachers we can only guide them, in the end, the choice is theirs. The management and organization of a classroom are also imperative to the learning process. A teacher's own belief system may influence the way the view their

Every person has his or her idea of what education should be. One wants to be educated or go to universities so he or she could have a higher degree. Some other person wants to get education just to fulfill one's self. Many people get college education thinking that they can make more money. Education is not about money; it is a lifetime process that enables one to satisfy one's inner self. It makes a person feel good for who they are inside.

As a teacher, my philosophy of education focuses on the individual child and their educational needs. I would like my students to feel comfortable, develop their communication skills, and build positive character traits. Along with encouraging the children to grow in a positive way, I will treat children equally for grading along with providing them with the skills they need in order to achieve the most they can academically.

My philosophy as an educator entails many different ideas and techniques. I feel that certain basics must be taught and from there, students should be challenged to use these basics to develop their minds. I also feel that education should help a person become an individual who thinks for himself.

When we prepare children for life. We have to bring lot of changes to the teaching methodology. My personal philosophy is to create positive learning environment through active learning. Teaching and learning are the two sides of a coin... Students can learn best when they are motivated. To motivate them for learning teacher need to be well prepared and motivated him/herself. Students enjoyed learning if the activity is fun. Therefor an effective strategy can help students to get involved in the lesson and they get to know what they learn best.

Throughout education there are six main philosophies to take into consideration, and they are as followed. From a teacher centered classroom approach they include Essentialism, Behaviorism, and lastly Positivism. In a student centered classroom approach they are Progressivism, Humanism, and Constructivism. What do these terms mean? Essentialism is and educational philosophy that there is a common core of information and skills that an educated person must have. Behaviorism is a psychological theory and educational philosophy that asserts that behaviors represent the essence of a person and that all behaviors can be explained. A person acts the way they do for a reason. Finally positivism is a social theory and educational philosophy that limits truth and knowledge to what is observed and measured. These are all important for a teacher to take into consideration. Progressivism is an educational philosophy that emphasizes that ideas should be tested by experiments and that learning is better developed in questions developed by the learner. Humanism is an

Educational philosophies influence curriculum from the establishment of the American school systems. The five major philosophies that have influence American education are: 1) Idealism, 2) Essentialism, 3) Perennialism, 4) Progressivism, and 5) Experimentalism. Idealism, Essentialism, and Perennialism are all teacher-based philosophies putting the teacher at the core of the educational experience, with students being passive members of the classroom. In contrast, Progressivism and Experimentalism are student-centered philosophies that focus on the child and their contribution and participation in the formation of classroom experiences, using teachers as guides to help students in their educational development. Although the philosophies differ, many of them define curriculum as a encompassing unit of goals, methods, materials and assessment.

There are two educational philosophies that influence the way I want to teach in my own classroom. Essentialism and progressivism correspond to my beliefs. They both represent the values that I hold important when coming to running my future class. These philosophies interconnect to form the view of the best educational philosophy for me.

My Educational philosophy is defined in becoming a teacher as a set of ideas and beliefs about education that guide the professional behavior of educators. Also included in educational philosophy are one’s beliefs about teaching and learning, students, knowledge and what is worth knowing. My five general purposes for philosophy of education are: to set goals of plan, to teach useful and relevant information, be aware of students learning styles, modeling positive cooperative behavior, to look for solutions and to make sure those solutions are working.

My current philosophy of education is that everyone in the classroom contributes and learns from one another. As a teacher, I’m willing to learn just as much from my students as they learn from me. Over these past months, I learned so much about reaching my different type of learners. I’ve learned various teaching methods that allow me to include multiple types of learners. When being able to reach each student there is rarely a child being left behind. Before this class, I believed that the teacher just had a desire to want someone else to learn, which I still believe, but I’ve learned that to make that happen everyone in the classroom has to contribute. In order to make it work, a student has to want to participate.

After reviewing these teaching philosophies and educational theories, many of them reflect my own personal educational philosophy and my instructional practices and choice of classroom curriculum. The four that I found the most appealing are: Realism, Pragmatism, existentialism and progressivism. I find the combination of the three very complementary.