Dalton Chisham

5/12/2014

Philosophy of Education
In my humble opinion my philosophy of education stems from three
branches of philosophy that look first to the learner rather than to the
curriculum. My philosophy mixes Progressivisms development of problemsolving skills with Romanticisms belief that education stems from innate
curiosity and Essentialisms need for basic skills in place to live in the
modern world. I believe these two philosophies are needed due to the fact
that in order for a people to advance they need people who can be creative
in order to have innovation towards new ideas to lead us into the future. This
leads to three student achievement goals that are essential they have once
their done with school.
The first of these is the piece from Essentialism, which takes the mind
as a tool for learning essential ideas and knowledge that everyone needs to
live well (). The second of these comes from Romanticism were it is
important to maintain a students natural curiosity and desire to learn
(Cooper). The third and final goal to achieve with students comes from
Progressivisms development of problem-solving skills. In particular I believe
students should develop divergent thinking. The goal of divergent thinking is
to generate many different ideas about a topic in a short period of time. It
involves breaking a topic down into its various component parts in order to
gain insight about the various aspects of the topic (Robinson). This leads to
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the need for schools to have the necessary curriculum, delivery techniques,
and measuring.
The school curriculum should be a balanced mix of strong emphasis on
basic skills and disciplined knowledge, while being centered on the students
interest in real problems and interdisciplinary solution seeking (Cooper). The
way a school should go about delivery is by having a good balanced mixture
of interplay of deductive and inductive thinking coupled with stimulating
students to plan and carry out activities and research projects using group
processes. In regards to measuring the learning through the delivery system
is quite simple for the deductive and inductive thinking use the standard test
to see if the students are retaining their knowledge. In regards to the group
projects it should be measured by the creativity of the group and their use of
democratic procedures throughout the processes. Of course even despite
these systems in place the teacher plays a role in the classroom to
implement these processes.
The teacher needs to be an expert of the content knowledge they are
teaching in order to provide the adequate assistance to the students that are
being taught. At the same time the teacher also needs to be a facilitator of
student learning by providing resources so students can use their problemsolving abilities (Cooper). In essence the teacher while being very
knowledgeable needs to also only be the last resort a student should go to
for answering their questions. This promotes the curriculum by developing
their problem-solving abilities while providing them with solid base
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knowledge for the students to expand upon. Once the teacher has fulfilled
this role it then falls on the students to learn what is being provided.
The students role in the classroom is that students must learn process,
content knowledge is gained through the interaction of individual
experiences, and truth is individually defined so that emphasis is on learning
how to learn. After all a students values, ethics, and purpose is determined
by the individual through the mixture of their lifes experiences, education,
and culture. The education of the student after all depends on the interest of
the learner. In order for any of this to happen however their needs to be a
renewal of the education system in order to better prepare students for the
future.
The Education system is in major need of reform due to the fact that it
is very outdated in its processes. Americas current education system was
founded during the intellectual period of the Enlightenment combined with
the economically boom of the Industrial Revolution (Robinson). The system
has barely seen any changed since its implementation during the 1800s.
While it worked back then with the current Economic recession and modern
day cultural prevalence of globalism their needs to be change. If I had to use
a good example of what an ideal education facility would be my old high
school which split my school up between 5 communities (named Ice, Choice,
Edge, Q&I, and New Tech) that went about education differently. Ice focused
on a more Romanticism view of education, Edge saw a more Perennialism
view of education, Q&I focused on a more Essentialism view of Education,
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Choice was a mixture of the philosophies, and New Tech had a Progressivism
view on Education. This system allowed all manner of students to flourish
under the diverse atmosphere of learning that it provide a balanced stimulus
for students with a good change of pace for teachers. Students are evolving
every year into something new and if we want to keep the drive for learning
alive and prospering it needs to evolve as well.

Work Cited
Cooper, James M., and Kevin Ryan. Those Who Can, Teach. 13th ed. Belmont:
Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013. Print.
Robinson, Ken. "Changing Education Paradigms." TED. Monterey, California. Feb.
2006. Lecture.