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Educational reform what to do to help
An essay about educational reform
Educational reform what to do to help
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American Schools Need Essentialism
There are five main philosophies that describe education: Essentialism (the back-to-basics approach which strives to teach students the essentials), Progressivism (which stresses individuality), Perennialism (which is the teaching of philosophies that have been around for hundreds of years), Existentialism (which give the students the choice of when to study and when not to), and Behaviorism (which lets teachers use reinforcement to achieve the desired behaviors which need to be used in the class room). Essentialism was the main philosophy used in earlier classrooms, and should be adopted back into the classrooms of today.
If essentialism is going to be brought back into the classroom many changes are needed. The students’ curricula of today’s schools have too many classes that stray students away from the basic subjects. Another point of today’s schools is that there is too much acceptance for absences, tardiness, and misbehavior. Students feel like the school is their personal playground and there is nothing the teachers can do about it...
Teach For America provides me an exciting opportunity to help bridge the inequality gap for kids in low-income communities, while helping me grow towards my career goals. This organization will allow me to strengthen the abilities I have learned as a tutor for children in my community and cultivate the skills necessary to be successful in the legal profession. Both my experience helping low-income kids and ambition to develop the attributes of a legal professor will support my mission to be an accomplished corps member.
It is obvious that education, whether classroom instruction or practical drill, advice or entreaty, must ensure that students are positively involved, that they at least listen and pay attention to the words, actions, and the thoughts of their educators, instead of drifting off or doing something else, or simply leaving to try to learn what they need on their own (Prange 74).
To be a teacher it is imperative to have philosophies on teaching; why you want to teach, how you want to teach, and what you want to teach. There are six main philosophies of education; essentialism, behaviorism, progressivism, existentialism, perennialism, and reconstructionism. My two strongest philosophies are progressivism and existentialism. Progressivism in short is the philosophy where the student utilizes their ability to access knowledge for themselves with a method they have discovered on their own instead of simply being told answers. This creates deeper thinking. Existentialism is the philosophy that the student decides how and what they will learn, they also decide what they think to be true and false. This creates
All six of the major educational philosophies Perennialism, Progressivism, Essentialism, Existentialism, Social Reconstruction, and Behaviorism are in my opinion feasible in the classroom. However, I have chosen Essentialism as the primary philosophy I would like to employ in my classroom for several reasons. Although I think all six would result in learning, which is the primary purpose of education, I think that Essentialism is superior to the other five for my classroom. I feel this way because it embraces the purpose or original goal of public education, it allows lessons to be gauged to all different learning styles, and finally because essentialism employs methods of teaching and discipline that I believe work exceptionally well with my content specialization.
A student’s education is an extremely controversial topic. A majority of society cannot agree on what the main role of education is. However, when a teacher ran a poll in the article Why We Still Need Public Schools, the majority stated that it is to help fulfill a student’s potential. School should improve social conditions, which was stated in Why We Still Need Public Schools and The Purpose of Public Education and the Role of the School Board. Social conditions can come particularly easily to some children, while others struggle with them.
In the essentialist classroom, you will see traditional subjects such as: English, Reading, Language, Math, Science, and History as the foundations of learning. “Essentialist teachers rely on achievement tests scores to evaluate progress and teachers expect that all students will leave school not only with the basic skills, but also disciplines, practical minds that are capable of applying lessons thought in school in the real world “(Sadker and Zittleman, 2007). Overall, teachers want their students to be able to use it appropriately in the real
For idealists, a school’s primary focus is to refine the student’s intellectual process, as well implement exemplary models of behavior. Teachers would not only model ideal behaviors, but have full authoritative control over the classroom and the orderly process of educating students to strive for goodness. (“Five Educational Philosophies,” n.d.) Essentialists schooling is practical, with the focus on creating productive members of society, through basic curriculum of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Students are required to work hard, be respectful, and be disciplined, while teachers control classrooms through an authoritative approach (“Five Educational Philosophies,” n.d.).
In education, there are four ruling philosophies on how a school should function. The first of the four is existentialism. “Existentialists place their focus on the ideas of existence and essence. Individuals create their own meaning.” (Four Philosophies para.5). The opposite of the freedom of existentialism is the idealistic philosophy. “Idealists stress the importance of learning ideas and concepts. They believe in reasoning, but question the use of scientific method and sense perception.” (Four Philosophies, para 2). The third of the philosophies is pragmatism. “Pragmatists place their focus on the idea of change. This constant change results in people having to understand what it means to know. Pragmatists believe that knowing
Essentialism is Essentialism refers to the "traditional" or "Back to the Basics" approach to education.
Essentialism is defined by Webster as an educational theory that ideas and skills basic to a culture should be taught to all alike by time-tested methods. It has been present since the beginning of schooling. As time and culture progress, the academic standards for education increase and become more specific. It is clear that the focus in the vast majority of schools is to
However, most will agree that there are four basic elements to a quality education. The first and most important to our survival is the ability to compete in the job market. Without this, many, if not all of us would find it impossible to play a significant role in society. Also included, but often ignored, is our ability to interact with others. Every day of our lives we will be required to interact with another person or many people.
My main goal as a teacher is primarily to provide students with the knowledge that will help them further excel in their everyday lives, but also to teach students to apply the knowledge they gained and take advantage of opportunities that will enrich their lives. Many times, students learn better when they feel a certain subject is relevant in their lives. I feel that it is important to have a curriculum that is based on the student’s interest, experience and capabilities. Having a textbook integrated in a curriculum is important, but a student will have a better understanding of the subject area when experience is involved. Although there are many different techniques to education, I feel that the philosophy of progressivism and essentialism best fits my style and belief of teaching. These teaching philosophies focus around student needs, democracy, and the basics of education.
I would describe my teaching philosophy as eclectic. I find that components of the five major philosophies, essentialism, progressivism, perennialism, existentialism, and behaviorism, fit into how I feel about teaching. The essentials such as respect for each other and the basic subjects, such as reading and math, are very important to me as a teacher. Individuality, active participation, cooperative learning and developing social skill are some of the progressive ideas I will use in my classroom. For my students to become self-motivated learners they will need to be able to reason, as suggested in perennialism. Reasoning will help them to work through problems and make decisions. Existentialism states that students should accept responsibility for their actions and should be self-paced. These ideas are important to my philosophy of self-motivated learners because my goal will be to create students who can do what this philosophy states. Behaviorism supports the use of positive and negative reinforcement, both of which I believe will be essential to my classroom. These five theories put together describe my eclectic teaching philosophy.
The two philosophies that I have chosen to write about for my Education Philosophy Paper includes progressivism and existentialism. Progressivism focuses on the child rather than the subject matter. Due to society always changing, new ideas are important to make the future better than the past for students learning. This educational philosophy stresses that students should test ideas by active experimentation. Learning is rooted in the questions of learners that arise through experiencing the world. Progressivists believe that individuality, progress, and change are fundamental to one 's education. Existentialism is a highly subjective philosophy that stresses the importance of the individual and emotional commitment to living authentically. It emphasizes individual choice over
My philosophy of education is a combination of essentialism and progressivism . I feel that knowledge can be learned from a textbook, but I also want my students to use other means of knowledge. I fell in certain times, I should be the center of the classroom and other times, the students should be the center. Education is about the students and I am there to guide them through their journey. I think it's important to let children learn by exploring. By doing this, they choose what information is important and should be retained. When it comes to learning, students should always be in the center. The teachers are only there to mentor and improve upon a child's skills. In my mind progressivism with a mix of essentialism is the best philosophy for me to follow.