Philosophy of Education
Teaching is career where you never stop learning. It is where you can make a significant positive difference in a child’s life which may never leave them for the rest of their lives. I believe that it is one of the most rewarding careers that takes a lot of compassion and hard work. It is a lifetime commitment where you have to go above and beyond your job commitment. When you become a teacher you are also sometimes a parent, coach, counsellor, friend, problem solver, leader, helper, nurse, social worker, and risk taker.
As a teacher I want to be strict enough to be respected by all of my students, but at the same time, relaxed and fun enough to be a friend that my students can talk to just to say hello or if they need help solving a problem. I do not want my students to walk all over me, but I also do not want my students to be afraid to let me help them. I want to put on plays/musicals, start a choir, lead the song practice for masses, have the class with the most educational field trips, have prizes for good behaviour and effort, put on the special dress up days and be the one that looks the most ridiculous. I want to stay young with my students. As the saying goes, a person is only as old as they feel.
When I become a teacher I want to be someone that will be remembered as a high part in someone’s life. I want to have my students learn without realizing it until after it’s already drilled in their brains. I want to help others’ to do their best and succeed. For those students that only feel safe at school, I want to help keep it that way. I will go to as many teaching seminars and conferences as possible in order to keep up to date with different ways of learning and the curriculum that is always changing. I want to make a difference. I do not want to sit around a waste my eagerness for education and the different talents that I possess, I want to share all that I so that others’ may have something in their lives that helps them stay positive as I have.
Reflection Analysis #1
Teaching and learning, in my beliefs, are one in the same. Teachers are always learning and learners are always teaching. In other wards, students educate the teachers, and teachers attain knowledge from the students. Teachers have to observe the different ways that students understand concepts in order for their students to fully comprehend the classroom curriculum. Educating strategies are never ending and by them time that they are learned, new ideas are brought forth. Therefore teachers always have to be willing to learn twenty-four hours of every day, 365 days a year. People who go into education for a full time career have to like school in one aspect or another and the means of acquiring new information always, because this becomes a teacher’s means of life. Even retired educators can not seem to hide from all of the education excitement out of pure choice.
Schooling and Education has a more important purpose in this present day then compared to a century earlier in the 20th century. In the past the richer classes were able to acquire the most education, while the poorer classes would be lucky if they were able to go to school at all. This is because they usually had to stay home to help their family with their means of finances. Its funny how here in the twenty-first century we have to sometimes force and even bribe our children to go to school. More and more people are going to higher means of education such as university master degrees. Now a days, in order to get a stable well paying job, you need to at least have a high school diploma or sometimes more often a university degree. Education prepares people for the real world. Everywhere you go you almost always have to be able to read. In the past you could get away with being alliterate but now that it is so uncommon, at least in our country, uneducated people cannot seem to live on their own. A person could drink a bottle of poison without knowing because they could not read the label. Mathematics is also a very important learning experience in school. Simple mathematics is used every time a person travels to a grocery store. Think about how much harder a person would have it if they did not understand how much money they could spend or how many/which groceries they could afford to purchase.
The five commonplaces have many influences on what it is like to be a teacher. Some of them include the means of being able to understand the students’ needs, the impact/effect you as a teacher can have on a child’s life, the best way/place that you can educate your class (in the classroom, during a fieldtrip, etc.), or the advantage of learning about your student’ cultures and being able to then educate others’ on what you comprehend. A teacher could deliberately and reflectively make decisions regarding teaching through integrating the interests for each of the five commonplaces of education by co-operating all of the commonplaces into one source. If a teacher observes her students, their means of learning, and their own observations of him or her, and then later takes what they learn and applies it into their curriculum, then they should be able to be the best teacher they can be, and their students would hopefully be educated with the best advantages possible.
I have many personal assumptions and prior experiences regarding schooling. First of all I believe that schools should cut down on the amount of students they have in each classroom. With special needs children emerging more and more into the regular classroom, this is defiantly must happen event. One teacher can simply not help every student according to each of their individual needs with about thirty children in one classroom. They try to get educators to be creative with their desk arrangements in their classrooms in order for the students to have better learning opportunities, however with the size of classrooms according to the number of students within them, sometimes this task is simply not a possible circumstance. Children are our future people are always saying, so why are we not making sure that they have the best means of learning possible. Schools need to be receiving more money for finances in order for children to receive a proper education. How about instead of using tax payers money to help kill people in wars, use the funds as a means of living through our children. I remember in classrooms in high school for instance where I could not take text books home to study from because the teacher had two classes to teach of the same subject and therefore there were not enough books for everyone. You could not play favourites now could you? Although at the end of the day people could come and sign books out in hopes that they were not the last one to ask for one. How this was fair for all of the students in any way, especially the people that could not get there right away, I will never know. I hope in my own classroom to use every means of education possible. When I was in school I copied notes slower and could never learn from teachers that simply taught during the time that everyone was writing notes. Even when they waited, because of my pace, I was always still writing when they were educating. Because of this, I learned to teach myself in many of the different subjects, which did not always have the most positive outcome. I hope to bring to teaching more hands on learning, and learning by examples where everyone can be involved. My plan is to try and make learning fun so that my students do not always know that within their fun and games, they are actually learning and being tested. In my education years I found this to be the best way people learned, although I understand that not everyone is the same so I will still use old ways as well as the new ways of teaching. Would not it be great if we were able to bring our students back to the olden (or other less fortunate countries current) days where children were excited to have the opportunity for a means of education and went on their own free will rather than force?
