Personal Philosophy of Education Essay



Personal Philosophy of Education EssayLaura A. BuhseNorthern Michigan UniversityThe most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source off all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause and stand wrapped in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. –Albert EinsteinAge cannot darken the night sky for me. No matter the number of years, I can look up in wonder at each pinpoint of light. My favorite stories, as with my favorite constellations, are ones I can return to repeatedly throughout the seasons of my life. While they may not have changed, I have. Returning to a well-loved book reacquaints me with old friends, but wisdom I have gained through new experiences change my perspective. Where I once rolled my eyes at the ramblings of Holden Caulfield, a revisit to the pages of his life in The Catcher and the Rye, years later, granted me a new understanding of his actions. Life is not stagnant. Humans grow with each new adventure. To await eagerly the new minds and identities with whom you will share your passion, for me, as an educator, is the embodiment of looking at the beauty of the mysterious night sky.When and why should I teach? The moment I decided to become a teacher took me by surprise. I doubt my elementary school teacher, Ms. Divadock, would have even batted an eye at the new information. During parent-teacher conferences, she would tell my parents it was a joy to have me in class. I was known for standing at the front and teaching a lesson or helping my fellow students read. For a reason I cannot fathom, I set my mind against teaching. It took my close friend, Ben, inviting me to observe and guest lecture his middle school students for my “AH HA!” moment to occur. My passion for stories has been with me my entire life; so naturally, in college, I majored in English and Folklore. During an elective week, Ben decided to teach Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey”. Ben convinced me to participate in his class because of my expertise on story archetypes and myths. Since the start of our friendship, he had been trying to nudge me in the direction of teaching. Hesitantly, I agreed.I did not have the confidence to stand in front of the class that day and speak, but I did talk to Ben’s students. I noticed a small group of girls with young adult fiction books on their desks. I could have talked to them about Batman’s role in Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey”, but instead I zeroed in on their books, A Great and Terrible Beauty, by Libba Bray. Excitedly, I dove into the characters and the plot with them. Later during class, they came up and asked me if they accurately placed the heroine’s experiences into the journey cycle and we discussed it in a relevant manner. Before they left for their next class, one of the girls came up to me with a smile and handed me a paper badge proclaiming “Geek Badge”. I wore it proudly for the rest of the day. With that small conversation, I had connected to those three girls. They brought me into their world where we shared interests and then they turned to me for help with their academic work. That was the first time I connected to students and the moment I chose to step onto the road to becoming a teacher. The experience of being a guest in Ben’s class made me realize I have a strong desire to share my interests with students. I gained something from my connection to the three girls, but I believe they too gained from that moment of relatability. I want to find a way to connect my students’ interests to the pool of academic knowledge they are thrown into. Reading Palmer’s Courage to Teach alongside Fahrenheit 451, I realize my drive to teach stems from a need for human connectivity. Community creates emotion, empathy, and drive. Through shared experiences, I can create a sense community and give students a place to belong. Palmer (2007) describes good teachers as ones able to join their identity, content, and students in meaningful ways. “They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave the world for themselves,” (pg. 11). This quote explains, for me, how I knew after relating to those girls, that at heart, I am a teacher. I want to be like Clarisse, from Montag’s perspective, whose “favorite subject wasn’t herself. It was everyone else, and me. She was the first person in a good many years who looked straight at me as if I counted,” (Bradbury, 1951, pp. 68). I should teach because I have a desire to create a web of meaningful connections for my students; to find that book or experience that encourages their understanding and makes them eager to acquire knowledge. Who should teach and be taught?The educational sphere is not a learning environment exclusively for the individuals in desks. At school, everyone is a student. Nancy Atwell (2015) describes in her book, In the Middle, “Teachers have to learn in our classrooms, too,” (pp. 8). As an introduction to her book, Atwell shares a teaching story about a student whom she repeatedly placed assumptions on regarding his writing process. She tried to fit this student into a box until he pushes back one day and asks why she cares if he is completing the assignment. After receiving some research on how students develop as writers, Atwell recognizes that she has made an error in pushing the student to fit her mold. “This was the moment I understood that students can’t be the only learners in the classroom,” Atwell acknowledges (2015, pg. 8). The research Atwell read also gave a warning that Nancy and all teachers should take to heart. “Unless we actually structure our environments to free ourselves for effective observation and participation in all phases of the writing process, we are doomed to repeat the same teaching mistakes again and again, (Atwell, 2015, pg. 8).This concept is not solely applicable to the subject of writing. Every time a student enters a classroom, they bring new experiences with them. A teacher’s function is not to make assumptions about the student’s capabilities or what is best for them, but instead to build a connection and learn what their needs are as an individual. “We cannot see what is ‘out there’ merely by looking around. Everything depends on the lenses through which we view the world. By putting on new lenses, we can see things that would otherwise remain invisible,” (Palmer, 2007, pp. 27). Palmer reminds me of my desire to remain open to the identity of my students. Their cultural background and experiences are the lenses through which they see the world, the foundation from which they partake their role.Eggen and Kauchak (2013), present their readers with Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model of Development, in Education Psychology, explaining that the lenses Palmer describes come from a person developing through the influence of “a complex set of systems in the environment, including family, peers and social institutions,” (pp. 67). A teacher, with the understanding of these bioecological systems of influence, can better understand their students and create meaningful connections to content or adjust the presentation and assessment. The transition of a new teacher or student into a school system can bring multiple disruptions to the learning process. There needs to be a period of adjustment in place to learn the diverse needs and experiences of people that influence their worldview. Teachers should be cautious not to make assumptions. Palmer (2007) reminds his readers “the way we diagnose our students' condition will determine the kind of remedy we offer,” (pp. 42). However, if we too quickly diagnose through assumptions, as Atwell describes in her teaching experience, we run the risk of providing the wrong remedy or attempting to fix something that is not broken. There is a high probability that my students will enter my classroom with an ethnocentric point of view, wearing glasses that only allow them to see things from their point of view and harboring a belief that their culture is superior to those of their others. My goal as a teacher is to get them to open their minds and if not accept, then acknowledge, the perspective of others. My drive for cultural awareness is entangled heavily with my identity. I know I have little tolerance for close-minded commentary and will actively push my students to consider alternative perspectives. I am aware that on some days, this part of my mental terrain will cause me to struggle with my students.A teacher is a life-long learner. We should turn to one another to expand our pedagogical knowledge and methods for presenting material to students in fresh ways. As students arrive in our classrooms to learn, we must remember to remain open to the lessons they will teach us. The educational sphere is one that is mutually beneficial to the growth of all that are willing. What and how should I teach?A strong aspect of my inner terrain is I strive to be open-minded and while I am accepting of others, have little tolerance for closed-minded individuals. I was lucky to be raised by parents who could afford for me to travel the world with them and through these adventures, I developed a love of cultures. So much so, that I studied Folklore at Indiana University. Through that program, my knowledge of diversity and perspective grew continuously further from an ethnocentric point of view. Palmer (2007) describes our culture as one where “the self is not a source to be tapped but a danger to be suppressed, not a potential to be fulfilled but an obstacle to overcome,” (pp. 18). As a future teacher, I want my students to know that their inner terrain and experiences have value and should be given room to be expressed and grow. The desire I have for cultivating identity, I believe, makes me an ideal candidate to teach both English and Social Studies. My undergraduate background, at Indiana University, in English and Folklore provide a foundation in my pedagogy for connecting these two subject areas. With mentor texts, I can encourage students to explore their inner terrain. By engaging with my students, I can help pair them with literature that will allow them to discover their voice and project their identity. Drawing on folkloric topics will provide my students with the opportunity to express their culture and teach diversity, thereby expanding their worldview. These aspects in conjuncture will allow me to create a classroom atmosphere of social inclusion. To be an effective teacher, I would like my methodology to envelop a sense of community. I want to move away from an objective classroom. By this, I mean I want to avoid presenting facts without meaning that is relevant to my students. “Knowing is how we make community with the unavailable other…Knowing is a human way to seek relationship and in the process, to have encounters and exchanges that will inevitably alter us,” (Palmer, 2007, pp. 55). I do not want to be the inhuman, unrelatable lecturer at the front of the room, spewing dispassionate facts on deaf ears. I want to create a space for discussion and discovery. I believe the Writing Workshop format, as described by Nancy Atwell (2015) in In the Middle, would create a classroom environment where I could assess students individually and allow them the freedom to pursue their own interests in reading and writing. The specificities of my methodology, I believe, will need to remain open to alternation, depending on the needs of my students on any given day.ConclusionAt night, I look up to find my hunter, Orion. If I wonder at him long enough I can track his movement until he becomes obscured from sight, but even then, I know he is there. Just as I know the North Star will remain present to guide me home. It is impossible for me to look up and ignore the bright lights in the darkness. Each star with the possibility of orbiting planetary life, each constellation with a story to tell passed on from the mythos of ancient civilizations to the present. Taken in a snapshot there is a lot of darkness, there are mysteries that science has yet to discover but there are always new lights to replace those that are moving into the unknown. Every time I step into a classroom, it is a mystery what I will encounter. Life moves forward in ways that change us for better or worse. As I teacher, I have to embrace the changes brought through the door by students and I have to acknowledge the changes within myself. Pedagogy, like the constellations, is always there even if it shifts. Classroom management techniques might slowly change, with societal values, as old stars fade to make room for new, and my personal philosophy will likely evolve to embrace new experiences, as our understanding of the mysteries of the universe are unveiled. The awe of encountering the mysterious is what drives me.ReferencesAtwell, N. (2015). In the Middle: A Lifetime of Learning About Writing, Reading, and Adolescents. Portsmouth: Heinemann. Bradbury, R. (1951). Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster. Eggen, P., Kauchak, D. (2013). Educational Psychology: Windows on Classrooms. New Jersey: Pearson. Palmer, P. J. (2007). The Courage to Teach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ................
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