‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?’ (Reflection #7)

Men were given by God a chance to live a good life, so those who will work hard will truly have more of life than those who are not. We are being blessed with good hands and minds and use the way He wanted us to do. But man’s nature is very ambitious. We are not contented to things that within our reach and within God’s providence. We want to have it all for we know that when you have all, the world will give its very eyes on you. We are sometimes greedy of the things the world can offer –wealth, fame, wonderful career and all that, without realizing that our minds and even our hearts can no longer recognize others welfare. We are sometimes enjoying much of the pleasure the world offers, forgetting that we have souls to be fed with spiritual thoughts to keep our limits.

            Most ambitious beings were driven by selfishness. For instance, an entertainer who would love being at the height of success will do anything just to have it. There are cases, which might be true to some personalities, offering their souls to darkness in order to live the way they wanted and be applauded with millions of hands. They are happy to be recognized by the world as a great performer who could fully satisfy the needs of the audience. Another thing also is there are people who will take life to solely own everything. As what we can observe today, even members of the family will hurt each other just to have what they believe they owned. Simply, man is more attracted to the alluring offer of the world than to what is really more essential to our life—the spiritual aspect.

            “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul”, is a merit to forming our personal values for it teaches us that what the world offer is not accountable to save our souls. In this way, we will understand that there is more of life and it is more profitable to have a dignified and valued life than having all those secular things that loses our very soul. We need to flourish our soul with goodness for it is the only way where fulfillment and true happiness comes. Materials things cannot give us perfect happiness, but our happy soul can.

Do Laws limit our freedom? (Reflection #6)

Freedom stands for something greater than just the right to act however I choose—it also stands for securing to everyone an equal opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (Mike Treder). On the other hand, Laws, rule of being or of conduct, established by an authority able to enforce its will; a controlling regulation; the mode or order according to which an agent or a power acts (Wikipedia). Both are giving opportunities to a good life. The latter is somewhat our aim to let our struggles within be heard and freed and have the feeling of being happy, while the former is the external control in which we are to abide to be able to enjoy harmonious living.

             Do laws really limit our freedom? Laws were created to control society’s acts of immorality, not humane and even distracting our environment, but not to limit freedom. The definition above is making sense that freedom is not about to have all we want, but to experience equity in life. Laws are certainly a means that adheres to giving order or to protect all forms of life. It has been set so that all forms of life will be given a chance to live in a world harmoniously, be connected and give equity. It was actually supported with facts that have gone certain observations that are beneficial to all, not to a certain individual or group, and is based on what is moral. For instance, the law of giving punishment to criminals. If criminals will not be punished to their immoral acts, our world will no longer be free from distress. They will continue doing crimes and will eventually create chaos among men, and because of that man can no longer experience true freedom. Because there is law punishing the criminals, crimes are minimized and people in the society will be protected and people will be given fair action based on what they have done in the society.

            If we are to adhere to laws, I would say that our freedom will be a smooth sailing one not being limited. Freedom and laws, for me, will be working altogether because laws will give mankind the true freedom in a sense of giving them the assurance, providing the good way of life or conduct which is beneficial to all. J

Ten years from now as an Educator (Reflection #5)

Being into teaching is truly a calling. It requires qualities beyond the real you and indeed needs an open arm to embrace different students with different cultural background. For many, it’s a dream call because it requires patience most importantly. Reason that I made a shift from my business course to education. I know it is very hard for me because my patience is not that good. I took this as a very big challenge and eventually I can visualize myself as an educator who believes that teaching is not just an ordinary job, but a job to love for it can change our own society and even the world.

            Ten years from now, I know with confidence, that I will be a good educator even with human imperfection and yet I will try to do the best I can be. Future generation will truly be aggressive learners. It’s very hard to handle them especially that they are exposing much to the world through internet and even the wild society. Because my goal is to change them, a very challenging part, I should really have to start changing myself that leads me to totally be human. As the saying goes “You cannot give what you don’t have”. So, it is very impossible to impart learning to your students when even yourself you don’t have a very good learning. So, with that, I can be able to be an example to them. I would also want to stress out that in handling my students, I will not be the old school teacher who will just shout and spank their students who are doing inappropriate things. I will be calm in handling them. Be mindful about why such student is acting inappropriately or even check his/her background. After that, I will be pushing to what is the right procedure to change his/her way. I will not just be a teacher to them but also a friend. I believe that when you impart friendship to your students, they will build confidence in you and will not be ashamed to share whatever mishaps they have with their lives. I mean the friendship creating a very good learning environment and not friendship with monetary value especially towards the parents.

            With my studies, I know I will learn a lot but learning from the real world is the very practical way to evaluate yourself on who really you are and what kind of educator you are in the future. So, ten years from now, I am looking forward to teach and be a teacher with high values and is willing to change lives so they can be a very good help to our society.  J

My Philosophy of Education as a Grade School Teacher (Reflection #4)

I believe that every child

·         is a rational being.

·         is unique and should be given a chance to express himself freely.

·         has the right to practice his free will and choice.

·         is a developing body and thus be given a very good example for him to look at.

I believe that values are eternal and I am also responsible to the growth of some aspects of every child   and become effective citizens of our society.

I believe that my task as a teacher is to facilitate the development of every child holistically by:

·         doing good things and practicing values outside and inside the classroom, so I can serve as role model of every child.

·         teaching the basic skills to prepare my students to adult life.

·         helping every child appreciate their own selves and know their worth by giving them the freedom to express who really they are and what they want.

