MY EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

            My educational philosophy, like my personal philosophy, is demanding of commitment, integrates several influences from multiple diverse sources and has as its prime directive a strict commandment: Learn and teach like nothing matters more, except life itself. Despite the caveat, I firmly believe that education and learning—not necessarily the same thing, though they ought to be congruent—is a principle purpose of life after such primary needs as self-preservation and the preservation of the species are satisfied. I feel that self-development is as important as self-fulfillment in terms of secondary needs, and more important to well-being than self-satisfaction, in terms of getting what we want. Some cultures revere collection and mastery of knowledge above that of wealth and power; my soul is squarely aligned with that way of relating to the world. Moreover, this eclectic approach to putting together a philosophical perspective reflects a dearly held view of the world as a panoply of peoples and a spectrum of ways of living, all equal in value, each of which has benefits and pitfalls depending on a situation, better or worse only as a matter of context, all of which are important elements of our experimental exploration of existence itself: losing one would mean the loss of a strand of pan-human cultural DNA.

            OUTLINE: Where rubber meets road, I believe in these philosophical elements:

PHILOSOPHY	YES	NO
Essentialism	o    Need to acquire cultural literacy—common knowledge.	o    Standard curriculum for all; American focus.
Behaviorism	o    Teachers design class environments that set stage for effective, efficient learning.	o    Regimented instruction; conditioned responses.
Idealism	o    Learn about universal truths; introduce fundamental ideas and discuss with students.	o    Reality is unchanging, fixed; teacher-centered.
Realism	o    Observe reality; test and verify knowledge via skill demonstration.	o    Disregard for human awareness.
Progressivism	o    Student needs drive curriculum decisions; collaborative discussion, debate, demonstration.	o    Students establish own curriculum/schedules.
Social Reconstructivism	o    Work for social justice w/problem-solving approach; inspire critical thinking and action. Teacher-guided inquiry and research; cooperative group work.	o
Existentialism	o    Students exercise freedom of choice & accountability, set goals, become independent by self-discipline; teachers guide development via problem-solving strategies w/self-analysis of choices in dialogue.	o

            A chart like this should mostly make my educational philosophical position clear for any reasonably literate individuals, partly by presenting affirmation of belief and partly by defining through negation. In the latter respect, those philosophies listed in the chart which show no negatives do so only because their elements with which I have reservations were not listed on Table 2.1 in Grace C. Huerta’s text Educational Foundations: Diverse Histories, Diverse Perspectives. From previous reading of these educational philosophies, I would say that the negative aspects they share with others either include either a lack of respect for students’ unique origins and need for self-determination or a devaluation of the teacher’s vital role as a motivator, mediator and guide between subject and learner through process. To positively, succinctly identify definite, central elements of my educational philosophy:

ü  I believe that humanity needs some common knowledge to function well in harmony, including an understanding of some universal Truths, best learned in common settings.

ü  I believe that both truths and Truths are best identified through collaborative effort and cooperative meaning-making, with the scientific method as a standard of measurement.

ü  I believe teachers should be highly trained specialists responsible for preparing a place, direction and process of inquiry most conducive to efficient, effective learning.

ü  I believe that best teacher decisions begin with consideration of student needs, including individual and cultural learning differences, and strive to guide student achievement via progressive democratic, high-order thought processes rather than rote transmission.

ü  I believe the ultimate aim of excellent education is betterment of the human condition, by forming free thinkers who are able, cooperative problem-solvers capable of further guiding self-development with self-discipline and self–analysis, for social equity.

If this sounds like a strange brew of conservative revolution, like a love-child of Plato’s Republic and Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, then I have communicated my beliefs effectively, except for one thing. None of the historical educational philosophies surveyed by Huerta refers to explicitly—much less emphasizes—the importance of strong, positive, reciprocal connections between teacher and parent, classroom and community, culture of institutionalized education and the institutions of diverse cultures.

