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Role of education in our society
The philosophy of education
Role of education in our society
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Philosophy of Education
A famous author once said, “When you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” There is truth in that statement when we look at the nature of humans today. Today’s society is filled with people who are wondering around with no purpose or direction in life. People today are content with this helpless lifestyle and so generation after generation will continue until the society has no leaders. I attribute this directly to the education of these individuals. As a future teacher, I must look at what the nature of students has become, the nature of knowledge, and ask myself why we have public education. In order for me to be an effective educator, I must reevaluate my philosophy of education and what it means to me.
Many years ago, students were more focused and determined in their pursuit of an education. One of the factors for this was due to the emphasis that was put on memorization of information, and being able to recall this right down to the letter. As society has changed though, so has the nature of the students. Today’s students are more liberal, and are encouraged to be free-will thinkers. Educators’ expectations have been lowered, and are no longer concentrating on whether or not the students truly learn what is being taught. Today, many educators are satisfied with a student just being able to remember the information for only short periods of time. So rather than encouraging the students to be dedicated to learning the material and traveling their own path in life, we have encouraged them to simply get by and follow the lead of the current trend. This is not true for all educators, but the vast majority of teachers have fallen into thi...
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...heir students. Students today are different from the students of yesterday; therefore teachers must conform to reach this new style of student. Knowledge is relative and depends entirely upon the person, place, and or time. We must understand that the facts are not the same in every social setting and must master this in order to conform to the student’s nature. All curricular areas are important to a total education. I feel that my area of P.E. and HED are particularly important in helping kids think for themselves and make healthy life decisions. My philosophy of education is to view students as ever changing, knowledge as relative and changing with the students, and to help the students to become independent thinkers, free from the coercion of this trendy world. I feel that helping students to become independent thinkers is the best skill I can give them.
Rachel was Melinda's friend all of middle school but she turned out to be a complete jerk to Melinda. Heather was a fake friend who only stuck by her side until she was accepted in a ¨cool¨ group. David Petrakis is a nerd who is almost in every one of Melinda's classes. They grow close mostly because they both have no friends, but he is a true friend. Towards the end of the group Melinda starts to come out to Rachel about why she called the police, but Rachel just got even more upset. Melinda thankfully realizes how bad of a friend Rachel is on page 198 ¨I don't want to be cool. I want to grab her by the neck and shake her and scream at her to stop treating me like dirt. She didn't even bother to find out the truth – what kind of friend is that? ¨ Melinda gets close to her art teacher. Art is the one class that Melinda enjoys because she gets to be with her new friend Ivy. Ivy and David are the only people Melinda has, but that is enough for her. On the first day of school Melinda recalls being the only person sitting alone on page 134.¨ I see a few friends people I used to think were my friends—but they look away. ¨ Positively Melinda has found the two only true friends in her school and starts to become a more optimistic
In the book, closets mean a place where Melinda reflects and is safe from "IT" , but is also a place that is lonely and isolated. Melinda uses the closet as a means of hiding from her personal problems, where she could take names and where she could vent. When Melinda feels safe because she thinks Andy has been found out as a sexual predator, Melinda feels like she does not need a closet anymore. "I don't feel like hiding anymore" (88.1).In a twist of faith, Melinda is attacked by Andy when she is about to get out. The closet then makes Melinda go from a powerless victim to strong women who fought off her enemy and gains control of herself and her life. Another setting that affects the theme is The Rodgers Farm. The Rodgers Farm is where Melinda got raped by Andy at the end of summer party. Although it is true, when Melinda went back to the farm she describes the farm as an innocent and pleasant place. She contemplates, "You could bring a kindergarten class here for a picnic" (85.11). She makes the place from a place of horror to a place where she finds the answers of herself. When she touches a tree, she tries to read it like "a Braille code"
Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a story written in the first person about a young girl named Melinda Sordino. The title of the book, Speak, is ironically based on the fact that Melinda chooses not to speak. The book is written in the form of a monologue in the mind of Melinda, a teenage introvert. This story depicts the story of a very miserable freshman year of high school. Although there are several people in her high school, Melinda secludes herself from them all. There are several people in her school that used to be her friend in middle school, but not anymore. Not after what she did over the summer. What she did was call the cops on an end of summer party on of her friends was throwing. Although all her classmates think there was no reason to call, only Melinda knows the real reason. Even if they cared to know the real reason, there is no way she could tell them. A personal rape story is not something that flows freely off the tongue. Throughout the story Melinda describes the pain she is going through every day as a result of her rape. The rape of a teenage girl often leads to depression. Melinda is convinced that nobody understands her, nor would they even if they knew what happened that summer. Once a happy girl, Melinda is now depressed and withdrawn from the world. She hardly ever speaks, nor does she do well in school. She bites her lips and her nails until they bleed. Her parents seem to think she is just going through a faze, but little do they know, their daughter has undergone a life changing trauma that will affect her life forever.
Melinda starts out feeling alone and scared. She was very insecure, reserved and timid around her peers. She was failing school (75) because she had just given up on herself and her future and didn't have the drive anymore (24) The major turning point in her life after the party is when she encounters Andy Evans. The moment he attacks her she decides she’s had enough and strikes back. She is no longer quiet and she opens up about the event that happened. People become more understanding and she reaches out to help herself.
As the story progresses, you get to see Melinda “grow” and finally speak out about what happened to her at the party. In some cases during the story there are flashbacks. Some would be good and some would be bad.