·         making the learning environment conducive to their learning by making it sure that everywhere is clean and well arranged.

·         helping the children use their reasoning ability through allowing them see situations before and after.

·         giving them appreciation to whatever achievements they might have and giving more patience to  children who cannot immediately cope my lessons.

·         giving students hands-on activities so they may see reality through self experimentation.

·         giving students mental, physical and spiritual activities.

 

Test Your Understanding About the Philosophy (Reflection #3)

          The five major Philosophies of Education has been taught to us by Dr. Olga Alonsabe and made it more active by letting us group ourselves to which philosophy we truly believed. After the very good and active participation of each group, we were given another activity containing 6 members each group and let us answer page 12 of The Teaching Profession book, Test Your Understanding of the Philosophies, wherein YES or NO is the answer to each question.  Each Philosophy has 4 questions and we got 2 wrong answers on the Progressivism and 1 wrong answer on Perennialism.

            Same with my group mates, I thought that Progressivist teachers look at education as preparation for adult life, believing that preparing for adult life is the same as coping with the changes of life, which the progressivist really adheres to. Another wrong answer is we say No to the question “Are the students’ interests and needs considered in a progressivist curriculum?” Again, we were able to miss conceptualizing that Progressivist is a student-centered philosophy and thus be answered as Yes.  Another wrong answer is the question from Perennialism, “Are the perennialist teachers concerned with the student’s mastery of the fundamental skills?” We gave a Yes answer. Supposed to be a big No because it is the belief of Essentialism. Perennialism, which is more related to Essentialism, teaches on principles and not facts. It is very concern on the reasoning ability of every person and not on the essential skills. So, all in all, we had a score of 17/20.

            Testing one’s understanding like that of page 12 of The Teaching Profession book helps every future educator to evaluate himself to how far where he able to go and understand the ideas previously discussed. For me, it is really a big help because like what we have done with our group, there was an exchange of ideas to every member and eventually allowed us to identify our understanding on each philosophy. It broadened my knowledge about some facts a philosophy holds which I think is not. It is a tool in measuring how deep my understanding on every ideas, and personally I would really want to know more about the philosophy because I know this will be my guide to my future teaching career. Besides, I don’t want to be a teacher without even understanding fully the major philosophies of education. I want to be a part of teachers’ community who is ready to serve and has a very good disposition on handling diversity.                                                                                                                                 

Educational Philosophy (Reflection #2)

According to the book, The Teaching Profession, Philosophy is the window and compass of a teacher in her teaching profession. It becomes his opening to every opportunity so he could identify every existence of learners and make it a guide in imparting his knowledge towards the students. Basically, there are 5 major educational philosophies: Essentialism, Perennialism, Existentialism, Progressivism and Behaviorism. According to the article of Bayla Maya, The Five Key Educational Philosophies, these five philosophies are mainly being incorporated by educators considering the makeup of the classroom setting. A good educator is capable of adapting changes through times and does the thing that is relevant to the development of the person. Existentialism, the conservative philosophy, it teaches facts. It allows the individual to learn the basic education so he could be prepared for making up as citizen of a society.  The concern of this also is to pass the culture from teachers to students. Here, the students are passive that what is being instilled in their minds is the truth and nothing more. Perrenialism, like existentialism, is also a teacher-centered philosophy but it teaches principles and thus believe that truth is eternal and changes occur is superficial. Since it believes that man is a rational being, so it is concern more on developing the reasoning ability of every person. Progressivism is the philosophy that adheres to the constant change. Thus, teaches learners to adapt to any change in the environment. It is a student-centered concept wherein the student test ideas through experimentation. Eventually, values will depend on every person. The fourth one, which is the Existentialism where is values the essence of every individual. It allows the individual to use his free will, choice and personal responsibility without adhering to the rules. He uses his freedom to learn and to make new things. But this might give a learner to choose and use his freedom not to learn about anything or something. The last philosophy, Behaviorism is a teacher-centered one. The learning of every child depends on the teacher’s way of giving emphasis to the learning environment. He controls every behavior a child must have. Thus, the behavior of every child is through the outside force and not by his own free will. Here, behavior is learned and there is eventually repetition of every meaningful connection. One is also motivated to learn through reinforcement.

When I was in my Elementary years, I had a teacher whom I call a good model because her existence was really appealing to us. She wanted all of us to learn something before leaving our classroom. If one of our classmates is intellectually behind us, she never forced the child to learn believing that our classmate is still growing and will eventually learn in time. She wanted us to be confident in expressing our thoughts and there was no wrong answer. She accepted everything and made some clarification regarding ideas expressed. SJe taught us also values that until now I am still bringing it anywhere I go, and that is to respect others so you could be respected in a way you want to be respected. She did a lot of great things in my life until I reached my high school years for she had a very big impact in my life and become my very inspiration now that I am in line with the teaching profession.

After 2 years in my college years, I believe that I will be a teacher having a mind that welcomes diversity among students and respect their differences, as what my Elementary teachers taught the value of respect. Of course, to serve us my guide in my teaching career, I have to formulate my own philosophy as my guide in teaching. All of those five major philosophies of education is a good thing because those are a big help in shaping individuals to become effective people in an effective society. I know that I will be a teacher who will understand that every individual is unique and they vary on their thoughts and choice. One might be good in everything and the other is of something. I would also let my students use their free will to know that they really exist and make their good choice to make a good life and guided with great values to be developed holistically. I want to be part of my student’s lives because as a teacher, you need to be an individual carrying affectivity of how life should be lived.

“An unexamined life is not worth living for.” –Socrates              J