Reflection Analysis #3
Anti-oppressive education is a very confusing topic that makes a person really have to think in order to fully understand it. The easiest way to define it is the means of making social justice known. All of the “ism” brought forward in this day and age, is something that anti-oppression is against. Schools are a major destination to which the “isms” take place, with this, teachers’ are next in line from families to informing students about the wrongful attitudes that are brought on by the “isms”.
Issues surrounding challenges associated with anti-oppressive teacher education could be the fact that students see and learn from all areas. Although what an educator teaches their students’ out of the curriculum is an important factor, how a teacher acts as a person may play an even bigger and more important role in the matter. It’s a wonder how much of an impact teachers’ actions can have on their students without the teachers’ even meaning them to.
Some barriers to anti-oppressive teacher education could be the fact that no one is a super hero. It is impossible to rid the entire world of oppression. Anti-oppression can cause its own dilemma’s by itself. People have to understand that not everything is possible. Trying is all that can be expected for anything. Sometimes certain means of teaching can solve some problems, but they may cause other problems in the process as well that may be even worse than the first problems from the beginning.
School practices which may contribute to various forms of oppression could be bringing one religion into the curriculum to be taught but not another. Another could be a teacher trying to making it easier on the girls for gym class by having them do “girl” push-ups while the guys would have to do “guy” push ups. Although a teacher may have the students’ best interests at heart in these kinds of “groupings”, what they are not trying to teach, may be the main understanding that their students learn.
Changes need to be addressed for the invisible ways schools favour certain groups and disadvantage / marginalize others. Inclusion needs to be the main topic that is brought into schools for students to learn and understand. Teachers’ need to understand it as well so that any hidden message brought forth is a positive one. Equality is always important, but with all of this we have to remember that nothing is perfect, so lets’ strive for the possible instead of the impossible. Lets’ bring forth in the important matters that mean the most, instead of fretting about the little things that do not have as high an impact on people. Its better to get the better part of points across rather than none at all, just as it better to try than not. If you try there’s a chance of success, while if you don’t success is just not an option.
Reflection Analysis #4
The textbook’s definition of curriculum is the programs of study, subject guides, and school-specific policy decisions that affect the ways of working and general conduct in a school. Coming from this the textbook’s definition of the hidden curriculum is that it is about unintended learning outcomes. According to my current understanding of hidden curriculum, it is about the things students learn about outside of the regular curriculum. It is about what a pupil has to do in a new classroom setting with a new teacher in order to receive the top marks that they believe they deserve and have the best school year possible. It comes from the observations that must be made at school in order to understand how a person is to survive that school year to the best of their abilities.
Hidden curriculum can be found in many areas of the commonplaces. Some examples of this are with some teachers you will get a better mark on an opinion essay if you agree with their opinion rather then standing by your own opinion. In order to know this you would have to be aware that the teacher is like this. Understanding what you need to do to get better marks may not always be what you should do in some cases in a classroom. This is just one example of what a student may have to learn by a means of their teacher’s hidden curriculum. A student in a classroom may learn that they are able to get away with handing in assignments all year round whenever they like as long as they are completed by report card time, while in another classroom they must change their habits because they now have due dates for assignments that stick and get a zero if they fail to hand in an assignment two minutes past the beginning of class. This can also be true for tests. Sometimes a teacher will allow a student to still write a test if they are late to class while others’ will promptly give them a zero grade. Hidden curriculum is also a part of the regular behaviour issues. A student at school may come to understand that slipping up the odd time in good behaviour at school will get them a small chat with a teacher, while constant negative behaviour issues could get them detention, parent meeting, or even get them expelled from school. Also on a the playground a student may learn how to hide their feelings when hurt or to have the knowledge that going to a certain teacher can help, maybe even more that a students’ own family members. How a teacher behaves in their classroom towards their students, as well as any where else where their students are present shows their students how much help a teacher really can be if they need a friend. A student will not try for help if a teacher does not seem available as someone that would help. As teachers too we need to be aware of our students needs and sometimes be a parent to them. Students may not always be able to approach a teacher, but teachers should always be able to approach a student or at least let them know that they are there if they need them.
The influential aspects of hidden curriculum concerning the overarching questions are that the relationship a student is able to have with a teacher is shown through what they observe and gain from their classrooms’ and schools’ hidden curriculum. Society also has a part in what students learn for school. If a child watches a show on television that shows school is what you make of it and can be fun if you want it to be, then that will push them to believe this when they are at school themselves. How society treats one another teaches students to treat others’ the same way within their own school environment for an example. What a student is taught from a book is one thing, how a student is taught from observing actions is a whole new story. Also how far a person will go with what they learn is a new story as well. A cartoon may show that it is okay to fight bad guys; however a child could understand this they should physically hurt whoever they think is bad. In my own classroom I understand that I would have to be careful with how a taught different topics. I would have to be careful on teaching every child the same, as well as not being biased when I marked or gave extra time for assignments or tests. To be a teacher you have to try to be fair so that nothing is learned that should not be learned.
Hidden curriculum is always present in a learning environment. It is something that every person has to constantly be aware and on their guard for. Some things that students learn through the means of hidden curriculum are more important then some areas of the curriculum itself.
