Educational Philosophies and the Analysis of My Chosen Educational
Theory
Author: Santosh Kumar
Biswa, Sr. Teacher, Damphu CS, Tsirang, Bhutan
Abstract
John Dewey believes that
any kind of education is followed by the involvement of an individual in the
social consciousness of the race (Dewey, 1897). As such, education should allow
every individual to share their knowledge and moral resources in which mankind
has succeeded in getting along and make them the perfect social beings. Better
education takes if better educational philosophies are placed in hand by the
implementers. They should know its very purpose, the application process, and
the way they interpret the educational theories and the learning philosophy.
The rationale behind them should be clear in the mindset of the implementers
because it will allow them to have greater opportunities to explore and improve
by design (UCD. n.d.).
Analysis of my Chosen
Educational Philosophy
Today, with the advent of
science and human philosophy in the world, producing a learner as a good social
being has become a challenge to educators to meet the very purposes of
education. A teacher plays an integral role in imparting knowledge through the
various educational pedagogical aspects and philosophies he applies that
ultimately impact the outcome of learners.
Having gone through all
the educational philosophies such as idealism, realism, pragmatism, and
Existentialism, what resonates with my belief in educational philosophies is
that all philosophies are equally compelling to meet the standard of the 21st
century needs which center the educational theories such as teacher-centered
philosophies, student-centered philosophies, and society-centered philosophies.
They are directly dependent on the concepts based on the combination of two or
more educational philosophies (The Digi Teachers, n.d.). Among them, I
subscribe to student-centered philosophies because they include Progressivism,
Existentialism, and Social Reconstructionism which are very essential for any
kind of educational process for achieving intended educational goals. It
basically focuses the teaching method on learning by doing whereby the
teacher’s role is just to facilitate the learning processes in the classroom.
They share the common principle of achieving the complete development of a child
whereby planning, teaching, and assessment are carefully considered and revolve
around based on the abilities and needs of every learner (Brown, 2008). A
detailed elaboration about them is as below:
Progressivism
It is the philosophy in
which the whole child is considered as the center of the focal point, not the
content or the teacher. The students are engaged in the scientific methods of
questioning to test ideas through their active participation and
experimentation. They are assessed through their writing portfolio or projects.
The students act as problem solvers in which they come up with their solutions
through their own experiences and research (Presbitero, n.d.). Teachers are
just the facilitators to check their progress and encourage learning by making positive
changes. Books are just used as a medium to discover and learn new things. The
curricula are based on the needs, interests, and abilities of the students (The
Digi Teachers, n.d.).
Existentialism
Existentialism is another
type of student-centered philosophy that focuses the learners to create their
outcomes based on their focus on reality and the present situation. They become
more judgmental to easily identify right and wrong or good and bad (Sadker and
Zittleman, 2007). It is the learned-centered philosophy whereby the teacher's
role is just to facilitate the learning process and they give freedom to the
learners to draw their conclusions through the questioning and answering
process (Narejo, 2015).
Social-reconstructionism:
It is the philosophy in
which students are used as tools to overcome some of the social problems. Since
the school prepares the future leaders and citizens of the country, each
student should be well educated about life, not simply to achieve good marks in
their academics, but also to be a good human being so that they value cultural
differences, religious differences, poverty, respect for others, etc. (Lynch,
2016). Such a classroom prepares students with good moral values through the
lessons and makes students understand the values of life through discussions on
the subject and analysis. Moreover, students are also engaged in improving in
public speaking, leadership, building core skills, etc.
Reasons why this
philosophy correctly speaks to me
The reasons why the above
philosophies correctly speak to me is because I follow the similar processes
described above in my teaching and I find it more professional and practical
than the lecture method. Quite often, the lecture method bore the
students, but the student-centered philosophy enables the class to be active
and engaging class.
Most importantly, I saw
the gap between me and my students narrowing and students becoming closer to
me. Studying through cooperative activities I found that students were able to
acquire hands-on experience along with the content and were able to do
text-to-real-life connections more confidently than before with improved
elaborations. They are even able to realize and draw conclusions confidently
whenever we discuss the problems in society.
Through the activities,
they are engaged to explore their ideas in a wider sense and finally discover
new knowledge based on the observations made and experiences gained” (Smerdon
and Burkam, 1999). Moreover, this philosophy enabled me to involve a cent
percent of students during the learning process and no students being left out.
They can understand more from what they are doing. Students in their reading
and writing portfolios are found more creative and critical than before
maintaining the standardized write-ups. I am able to track their progress
through continuous assessments and feedback. On the other hand, I observed that
students gain confidence in public speaking and become responsible.
My
classes are mostly interactive whereby I act as a facilitator, facilitating the
class during the learning process. I engage my learners more in inquiry
learning, cooperative learning, learning through research, drawing conclusions,
role play, project writing, portfolio maintaining, reading logs, etc. focusing
purely on the wholesome development of a child. However, after going through
the educational philosophies, I felt that I needed to do more than what I had
been doing with the clear objectives in mind.
Conclusion
The only best philosophy
that can mend the students is the student-centered philosophy. Having an outstanding
teaching philosophy means having a clear map to go ahead while teaching. But,
teaching depends on the teacher’s teaching philosophies. The more he is
comfortable with the topic he is going to teach, the better would be his
strategies in the classroom. It is the teacher who builds students to be
independent thinkers and decision-makers in the future. Thus, our main focus on
the learners is to be prioritized and should not be compromised with any other
factors.
Reference:
Dewey. J. (1897). My Pedagogic Creed. Retrieved
July 7, 2021 from http://dewey.pragmatism.org/creed.htm
UCD Dublin (n.d.). Education Theory.
Retrieved July 7, 2021 from http://www.ucdoer.ie/index.php/Education_Theory
Brown, J. K. (2008). Student-Centered
Instruction: Involving Students in Their Own Education. Retrieved July 8, 2021
from https://www.jstor.org/stable/20685476
Sadker, D. & Zittleman K. (2007). Teachers
School and Society: A Brief Introduction to Education. 207-217. Retrieved
Retrieved July 8, 2021 from http://education.com/reference/article/Ref_Teacher_Centered
The Digi Teachers. (n.d.). Understanding the Different Types of
Teaching Philosophies. Retrieved July 3, 2021 from
https://thedigiteachers.com/teaching-philosophies/
Presbitero, J. ( n.d.). Educational Philosophies Definitions and
Comparison Chart. Retrieved July 3, 2021 from https://www.academia.edu/6866854/Educational_Philosophies _Definitions_and_Comparison_Chart
Lynch. M.
(2016). Philosophies of Education: 3
Types of Student-Centered Philosophies. Retrieved July 3, 2021
https://www.theedadvocate.org/philosophies-education-3-types-student-centered-philosophies/
Smerdon, B.A. & Burkam, D.T.
(1999). Access to Constructivist and Didactic Teaching: Who Gets It? Where Is
It Practiced? Retrieved July 8, 2021 from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ598238
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