My Philosophy on Education
“Wake up! It’s time to get ready for school.” I loved those words as a child but grew to hate them as a teen. As a child, school consisted of hands-on activities, mingling with others, and enticing lessons. As a teen, school consisted of being forced to remain seated, reading a chapter, answering the questions at the end of the chapter, and completing a worksheet. I found school to be boring and excessively routine. Therefore, I never aspired to be a teacher. I cringed at the thought of that routine! After graduating from college with a degree in recreation and spending ten years in wonderful jobs that always led me back to children, like working at a child-care center for the abused, a children's
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Along with the help of the learning community such as parents or other family contacts, other teachers, events and activities, we need to discover what sparks each child and help him in his development. This includes determining his learning style whether it’s auditory where he learns by hearing, visual where he learns by seeing, or kinesthetic where he learns by doing, or a mixture of the three. This also includes determining for each child what Howard Gardner calls Multiple Intelligence. While I wouldn’t necessarily label learning styles so specifically for the fear of omitting one or failing to recognize others, I do agree with Gardners’ concepts and agree that we can determine and offer learning through linguistic, mathematical, musical, kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist, or other abilities.
I so believe in re-enforcers. I hesitate to refer to it as “conditioning” as did mid-twentieth researchers Ivan Pavlov and BF Skinner because of the connotations of brain washing, altering, or influencing but I do believe that positive reinforcement is key for students and teachers. In many schools where I’ve substituted, teachers spend an excessive amount of time reprimanding students who are misbehaving. Rather, I believe in proximity control, approaching the student but continuing to teach.
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.
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
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” (Angelou, 2009) This is a truth that I have witnessed firsthand. As a child, at the tender age of seven years, I was blessed with an educator, Mrs. Cager, whose commitment to her students was so profound until I have never forgotten her. She made me feel like I was the most important person in her classroom. Her encouraging words instilled a level of confidence within me that I still cling to and apply more than 40 years later. Her commitment is directly responsible for my personal philosophy of education also being commitment.
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
B. F. Skinner, a famous behaviorist, believed in a stimulus-response learning theory. Behaviorists believe that behavior can be shaped by positive and negative response to any action. Behavior can be extinguished as well as encouraged. By using positive and negative reinforcers, the desired behavior will be achieved. I plan to use positive and negative reinforcers to attain academic and behavior goals. I feel a highly organized classroom with teacher-directed, sequential curriculum will be an effective learning strategy for my students.
My personal philosophy of education encompasses the rights and responsibilities of the student, the parents, the teacher and the community. Each of these entities are directly responsible for the successful education of the student.
Norms and values are a reflection of society’s standards of behavior. Since society evolves from each generational perspective, the “norm” is continuously changing. As a result, the rising adults have a grave influence on how the world will evolve into the next generation. What we teach our students today will reflect the success of our future. How we, as teachers, get our messages across will definitely influence the student’s ability to apply that knowledge. From my experiences and what I have encountered I intend to incorporate the Pragmatic and Idealistic philosophies into my classroom, based on my predictions on how to be a successful teacher.
To describe my educational philosophy, I needed to combine two philosophers into one making it my own. I plan to explain my philosophical view by discussing the purpose of public education in society.
teaching and learning. Many children in the world today are getting some kind of education. Whether it is at home or in a classroom, education is everywhere. Many of the teachers today have a philosopher that they use as a reference to their everyday teaching or use some of their methods to teach their students. In this paper I'm going to express my meaning of education and the different aspects that each and every teacher should follow. I'm going to start with nature of students than follow into with these topics: nature of knowledge, purpose of education, why it is important, things I want to accomplish as a teacher,
Students are the key to our future. In order for them to make sound decisions in life they must be able to understand the consequences for the choices they make. My goal as a teacher will be to make sure they receive the knowledge to make those decisions. I want to be a teacher so that I can mold students to be intelligent, productive citizens in our society. I want to be a role model, someone children can look up to and emulate. I believe I am worthy and capable of being a teacher because I am intelligent, compassionate, and of high moral character. I believe I can encourage students to become the best person they can be. To achieve these goals, there are factors I need to consider, such as:
I want to become a teacher. I must be out of my mind. At least that is what I am told by almost everyone when I tell him or her my plans for the future. Maybe I should become a doctor, lawyer, or own a business. No, I am going to fulfill my dream that I have had since I was in elementary school. I always ask a question to answer, “Why do you want to be a teacher? Are you out of your mind?” I ask who shapes the minds of the children of these doctors, lawyers, and businessmen while they are working. I also ask how these people would become doctors, lawyers, and businessmen without teachers to present them with the gift of education and the skills needed to perform their jobs. I am not out of my mind. I
I believe that when students are comfortable, whether it be with a teacher or just a setting, they will learn much more quickly. Therefore, I think that it is extremely important to create an environment that is safe and comfortable for the students. Because of the “laid back” atmosphere, I think that my model for discipline would fall under the umbrella of constructivism. The reason is that I believe that students need to be able to learn in a way that relates to their lives in the present day. Students will retain the information they learn much better if they are able to connect that information to an aspect of their lives. The other key aspect of the this construct is that the students need to be allowed to come up with their
I want to become a teacher for three reasons. The first is, I love children of all ages and want to help them in any way that I can. The second is, I want to influence children in a positive way and help them be all they can be, much like some of my teachers did me. Finally, I enjoy the feeling that I receive when a child's face lights up, because they understand something that I am explaining to them. That feeling is enough to make me teach, regardless of the paycheck.
Why do I want to be a teacher? I have thought long and hard over that question, and my answer is “I don’t know.” My initial thought about going into teaching stemmed from my own experiences. When my son was in school, a teacher gave up on him and said, “he’ll be a dropout.” They will weed him out when he gets to high school. My son is now a junior at West Virginia University. I never want to see another kid be dropped through the cracks or weeded out, when he gets to high school. Children are our greatest assets. Teachers have an obligation to try every avenue with each student until they find one that works. I know that every time I walk into a classroom of students, I get a chill up my
According to my knowledge the word "philosophy" is the study and understanding of knowledge in relevance to studying the wisdom of the universe. The word "education" is the act of developed knowledge. When put together the phrase, "philosophy of education," has extremely deep meaning within the context of knowledge. Therefore, before I can accurately state my position on the issue, I must examine my past, present and future experiences with knowledge.