What is head knowledge when you cannot apply it? What use is academics when you cannot make rational decisions? Why would you go to school if you do not yearn for knowledge? As a teacher, I want to instill in my children these desires and the abilities to not only succeed academically but as a whole person as well. I believe that the role of an elementary teacher is not only to teach the “Three R’s” and the “Four W’s”, but also to foster within children a desire to learn and the ability to make wise choices. In our classrooms, we are raising the leaders of tomorrow, if all they know is what 2+2 equals or how to spell “beautiful” are they really going to be the future that we need and look forward to? Through the hard work of teachers promoting their students’ success and ability to do good work and make good choices, we can see the world change in radical ways! When we as teachers understand that not only do our students need to know the what but also the how, we can help them succeed in building critical thinkin...
During summer her and her friends went to a party that Melinda ended up calling the cops on, causing everyone at school to ignore and forget about her except one new girl named Heather. Throughout the book Melinda is in situations with “IT,” which is a senior named Andy evans, she founds her voice by standing up for herself. Laurie Halse Anderson develops the idea that a person must face their fear in order to find their voice. This can be seen in the development of the
The summer before ninth grade, Melinda and her friends attend their first high school party. Melinda meets a senior named Andy Evans. The two dance, talk, and kiss. As the night goes on, Andy becomes aggressive and rapes Melinda. In her drunken and terrified state, Melinda calls the cops but won’t tell anyone what happened to her. The entire school finds out Melinda is who crashed the party and everyone ditches her. During the early months of freshmen year, Melinda is without friends, and falls into a depressive state. She befriends a girl named Heather, who later ditches her due to her “low social hierarchy”. Rachel, Melinda’s former best friend, begins to date Andy. Scared and worried for her friend, Melinda decides she must tell her about that night. Rachel refuses to believe what she has to say and storms out. However, Rachel eventually believes Melinda the more she thinks about the story, and calls Andy out. When Melinda finally has enough courage to leave her closet for good, Andy locks her inside. The fuming man attempts to rape her again, but Melinda is not the same girl anymore. She slaps and scratches a...
Melinda was an outcast and loner in high school who was overwhelmed, fearful, and confused with her life and her environment at school. She was always silent in class and afraid to speak in front of people. Many students today might feel the need to fit in with other people so they wouldn’t have to be looked down upon. As we take a look at Melinda’s life we’ll be able to see how she handles her daily conflicts. In the book, Speak, Melinda Sordino, an incoming freshman at Merryweather High, starts her year off with a terrible start. She’s stuck with a mean history teacher, by who she calls Mr. Neck and a whole bunch of other weird teachers like her English teacher of who she calls, Hairwomen, because of her crazy, uncombed hair. Her favorite teacher would seem to be her art teacher, Mr. Freeman, because he seems to be the nicest and most reasonable. Every student, even her ex-best friend, Rachel Bruin, gives her nasty looks and treats her rudely. All this trouble started when Melinda called the cops at an end-of-summer party. Everybody thinks she did that just to bust them and get all the people in trouble but instead, she called the cops for something more terrifying. During the night of that party, she was raped by a senior who goes to Merryweather High, Andy Evans, by who she calls IT or Andy Beast. She was too scared and didn’t know what to do so she called the cops. Because of this, now everyone in school is disgusted and hateful of her. Though most of the students didn’t like her, she did become sort of “distant” friends with Heather, Ivy, and her science lab partner, David Petrakis. With all the drama, sadness, and conflict involved in Melinda’s life, she still seems to manage and finish the school year without ...
In the novel Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson utilizes the motif of the janitor's closet to show the growth and changes Melinda goes through, starting nonfunctional, and then finally finding her voice and learning how to “speak”.
Becoming a teacher was not something I always knew I wanted. As I approached an age where I really started considering what I would like to do for a career I only knew that I did not want to work in an office behind a desk all day. I wanted a job that would be interactive, challenging and exciting. I also knew I wanted a job that would be important and would somehow contribute to the world in an important way. I thought being a teacher; particularly a teacher in the primary levels would fulfill those hopes and goals assuming I dedicate myself to becoming an effective teacher who has a positive influence on the lives of my students.
Education is a very important aspect of our lives. It is our education that makes us who we are and determines what we become. Therefore, education is not something to be taken lightly. As a teacher, my goal will be to provide the best possible education for my students. Every student is unique. I must see students for who they are individually and respect their ideas and opinions. Each student has a different learning style. I must take this into consideration because I want to provide a constructive learning opportunity for every student. I believe that every student has the potential to learn.
As a teacher, I have numerous personal goals. Mainly, my goal is to provide students with the opportunity and encouragement to succeed in life and to develop as free-thinking individuals in society. I consider myself a progressive and an essentialist, according to theory. I feel that students need to be given multiple opportunities to explore many different life skills that sometimes are overlooked in the education system. Testing, rote memorization, and lecture, in my opinion, do not promote students' own inquiry and does not give students opportunities to tap into their own source of knowledge that they each bring with them to the classroom. As a teacher, I hope to leave my students able to set and accomplish goals through the use of these life skills. Some teachers I have had while in hi...
Along these two weeks we have been prompt to make a recall to our own way of learning and why we became a teacher: Was it because coincidence, due to life circumstances, maybe because family tradition, was it a conscious decision or because someone influenced us? Whatever the answer is, we have to face reality and be conscious that being a teacher does not only means to teach a lesson and asses students learning. It requires playing the different roles a teacher must perform whenever is needed and required by our learners, identify our pupils needs and preferences, respecting their integrity and individuality but influencing and motivating them to improve themselves and become independent.
My philosophy on education and learning is simple; to teach my future students to the best of my ability to achieve academic success. As well as getting to know my students well. Getting to know a little of their background can help make a difference in our teaching career. As a teacher, we care for our student’s educational needs and to achieve a full potential in their learning ability. I believe that education is an individual, unique experience for every student who enters a classroom. Having a passion for teaching and providing students with a proper education should always be a teacher’s top priority.