Teaching Philosophy

In my teaching career I want to make an influence. There are going to be certain ideas that I try to uphold and other discriminations that I will try not to allow. I know that everyone has their own beliefs and that teachers should do what they cannot to infringe on others, but to try and show them a different way to think so that they have all the information needed to make educated decisions. This is why I want to teach Primary Education. I want to teach Primary education because this is when children are open-minded. They have not yet had to deal with or maybe understand the injustices that they will encounter. I believe that if they are taught from an early age that will have the ability to succeed. I am going to go into teaching with my own ideas on my philosophy of teaching, the purpose of public schools, and education reform. It is my goal to influence children in as many positive ways as I can.

Philosophy of Teaching

Hlebowtish said"A philosophy of teaching has to be responsive to three factors in decision making discussed in the previous chapter (learner, society, subject matter)"(p. 92). Teachers need to be flexible when they go into a classroom. It is necessary that teachers understand how the school performs, and what ideas they do and do not want to be discussed. By understanding the schools ideas, I would then be able to see if my ideas fit into the schools and if the do not completely match see how much leniency there would be for me ideas. Flexibility is going to be an asset that any teacher should have.

Essentialism and Perennialism both have their focus on a subject matter. Both essentialism and perrenialism try to teach all students the same way. This style of teaching is more like memorization; I had a teacher call us M and M students. This meant that we memorized for the moment. We could not apply what we had learned to other problems outside of the examples. He said we did not learn, but that we memorized. I want to teach my children at a young age how to make connections. I realize I will be working with young kids and that I must teach them how to read and count and learn to do basic math, but I also believe that they need more. I want to be able to get them to start thinking about how to apply their knowledge to solve problems that may be simple to adults but challenging for them. I believe that if I can find a way to use memorization to teach them facts, and then show them how to apply their knowledge then they will have the basics for critical thinking. I want to try and get them ready so that as they move along through school by the time they reach high school critical thinking is not a roadblock because they do not know how to think "outside the box". Essentialism and Perennialism are both good for teaching facts, they only differ with what works should be taught. I will be teaching young children so I plan to incorporate the subject matter focused ideas from Essentialism and Perrenialism.

I plan to incorporate part of Francis Parkers ideas. Hlebowtish (2001) said "Among Parker's first actions was to try and integrate more natural methods of learning in the classroom, methods build around child play and activity"(p. 307). I will try to get the children involved with each other. There is a need to make learning fun so that children with their short attention span will pay attention and find what we are doing fun. By doing this they will pay more attention and recall the information easier. Parker's idea to teach children to read with children books proves that if they are interested in what they are reading then they will recall that information easier. Herbart an early philosopher had the idea to link previous ideas together. This is also another philosophy I plan to incorporate, because that is basis for how are education system is now set up. I believe that this philosophy also works because it allows the students to use their previous knowledge and allows them to solve harder problems with that knowledge and their new knowledge. An example in a first grade class could be learning how to spell words like phone. Phone is spelled with a ph, which sounds like an f. Once the students make the connection that ph is equal to f, then they will be able to spell phone correctly.

Another part of my philosophy is for me to learn how to teach children. I know that not all children learn in the same ways. I believe it is necessary that the teacher learn how to reach children and teach in several ways so that all the children can comprehend the material presented to them. I need to learn how to adjust to the children, and the society I will be in. Adjusting to societies demands is one aspect I had originally overlooked when I thought about becoming a teacher. I will need to be able to see from others perspectives. According to McNergey and Herbert (1998) "When teachers pause to consider a student's or a parent's or a colleague's perspective, they may find that their own concerns are not well formulated..."(p. 4). I am going to have to open-minded and allow for change in my own philosophies because on one style or idea will work for everyone. By being open to suggestions I will be able to listen to colleagues who have been in the field and may know tricks of the trade that are not taught in schools, and maybe I will be able to show them the new style or technology being introduced into schools.

Purpose and Performance of Public Schools.

Strouse (2001) said "We currently spend on average about $5,000 annually per child to support public schools. The average cost to incarcerate a person for one year exceeds $25,000 and is increasing"(p. 216). It is my belief that public schools provide a number of purposes for the community. How are our schools supposed to perform these purposes if there are so many inequalities in them? The performance of public schools varies greatly even in districts that are close together. The idea that the Federal Government is willing to spend more money to put people in jail, rather than to try and build new schools for schools that are past renovation, and to help fill in the void between rural, suburban, and inner city schools helps explain why each one of these schools serves their own purpose and has their own performance standards.

One purpose of Public Schools is now to get rid of gender roles and increase awareness of the achievements of women and minority's in history. As a society we now see women taking over jobs once reserved to men and vice a versa, however gender roles are still commonly found. It is commonly overlooked as to how schools use gender roles; because we have all grown up with them they seem second nature. According to Nelson, Palonsky, and Carlson (2000) "Many schools, often with