ü  I believe that students learn as much outside of a classroom as within one, and that the teacher/classroom setting can only be educationally effective to the degree it is informed by and responsive to student and community funds of knowledge and needs for action.

APPLICATION: What does this belief look like in practice, however?

To begin: since students are the seed from which all educational decisions spring, the teacher must know more about their individual and cultural backgrounds, personal aptitudes and collected knowledge and skills. I have honored this need in the past first, before school starts, with thorough surveys of my ESL students’ test scores—IPT, UALPA, CRT and more—followed by home visits to establish and strengthen home/school connection, especially for students whom I have not served before. When school begins, I continue to actively develop connection between home and school and student with curriculum by frequent parent contact—providing and requesting information—and developing a deeper perception of each student’s unique character, abilities and desires, in order to tailor daily instruction as a reflection of what they really need to cope with the world well. For example, at the start of each school year, I survey students about their origins, experience of the journey to the present situation, parents’ position and function in the community, what they like/dislike and do/don’t do well in school as well as what they know how to do well and want to do someday outside of school, and more. I use this information to expose elements of disciplines which, say, they claim not to like but do well with outside of school and need to fulfill their wishes for the future, e.g. reading standard forms for classes and jobs, yet interpreting government forms for parents and planning to be a pediatric doctor. Then I try to help them connect obtaining or improving the skill to realization of personal visions

Next, because ESL students often need special support with academic skills and developing the ability to apply knowledge and skills across the curriculum, as well as to real life, I try to keep our language arts/literacy study from becoming too detached or abstract. For example, I have supported objectives of math and science teachers by incorporating students’ interest in sports performance cars into a thematic unit addressing the necessary vocabulary, basic physics concepts, pros and cons of cars by economics and wider cost-benefit analysis, also addressing needs for literary development by reading short stories on the glories and burdens of car culture, the mass manufacturing/consumption social mechanism and our environmental legacy/responsibility, reading classified ads and car loan applications/contracts to better understand informational text, and writing to describe and argue about cars, all as means to develop problem-solving skills and self-directed development of academic connection to real needs.

Finally, because education should not only change in response to the needs of the times, the society in which it occurs, and students background and needs, but also should change the times, society and students with which it interacts for the better, I commonly include lessons or an aspect of lessons addressed to the big question, “So what?” For example, whenever we talk about a social expectation, about author perspective and purpose, we break it down by origin and intention. Who wants us to do what? Why? Is it good for us? Do we agree? Why? What can we do to comply or resist? How could we call it into question? And so on. The most concrete and dramatic example I can think is a thematic unit we did last year on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day’s origins and modern legacy, with the history department (at the middle school, anyway): viewing documentary footage, student-directed vocabulary collection (boycott, civil rights, etc.,) explanation of the context, discussion of how legal rights for blacks affect immigrant and Native minority student rights, writing pro/con arguments for passive, non-violent resistance versus active, possibly violent protest, writing apostrophic “Thank You” letters to Dr. King., and so on, paired with listening to old-school hip-hop and reggae songs (“What’s the Meaning of Life”; “I Have Education”; “Equal Rights.”) This lead to a unit with a similar approach on the right to educational access including reading and viewing documentary perspectives of the Little Rock school desegregation; choosing quotes from Dr. King to post on class walls; viewing “Stand and Deliver” and writing about students’ worst experiences and greatest triumphs in education; viewing “Freedom Writers,” and reading exemplars from the book written by Erin Gruwell’s classes; students requested that they be assigned more journal-type writing, chose to write emails to students from the film (since Miep Gies—whom they wished to contact as Gruwell’s students had, because the 8^th graders were reading about Nazis and Anne Frank—had died,) and selected one to start planning fundraisers for that person to come to the Moab secondary schools as an inspirational speaker. We (including me) also wrote our cultural perspectives on education for the high school newspaper.

CONCLUSION: Please provide me with constructive criticism.