Running Head: Personal Philosophies in Education 1

Personal Philosophies in Education

Jennifer A. Blease
Wesleyan College










Personal Philosophies in Education 2
Introduction
Education is a subject that can be seen through many different viewpoints. Each person
has his or her own personal beliefs on how a classroom should be facilitated. These belief
systems, whether they are based on religious beliefs or from personal experience, influence the
ways in which the classroom is set up on multiple levels. Through my experiences and beliefs, I
have grown and become inspired to see what I would wish to have as my future classroom.
Through these thoughts, I have found my calling for teaching students in the classroom that I
have modeled after several different philosophies and theories of education. Throughout this
paper, I will discuss these details describing my ideas and how they may be applied to the
classroom. These ideas, though very unique, were born through the struggles that I have faced
through my educational career, as well as my strong moral and belief system that I hold so dear
to me. One main philosophy that I would associate with for the general paper as a whole would
be most closely associated with idealism. This philosophy centers on the idea of the seeking of
an absolute truth. The students would be encouraged to learn to the best of their abilities so that
they may gain as much wisdom as they possibly can (Idealism, n.d.). This idea, even if not
specifically stated, may be seem throughout this entire paper.

Section 2
With my personal philosophy taken into consideration, my ideal classroom would match
with my ideals and morals. The purpose of the schooling itself would revolve around the idea of
allowing students to grow and develop. It is an academic and social atmosphere in which the
students are able to find out things about themselves and discover through their experiences. It is
a place where the students may learn valuable life lessons that will help them succeed later in
Personal Philosophies in Education 3
life. The school would not be an institution that is merely there to watch over the students and
creating an everyday cycle of mindless busy work. The school would be there to provide these
lessons to students in an engaging and enlightening manner so that the students will have the
desire to learn as much as they possibly can. From my high school experiences, I did not find
school to be this thrilling and involved environment. For me, school seemed to be this constant
cycle of busy work and lectures that only taught the students enough to be prepared for the next
standardized test. From this experience, I realized that I did not want school to be this way. From
my experiences at Wesleyan, I have found the active and stimulating environment that I saw to
be so meaningful and useful to the learning environment. This allowed me to fully realize what I
believed to be my philosophy of what a school is truly established for. This philosophy,
particularly centered on pragmatism, involves students being engaged and communicating with
one another. Through pragmatism, students are able to participate and be truly involved in what
they are learning. Because I would want the students to learn to the best of their abilities, I would
want them to follow their true nature and be the social creatures that they are (Biesta, 2008, p.
712-714).
The nature of children is mainly centered on their inquisitiveness. Each student is able to
learn to the best of their abilities, if they are given the right nurturing and encouragement.
Children have the capacity to learn an unlimited amount of information if they are given the
drive to want to learn this information. From an idealists perspective, students have all the
answers locked away inside them. The way for these students to discover those answers just
requires the right key to unlock the hidden secrets. In this case, learning different ways to teach
the students will enable each student with the opportunity to learn and develop in ways that of
which are most useful to them. This idea of the students being able to gain an unlimited amount
Personal Philosophies in Education 4
of knowledge and wisdom follows along with the beliefs of German Idealism in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth century. German Idealism in education involved learning not
only about the basic ideas of subjects, but the more thorough details in each study. They would
study what a concept was, as well as the details of the topic and why it came about. This idea
allowed students to have an in depth style of learning in which they uncovered a much more
detailed amount of knowledge that could not be gained through other philosophical forms of
teaching (Ream, 2007, p. 153). This, I believe, would be a wonderful form of teaching for any
education system.
The main curriculum that is normally taught in education systems, such as mathematics,
reading, writing, science, history, and geography, should be taught to at least some degree within
the ideal education system. The lessons that are learned in school should apply to things that
could be beneficial to the students later on in life. These include teaching them various lessons
that may be beneficial to their future. An example of this would be teaching the students the
basics of a foreign language. If the students were to be exposed to a different language, then they
would be able to better understand diverse cultures, as well as being prepared to converse with
diverse groups. If the students are able to learn some of these lessons throughout their education,
they will be prepared for future situations in which these lessons will be very useful. These ideas
of the structure of the curriculum revolve around the ideas of perennialism. According to this
idea, students are taught things that may be applied to their daily lives. The students are able to
learn things that will enhance their knowledge in a way that encourages lifelong learning. This
allows the students to learn important facts that prepare the students to be able to apply their
education to real situations (Yilmaz, Altinkurt, & Cokluk, 2011, p. 344). If the classroom is
