What do I teach? How do I teach? These are seemingly very simple questions but an average teacher like me find them very difficult to answer. The pondering of these two questions led me to different roads which later, in my musing, I find difficult to converge. All the curriculum has are the goals and competencies and the teachers still chooses which content and performance standards to prioritize and how these targets are met and a teacher’s philosophy plays a critical role in this decision-making.
Moss and Lee (2010) says that the philosophy which a teacher believe has a significant effect on how they view and implement educational standards. .Uyangör, ŞAHAN, Atici and Börekc (2016) further asserts that Teachers’ educational philosophy
…show more content…
Essentialism is an educational philosophy that pushes for the traditional or the back-to-basics approach to teaching. This philosophy which was popularized by William Bagley (1874-1946) presses on that the mastery of the most essential and basic academic skills such as Mathematics, Natural Science, History and Foreign Language, making sure that all these, together with very essential traditional and moral values of the culture is transmitted to students for them to become good model citizens (Sadker and Sadker, 2008) who will safeguard and preserve the ideal qualities of a strong nation. In an Essentialist classroom, the teacher, who is seen the intellectual and moral role-model, is the center of the instruction while the students who are taught to be culturally literate, are required to master the subject matter and/or the simple techniques taught from a simple to complex orientation with little or no regard to the student’s interest or choice (Link, …show more content…
The study affirmed that basic education in the country must undergo reforms to meet the demands of the twenty-first century. (SEAMEO INNOTECH 2012, p. 7)
Until the introduction of the K to 12, from the time of the time Spaniards down to the time of the Americans and even during the Liberation Period, the emphasis of the Philippine Education System is reading, writing and arithmetic (Musa and Ziatdinov, 2012), an Essentialism-based system, which has very little consideration on the context by which learning operate. Therefore, the teachers on the field right now who are trained Essentialists for years have to now adopt the philosophical framework of the Philippine K to 12 which is an concoction of pragmatism (reconstructionism and progressivism) and existentialism (humanism and constructivism) Johnson (2005) in Inocian
Marples, R. (2010). What should go on the curriculum? In Bailey, R. (Ed.), The philosophy of education: An introduction (pp 33-47). London: Bloomsbury
Although I know I want to teach there is more to the teaching profession than that. First, I have to learn the curriculum and then how to bring that material across to the students. The actual learning process comes naturally for me, but I had to stop and think about how I would bring it across once I become a teacher. This involves many aspects of my life and what I feel is important. I feel ones teaching philosophy pulls from every portion of an individuals belief system. These can include your moral and ethical beliefs, your personality, and also what you, as a teacher, feel is important for the students to learn. To me this seems to be a very big responsibility, so when I started considering my teaching philosophy, I did not take the task lightly. It seems to me that there is a very thin line between fulfilling your own expectations as a teacher, and giving the children what they need and even what they want.
My Educational philosophy is defined in becoming a teacher as a set of ideas and beliefs about education that guide the professional behavior of educators. Also included in educational philosophy are one’s beliefs about teaching and learning, students, knowledge and what is worth knowing. My five general purposes for philosophy of education are: to set goals of plan, to teach useful and relevant information, be aware of students learning styles, modeling positive cooperative behavior, to look for solutions and to make sure those solutions are working.
For instance, the William Yeats quote that was listed above, can also advocate an idea against essentialism. Essentials argue for the continual testing of students, as well as the continuous pouring of basic knowledge and skills into students (Quantz, 2015, page 79-80). Therefore, when the author negatively comments on educators who fill the pail, she is really referring to essentialist teachers just filling the brains of students with skills that they believe students will need in the future. Similarly, another anti-essentialist example in the text is when she reports “How horrified she would be by the thinking that reduces teaching to test-prep drill and professional practice to a numerical score” (Strauss, 2012, Paragraph 4). Essentialists, as briefly mentioned, focus on testing as a means to evaluate students, as well as believe that teachers are at the center of the classroom (Quantz 2012, pages 79-80). Therefore, by stating that teaching in programs like RGSE reduce teaching to drills and test scores, she is implying that teaching has become impersonal and more like the military; constantly running the same impersonal drills in order to produce the results you want. This point expands on the major criticism of Strauss’s piece that the RGSE program, which follows the instruction of charter schools, is not a helpful learning environment and it
Essentialism will be a part of my classroom because I will be teaching science. Science is part of the basis of essentialism that became stressed with the launching of Sputnik in 1957. The philosophy of essentialism also stresses that when leaving school students are able to apply learning from school to the real world. This is what I want to do in my classroom; I want my students to understand the material being taught to them and be able to apply it to the world around them.
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
Upon being faced with the task of writing my philosophy of teaching, I made many attempts to narrow the basis for my philosophy down to one or two simple ideas. However, I quickly came to the realization that my personal teaching philosophy stems from many other ideas, philosophies, and personal experiences. I then concentrated my efforts on finding the strongest points of my personal beliefs about teaching and what I have learned this semester, and came up with the following.
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.
I could go on at length, discussing all aspects of my praxis as an educator, however, that would lead to a paper of excruciating length. These aspects of my teaching pedagogy that are delivered in this praxis statement are those that I feel strongest about upholding. It is important for educators to value their students and the perspectives and cultures they bring to the classroom. Student-centered education is what I find to be the key to great teaching, and overall, is the greatest way to allow students to value and grow through their own self-exploratory and self-directed education. Valuing and appreciating each of your students is what makes teaching such an enlightening, uplifting profession.
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.).
Essentialism is Essentialism refers to the "traditional" or "Back to the Basics" approach to education.
When analyzing contemporary issues in education, it is very important to ask why and how the issues arise. Some of these problems are obvious to the mass public, and some require a more in-depth analysis. One of the less obvious issues in education is the current philosophy in the classrooms. One may ask the questions, “Why is the philosophy of education important? And, why does it matter to me?” To put it simply, the philosophy imbedded in the goals of education and teaching methods in a classroom affects the students’ futures. This topic was chosen because the philosophy in schools is often overlooked as the absolute core of educational issues. Many students understandably struggle with sitting in a classroom, uninterested. In addition to the constant stress and pressure of having good grades, students often ask why the given curriculum must be learned.
Often time’s curriculum is thought of as a set of rules and standards given to teachers to follow. However, more goes into a curriculum than just what meets perceived. Teachers are not just the vehicles from which a curriculum flows but in a sense, they embody it. There are four main different avenues in which curriculum is constructed. It’s constructed through government agencies, publishers, school systems, and teachers. It can be defined as “content, a set of specific educational plans, a changing series of planned learning experiences, or as everything that learners experience in school” (Van Brummelen, 20). A curriculum is strongly built behind a worldview. “A worldview is a comprehensive framework of basic convictions about life. Worldviews
Pike, B., & Bradley, F. (1997). The philosophy of teaching: Developing a statement that thrives in the classroom. Clearing House, 70(3), 125. Retrieved October 6, 2011 from http://library.gcu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9703092460&site=ehost-live&scope=site
The process of educating children may seem like a clear-cut, straight-forward process to some people; however, this is far from the case. There are five philosophies of education (essentialism, perennialism, progressivism, social reconstructionism, and existentialism) that vary in their educational approaches. These philosophies can be grouped into two categories: ...