Running head: PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

Philosophy of Education Christina D. Herrera Azusa Pacific University

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Education has many goals, but overall it is meant to teach students the basics (math, English, history, science) as well as the arts and physical education. Another important goal is to teach individuals how to fit in to society and to be able to work with others. William Bagleys idea of development of the socially efficient individual (Null, 2012) brings to mind the role of school in society being to assist students/individuals in those broad goals mentioned above learning the basics and also learning how to cooperate with others as individuals as well as groups. Im not sure yet how I envision others supporting education. I feel immediately that everyone should have some part in education, but Im not entirely sure what or how big or small that part should be. It seems that families should always be in support of whatever education process their children are going through. Its tricky to think about churches being involved in education except in terms of schools that are directly related to a particular church (parochial schools). As for government and businesses again, Im not entirely sure. There are so many things wrong with education today and most schools are basically government run. Should that change? Ive often heard speculation of running schools as if they were businessesI wonder if that would be any better? I view the student as the active learner the one who is hopefully hungry for knowledge and interested in many different subject areas. I also view the student as one who is ready to take on the challengesomeone who is aware and alert and knows what questions to ask. My hopes for each student are many. I hope that the student is curious and eager to learn. I hope the student has access to the tools he or she needs both in the classroom and at home. I hope the student is brave enough to speak up when things arent clearand to ask for help when needed. I hope above everything that the student receives the guidance and education that he or she deserves. The students role in his or her education is vital. They need to be active, not passive. I always want my students engaged and willing to dig in with me. It is their responsibility to ask questions and to ask for guidance when they get lost. The role of the teacher is critical to the learning process. However, I believe that the teacher has different roles within that process. The first role is as disseminator of information. It is the responsibility of the teacher to locate information and make it available to the students. I think there are certain things that need to be taught and that the teacher needs to do that. But there are other things that the students should be able to discover on their own, with the teachers guidance. The combination of these two roles is what makes the most effective teachers. The primary responsibilities of the teacher are to show the students what to do and how to do it. The teacher needs to allow for the students to show their creativity and intelligence by guiding them through the curriculum. By asking the right questions or exposing students to the right materials, the teacher can pave the way for the student to make important and necessary discoveries on their own.

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I do consciously promote certain values in my classroom. The first way I try to do this is by delivery of the classroom rules. I always try to put a positive spin on this. Instead of listing all the donts I list all the dos and give the students plenty of opportunities to be successful with them. Another way I try to do this is through character building in the literature we read. There are always lessons and morals in literature and I make sure that we focus on these things during our lessons. I also try to promote good citizenship by focusing on it focusing on what makes a good citizen and how to go about conflict resolution. If students have at least some inkling of citizenship and conflict resolution, they have a better chance of developing and maintaining integrityand, a much better chance of learning the material they are in school to learn. The teaching style that best reflects my personal philosophy of education is the constructivist model. I love the hands-on, discovery based learning. Students are smart enough and curious enough to follow through and to make probably better discoveries on their own than I could even think about in a lecture style lesson. Their curiosity is usually so strong they push themselves to figure things out and in the end, I end up learning just as much as they do. They in essence become teachers to each other and to me. I am an absolute believer in the basics. Reading, Math, Science, History must be taught. These seem so basic it almost seems silly to explain. However, they each bring to a student the basics needed to get through life. Every student needs to learn how to read. This is a major part of how we communicate. Students who are illiterate are at a disadvantage immediately. In life, we need to know how to read for instructions, when we buy things (labels), for map reading or navigating the freeways and local streets, filling out applications for jobs or to see a doctor, even for texting! We also use Math every day. Our calendar is based on numbers and math: we make money transactions daily; everything revolves around schedules and clocks; we use numbers to call someones phone or find an address. As for Science again, probably a daily skill we need. We may not think we use Science every day, but every time we cook, look at a thermometer, start our car engine, work with household cleaners and chemicals we are using some kind of science that we probably learned in school. And History. We must know where we have come from in order to move forward. There are so many life lessons we learn from knowing our history. Our personal history as well as world history and U.S. History are full of lessons for us. They also equip us for dealing with everyday occurrences. Besides the basics, Im a believer in also teaching the arts and physical education. There is so much research that backs up the notion of how different left brain and right brain learners are (Cherry, 2012). I think exposing everybody to the basics as well as the arts serves to enrich any persons education and life in general. Physical education is so important to overall well being and is something that is often not taught at home. I wish we were more prone to looking at the whole person rather than just the parts. If education were to cover everything, including the emotions, it would be easier to educate. The perfect education would emphasize balance in life.

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION Im not entirely sure how the curriculum should be selected. If there werent such a strong emphasis on test scores throughout our country, I think curriculum selection could be chosen by local districts/teachers. Where a person lives is going to absolutely influence what they may already come to school knowing. A student who lives on a farm in a rural part of a Midwestern state is going to have a completely different experience and skill set than a person who lives in downtown Los Angeles. I dont see why the teachers in each district or area cant be trusted to select appropriate curriculum for their students needs. Having said that I do know why, but I wish it was different!

Classroom management has always been a strong point for me. I spend a lot of time at the beginning of each year thinking about classroom organization and management. Constructive instruction and learning begin with a classroom that is organized and with management in place. If students and teacher do not know where the other is coming from, then how can any learning happen? Each group of students is at least a little different from the last group. I like to have my students help a bit with the management. I think that the environment is different if the students feel they are important in the planning and carrying out of the management of the classroom. They need to have some kind of ownership and responsibility. I have to admit that these last two years I really have not had to think much about discipline because of the nature of our school (we meet with students one-on-one the majority of the time). But in the past I have had the most success when I brought the students in on the discipline. It seems that whenever I took care of it from day one and included the students on coming up with the discipline plan it really cut down on the actual disciplining that needed to be done later. Again, if the students feel like they have some say in it in how they are spending their day they seem to buy in more and feel a sense of pride in what theyre doing. I like to start with very positive things instead of focusing on what punishments will be, I like to make it very clear that I am looking to see what theyre doing right and focus on that. Of course, there are consequences for bad behaviorbut I dont like to word it that way. I like to teach the students that there are consequences for all of our behaviors in life. When we follow the rules and behave in positive ways, then the consequences are generally positive. When we dont follow the rules, the consequences are generally negative. I like to keep it as neutral as possible this is how it is without putting judgment on it. Because our students do the majority of their work online, their progress is mainly reported through the quizzes and tests they do and those scores get recorded automatically and are available for us to see and for the students and their parents to see. There are some things that get graded by hand any activity sheets or essays that the students do get graded by me and the other teachers and we input the scores where there quiz and test scores are so that everyone can see how theyre doing. Overall, I think that our own philosophies of education are an on-going process. As we learn more and are put in different situations, different issues become important and we may employ different philosophies at different times to meet the needs of the moment. I try to remember to stay flexible in my teaching so that I can best meet the needs of my current students and so that I can continue to grow and learn as an individual and as an educator.

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Cherry, K. (2012). About.Com Psychology, Left Brain vs Right Brain. Retrieved from About.Com: http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/a/left-brain-right-brain.htm Concept to Classroom. (2004). Retrieved from Thirteen Ed Online: http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index.html Null, J. W. (2012). William Chandler Bagley. Retrieved from Answers.Com: http://www.answers.com/topic/bagley-william-chandler

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