Personal Philosophies in Education 5
instructed properly, the students will be able to fully develop and understand the material that is
required to be able to apply the curriculum to their future education.
Through my observations over the years, I have realized that there are a wide variety of
instructional methods within different classrooms. Through my personal beliefs, specific
methods tend to be most effective. These methods include hands-on experiences so that the
students may by able to learn on their feet. The teacher should provide an engaging environment
that allows the students to learn through these experiences. Finding creative ways that make
learning a fun and involved would allow students to have the desire to learn, as well as give them
the ability to learn because it is something that they have witnessed for themselves. This follows
along with the educational theory of progressivism. With this theory, students are able to learn
through their experiences in a way that allows them to be engaged and involved in the
curriculum. The classroom, applied with this theory, allows for the classroom to be an
environment in which each student is able to learn to the best of their abilities, provided that they
classroom is managed properly (Labaree, 2005, p. 280-281).
Through personal experience and observations of different classrooms, I have greatly
realized the ways in which I believe a classroom should be managed. Two specific experiences
have had the greatest impacts on my beliefs of this. The first experience goes back to my fifth
grade year. I had always been a very well behaved student who followed every rule that had been
established within the classroom. However, for reasons still unknown to me, the teacher I
happened to have this year did not seem to like me despite my obedience to her rules of the class.
This teacher would take me out into the hallway and yell at me almost every day for something
that I had apparently done wrong. I, being a very sensitive student, would not be able to
emotionally handle being yelled at. This teacher would not treat any other student this way. From
Personal Philosophies in Education 6
this experience, I realized that I did not want to be like this teacher. If a student is obedient in the
classroom and does everything that is asked of them, then there is nothing to complain about.
Even if a child does one small thing wrong, it does not give the teacher reason to take them out
in the hallway and yell at them for making mistakes. Is it not what makes us human to make
mistakes? As a teacher, I would never wish to yell at a student. Raising a voice to a student only
brings more conflict. The experience may be traumatizing to the student, causing them to
become physically ill. I would never wish for this to happen to any student that I teach.
The second experience that has had a huge impact on me has been from my field
experience from this past semester. I have noticed through these observations how students
respond to different ways of managing the classroom. If a teacher is calm and handles
disciplinary problems in a manner that involves a calm discussion with the student, then the
student tends to realize what they did that was wrong and correct their mistake. However, if a
teacher manages the disciplinary issue by yelling at the student, then the student tends to get to
the point where he or she tunes out the teacher.
From both of these experiences, I have realized that yelling at students is not effective in
any way. Situations within the classroom need to be handled in a calming manner that does not
catalyze any additional extreme emotions. The learning environment should be one that
everyone, both the students and teachers, feel relaxed and ready to learn everything they possibly
can each day. This relaxing environment can provide the ideal classroom for students succeed,
allowing them to learn at their maximum capacity.
While learning as much as they possibly can, students will need to be assessed in
different ways so that they may demonstrate what they have learned over the year. From my
personal experiences and my personal thoughts on learning assessments, I have developed very
Personal Philosophies in Education 7
firm beliefs on this subject. I believe that students should not only be tested on written tests.
Tests induce test anxiety for some students, causing them to not receive the grade in which they
could receive in other, less stressful situations. Bill Ayers discusses similar concerns about this
subject in his book To Teach. Here, he discusses how his students were forced to take
standardized tests that determined the placements of his students within the classroom. He states
that he believes the students should not just be tested through these exams. The students should
be evaluated in other ways, such as their performance within the classroom (Ayers, 2010, p. 90).
Another form of assessment in which I do not support involves the usage of timed tests. I
do not believe that students should have to rush through an exam just to see how quickly they
can complete an assignment. I believe that students should be able to work at their own pace in
which they are comfortable working at. The students should not have to go through the anxiety
of reading as quickly as they possibly can or solving as many math problems as possible within a
very small amount of time. From my field experience over this past semester, I have been able to
witness how these assessments are pushed. The students in my class struggled through trying to
complete these problems within the given time limit. These time limits clearly put the students
into some significant amount of distress. I do not believe that students should have to deal with
this kind of stress over a simple assessment. This idea also somewhat follows along with the
theory of progressivism. Students under this theory learn through being engaged in the
classroom. The students would be assessed through their skills that are demonstrated in the
classroom, or they would be evaluated through discussion. This is what I would see as a less
stressful, but more helpful, way of seeing how much the students have learned over a year
(Labaree, 2005, p. 283-284).

