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