The Goal of Education is the Student Discovering the Power of his/her Own Mind

The goals of public education revolve around three main areas that include; the political goals of schooling, the social goals of schooling, and the economic goals of schooling. These goals were placed with the idea that all children should receive public education whether you were poor or rich and schools focused on teaching about political views and the law to avoid conflicts. Schools were the focus of many hopes for political, social, and economic improvement.

One of the most important decisions in any teenager’s life is what they decide to do after high school, the choice is usually between college and deciding to get a job and start making money. Although the cost of education in America continues to rise, the benefits of a higher education are substantial and can be seen in the success of anyone who has a college degree.

There are some considerations in terms of children’s intellectual development that teachers should keep in mind. First, education is exploration. This is where teachers allow children to interact with the environment by providing rich experiences and environment. Second, children do not think like adults. This is where children have

Within the Inspiring Education document, the vision for core competencies in 21st century learning requires a “shift away from traditional dissemination of information and re-call of facts” (Alberta Education, 2010) and instead focuses on student centered learning models of inquiry and discovery. This shift in educational practice requires students to acquire new abilities and focus on “higher-order thinking skills, deeper learning outcomes, and complex thinking and communication skills” (Saavedra, 2012) and involves teachers creating appropriate instructional and assessment practices.

The learning situation thus becomes a means of discovery as the child encounters something that is unknown, new, or problematical for the child. The achievement of understanding of this experiences produces an adaptation, and each adaptation made by the child is a discovery for him or her, an insight made through experience. Such a discovery process is ongoing and is not to be seen as a series of leaps from one insight to another. The process of discovery continues and builds on experiences already assimilated and adapted. The process "is marked out by minute consolidations and extensions of past experience, with perhaps an occasional flash of insight" (Flavell, 1963, 91-92).

Ron Ritchhart believes that classrooms can be rich with deep thinking when teachers are able to identify, model and praise the language of thinking with students. He believes it is a learned behavior. The subtle approach of teachers is imperative in building deep thinking skills. Asking students questions through from low level thinking tasks to scaffolding to deeper thinking tasks is what works. As an example, teachers will ask students, what do you see in a picture, what are the specific details you see, make interpretation of what you see, build evidence to support this interpretation, ask yourself is the thinking sound and reasonable, generate other alternative thoughts, provide evidence, make connections, raise questions. These question

Based on Piaget’s cognitive theory, Pre-k/Kindergarten children are in the preoperational stage. As a result, they view the world through symbols. Therefore, I started to plan lessons that allowed them to touch, smell, see and experience with their bodies. This was also developmentally appropriate because they have

First of all, children need to build an educational foundation from the beginning. As we know, children’s development is different. For example, some children know how to walk and talk when they are two years old, but some know how to talk until they are four or five. Gatto suggests that we should encourage children to be curious, take

Something that I found within the chapter that I overwhelmingly agree with is the concept of standards. These are defined on page 438 and are simply axioms that dictate what educational goals should be achieved by the completion of instruction of each course. I know that as a current student trying to figure out how to apply all of the standards is frustrating, and it will be increasingly frustrating when in the classroom trying to insure that they have all been applied correctly. However, the concept of standards is so important for educators and students alike to make sure they are all in the same place educationally. Growing up, my family moved six times before I was in fifth grade. With a new school every year, I needed some form of normalcy and continuity. Thankfully standards were for the most part followed, so when I jumped from one school to another I was able to keep up with what everyone else in the state was learning at that time. Also, standards are crucial for teachers, especially when collaborating with several teachers in same department and subject matter, to insure that the students are learning everything they need to know to succeed but also to build on in the future classes that they will take. Although I struggle from time to time making sense of these somewhat confusing rules, I know that standards create an essential map for my students learning and success.

As primary school teachers, we have many subjects we are required to be knowledgeable of. This can lead to uncertainty at times and with the amount of research claiming primary teachers are not primed to teach science it is hardly surprising many pre-service and in-service teachers lack confidence when it comes to teaching science. Despite all the research against us, however, primary school teachers are more prepared and knowledgeable to teach science than we believe. Primary school teachers have many pedagogical skills which aid and equip us for teaching all subjects including science.

A student has the ability to learn without a teacher. However, the Law of the Teaching Process creates the background for a teacher to guide a student on the path to more knowledge. A teacher should establish a safe environment that encourages thinking to help students learn “the unknown by the way of the known” (84). Acquiring their knowledge and increasing their mental power correlates to the aims of a teacher as they guide students. While a teacher is to be passionate in laying out knowledge, the really work of an education, acquiring knowledge, is the work of the student. A student learns by discovery and information stores as the student interprets the new information.

“The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.” These wise words were once said by Herbert Spencer, an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist who was also a political theorist during the Victorian era. This quote was first said back in the 1800s, yet it is still true today. The U.S. has always been for giving their youth a good education, but they have never put in the work needed to let every student reach their full potential both academically and non-academically. Each year in America students fall behind in school and lose out on potential achievements and experiences without even knowing it. Whether it be summer break away from school, or low-income students inability to attend school, students across the country are not getting the full education they should be getting. The typical U.S. school calendar is 180 days long, leaving students about 10 weeks off in the summer. During these 10 weeks students forget what they have learned in school, and students from low-income families are impacted even more when it come to remembering anything from their time in school. While a long summer vacation is always much needed and appreciated, it is doing more harm than help with the youth in the U.S. The academic school year should be expanded because it can help raise academic achievement and give the ability to expand on curriculum and nonacademic activities.

Martin Luther King, Jr. 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.” Education is teaching the whole person; not just the intellectual side, but also the social and emotional side. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is the process through which students gain the skills necessary to recognize and manage all their emotions, build relationships, solve interpersonal problems, and make effective and ethical decisions. The significance of SEL continues to grow in the context of policy debates concerning school improvement and individual student achievement. A review found that SEL programs improved students’ performance in the classroom, not just their emotional performance. Specifically, they found an increase of 11% to 17% in test scores (1). SEL has just recently made it into mainstream educational curriculum, but at many schools, including Stevenson, they haven 't found an efficient way to asses the SEL standings of individual students. Tools to assess social and emotional competency is broad and includes instruments that look at population-level changes in social-emotional constructs, program outcomes, and process outcomes. The measures come from multiple frameworks such as youth risk and protective factors and youth developmental assets. We must identify key assessment tools for evaluating changes in social/emotional well-being of the students. Overall what

Living, Learning, and Believing are the core concepts given to live a long and productive life. Without each one of these components it is said that life is not being lived. As a child in a new, bigger, and brighter world, which offers them the opportunity to live and learn . It is it their daily interactions with things unknown. It is the child’s curiosity of the unknown along with their human instincts that empowers their cognitive abilities to learn. Their lifelong learning process is ignited naturally by both instinct and learned criteria. A child’s daily interaction is the best education for them. Learning the differences between hot and cold; wet and dry are just a few natural learning processes that a child performs. But, as a child grows and becomes of school age there are other processes of education that a child must obtain. The natural learning process must be ignited by both life and education. As the child starts to attend school and learn basic concepts; it is their everyday interaction with the educator that allows them understand the concepts taught . But is this enough, is learning the basic concepts for every grade enough? It is the educator’s job to provide students with lifelong learning processes that will be nurtured through life. After all “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” Wiliam Butler Yeats; we must ignite the flame within each child that encourages and persuades lifelong

Every now and then I think about my education from kindergarten through senior year of high school and I wonder where I would be and who I would be without it. I have realized that those thirteen years of my life were essential to my development as an individual, for they have shaped me into the person I am today.