Personal Philosophies in Education 8
Section 3
In the future, I would model classroom around my personal philosophy of education. This
classroom, which would be full of elementary school level children, would involve as many of
the above philosophies to the best of my abilities. School would be seen as an environment in
which the students would look forward to attending class every day so that they would be able to
find out what new things they would learn that day. The students would find the classroom to be
a place for them to be able to be involved in the class.
This purpose of the learning environment would also encourage the nature of the childs
mind. In my classroom, I would want to apply the idealist perspective so that the students would
be able to find the solutions to every problem. I would do my best to follow this philosophy my
class by teaching in various ways so that each student may be able to learn, even if they learn in
different ways. For example, I may provide visual charts so that they students will be able to see
what we are learning about. For this same lesson, I may provide a hands-on activity, as well as a
small discussion over the subject to provide a better understanding of the material. This form of
teaching would allow students who learn better verbally, visually, and kinesthetically to
understand the material to the best of their abilities. I would plan to do this for each subject that I
would teach to the students.
I would also wish to teach the subjects that I previously mentioned in equal proportions. I
would teach the basic curriculum that I am required to teach, but I would also apply each of these
subjects to real-life situations so that the students may become more engaged in what is being
taught. I would never teach material only to prepare them for the test. My main goal in teaching
the curriculum would be to prepare the students for lifelong learning. I understand through my
experiences that teaching to a test was not effective, and most of the information that was shoved
Personal Philosophies in Education 9
at the students in those classrooms was never retained. If the students are taught in order to
prepare them for lifelong learning, then they will be able to retain a great deal of knowledge that
they were taught throughout that school year.
As a teacher, I would wish to instruct the classroom with various forms of teaching
methods. I would stress the personal hands-on experience as often as I possibly could. I would
never want to stick the students with busy work just so they are forced to remain productive at
all times. I would plan for their learning to revolve around fun and engaging experiences that
help them better understand the material that they are learning. I would want to spend as little
amount of time as possible lecturing to my students. I would want them to learn through as many
engaging activities as possible. One idea that I have considered for making the learning
environment more fun and engaging, inspired by one of my former elementary school teachers,
involves a sort of Fun Friday feel. However, the students will still be learning material, but in a
different way. I have considered using these Fridays as a day in which I, as the teacher, would
come to the classroom dressed as a random character that may somehow be correlated with a
subject that the students may be focusing on at that time. The character would then be the
teacher for that day, guiding the children through different lessons as if they were on an
adventure with that character. This would allow the students to be even more excited on what
they may learn each week. These types of engaging activities would allow every student to have
the opportunity to learn within the classroom. If a student were to struggle with one specific
teaching style, I would do my best to change the lesson a bit so that each student may be able to
understand the curriculum.
Though this engaging and active classroom may be at risk for getting out of hand if the
class gets too energetic over what is being taught, I would still manage the classroom in a way
Personal Philosophies in Education 10
that I would see as more beneficial to both the students and myself. If the students were to get
too rambunctious, I would calmly sit them all down and explain what the issue was and what
needed to be done to correct the problem. If the students were to continue to misbehave, I would
temporarily postpone the activity until the behavior was corrected. I would never wish to raise
my voice at any of the students at any time. I realize that yelling in any situation never helps,
thus I would never want to perform this action.
As I mentioned in the previous section concerning how much I detested testing, I would
do what I could to avoid giving the students written exams as much as possible. I would want to
determine what the students knew about the material that is being taught in different ways. I
would want to assess the students knowledge by having them discuss what they learned each
day. I may also try to have them do fun activities that may be applied to what they learned so that
they can fully understand and show what they know on the material in a more engaging and less
stressful manner. For example, I may provide the students with a Venn diagram that they would
have to compare what they learned from two different stories. This would allow the teacher to
see what the student has learned from both stories as well as being able to assess their abilities in
critical thinking by assigning the students to compare and contrast the two stories. Through these
forms of assessments, the students will be much less distressed over exams and will most likely
be more excited to learn in the classroom.

Conclusion
Everyone has his or her own personal philosophy of education. Through my personal
experiences, I have developed my own viewpoint on how things in an educational environment
should be. These ideals, which follow along with specific educational philosophies and theories,
Personal Philosophies in Education 11
can be applied to the future classroom that I would plan to construct. Through these applications,
I would hope to have an effective and successful learning environment that stimulates the
students in a way that will allow them to want to continue learning. I would wish for these
students to be able to learn at their utmost ability so that they may be prepared for lifelong
learning.
Personal Philosophies in Education 12
Bibliography
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