Philosophy of Education Essay Example

Philosophies of education vary wildly from teacher to teacher, some teachers will want to take a more central role in instruction, whereas others might want to empower the students. The important fact is that any teacher must understand what educational philosophy is best for them and how said view affects all aspects of their classroom. Important areas to consider when choosing an educational philosophy include; purpose of schooling, nature of the learner, curriculum, instructional methods, classroom management, assessment, and role of the teacher. 

I will be analyzing the classroom of my practicum teacher, Ms, Short, and for the purpose of future analysis I will give a typical overview of what a day in their classroom looks like. Students walk into the classroom, grab a folder that has their workbook and other assorted materials inside from a predetermined location. The student will look at the whiteboard for what other materials they will need to participate in the lesson, gather said materials then sit down in their assigned seat. The teacher then will call the class to attention, and begin a lecture that will normally involve going over examples that relate to the lesson goal. Occasionally throughout the lesson students will be asked to work on an example in their workbooks, then the teacher will go over said example with the whole class. Each class ends with each student doing a cool down activity that relates to the lecture of the day that the teacher assesses to see where students are understanding the content and / or what misconceptions the student may be having. After five or so lessons that follow this structure the students will be given a test over the learning objectives of the unit and will be given a standards based grade on each of the learning objectives. 

Now that I’ve established what the average day in my practicum classroom looks like, I will now state that Ms. Short follows the Essentialist theory of education. What is Essentialism, in short Essentialism was a reaction to perceived decline in intellectual rigor in schooling. Essentialism contends that there is an identifiable body of knowledge and skills that are essential for human civilization. What aspects of Ms. Short’s teaching draws parallels to Essentialist philosophy? The major factors  I have drawn parallels to are, role of the teacher, purpose and use of assessment, and classroom management. 

The first point of discussion is the Essentialist view of the role of the teacher. The Essentialist teacher is the focal point of the classroom, and is normally trained not in educational pedagogy but more often an expert of some area of liberal arts. This matches Ms. Short’s class, as evident by the breakdown of the typical day, she takes a central role in the classroom, and originally graduated college with a degree in french. Her transition to education came later in life and math education was an even later change. The Essentialist teacher is often the model for societal norms, and the rigid structure of her classroom falls into this hallmark. 

Unlike many other philosophies of education, Essentialism puts a higher emphasis on assessment and testing. The students of my practicum teacher are subjected to different forms of assessment on a daily basis, be it via daily formative assessments in the form of their lesson cooldowns, or Interim assessments every few weeks that check for student competency. The rise of standardized testing and other “high stakes” testing was a product of Essentialist educators, and the frequency of testing in my practicum classroom shows the influence of Essentialist philosophy.

The biggest factor that pushed me towards believing Ms. Short falls under Essentialist philosophy was her approach to classroom management. As previously described the students have been instructed to perform certain behaviors when entering the classroom, and during class students are expected to  maintain quiet discipline. The Essentialist teacher as described in our text “takes great pains in designing and controlling an orderly classroom environment”(Webb et al. 84). Due to recent trouble with maintaining the desired discipline in the classroom Ms. Short has started a point system that encourages students to behave with the norms, in exchange for rewards in the future. 

I have discussed at length the educational philosophy of Ms. Short, now it's time to discuss my own thoughts and opinions. Unlike most students in the class I’m currently taking a methods class that has done a lot to change my past perceptions of education. Before this semester I was in favor of a teacher centered approach to learning, where students are to be lectured at, and that my role was to be “distributor of knowledge”. I was and continue to be critical of standardized testing in school, but if asked I would say that summative assessment should be the norm for students. I would also say that earlier this year I was in favor of strict classroom management procedures to ensure students are learning content. I also would have said that homework should not only be a part of the curriculum but a major part of the curriculum. After this semester, I would disagree with my past self. 

The question becomes where do I align myself now, when I was considering this question I went back to our text, and was not able to find one that I agree with the most. I was in a meeting with my methods teacher. I asked what educational philosophy does our approach to math education align with? Dr. Huey told me to look into Constructivism, and I did. 

Constructivism is a student centric educational philosophy that contends that students construct their knowledge by applying their previous educational experiences. The teacher’s role in the Constructivist classroom is to be a mentor, and to create an environment of high cognitive demand. In practice this methodology has a student be presented with a task, and have them try to find their own way of solving the task. While students are in the problem solving process the teacher asks the students open ended questions to try to help the student solve the task. At the end of the task the teacher will highlight students' work and will give students particular methods that will be useful for solving similar problems. This educational philosophy also makes use of formative assessment and standards based grading when assessing students.

Previously, I thought that the teacher should be the center of the learning process, as demonstrated by my practicum classroom. In reality I think students learn best when they are the focal point of the learning process, and my goal as a future educator is to facilitate an environment that allows students to find their own methods of learning. My hope is that during student teaching I will have the opportunity to implement my educational philosophy.