Liz Deichler Fouche EDUC 570 20 September 2012 What I am and What I Wish to be Main Purpose of Teaching and

Learning My purpose of teaching resides mostly in the thought process of the existentialist. Selfdiscovery, individuality, and choice are widely stressed in my purpose of both teaching and learning. The main purpose of learning is to become more aware of the world around you and to gain the ability to critically analyze it, while the main purpose of the teacher is to offer students a set of tools and an avenue in which to explore the world and come to understand how to be critical of it. There is so much in the world to explore, and I think that every human being should follow his or her innate curiosities and examine that world. A teacher should look at a classroom and not think What can I make these students understand? but rather How can I help them come upon and understand a concept themselves? When you learn, you learn about who you are, how you think, and how you interact with others and the world around you. A good set of curriculum should allow a student to discover multiple facets of his or herself and help him or her in finding out how others might view the world similarly or differently. Education is never ending, but after completion of a school program, I would hope that the learner has discovered he or she can help others in understanding the world and continue the cycle of teaching and learning among friends, family, and curious strangers. Role of Student and Teacher The role of the student should be to have constant curiosity. A student, while in class, should be able to pursue whatever line of learning he or she wishes to that day. The teacher should be there as an assistant, as both a pragmatist and an existentialist would place him or her. The teacher is not there to force ideas on the student, but rather is there as a guide through the world, offering bits of

information that they can to the student, but mostly offering the student a set of critical tools in which to discover knowledge by his or herself. Content When it comes to content I find myself stuck between enjoying the standards brought about by a realist approach, the choice an existentialist can offer, and the need to examine the world and our current state of affairs that a pragmatist would employ. I believe that standards are not the awful being theyve been made out to be, particularly to California teachers and the rigorous state standards. I think there is a way to create a general standard of ideals, philosophies, and common knowledge that one would hope would be learned through school. The existentialist in me believes good content should consist of what a student wants to learn and where his or her interest lies, and the realist in me says that after that has been discovered, a student should be offered information that shows the perfection in that subject. Both my realist side and pragmatic side understand that looking at nature and what naturally occurs is a perfect opportunity to use a scientific method of discovery to analyze and criticize what you have found. Content, for me, is not so black and white. Students should have a say in what they want to learn, and it is the teachers job to make sure that the student is given the right pragmatic set of skills to analyze the content that they are interested in. Whether it be literature, art, science, math, history, or any other manner of subjects, the content will offer the student an avenue down which he or she can explore the possibilities of education. Pedagogy The most appropriate pedagogy to be delivered in a classroom would be one that mixes both the pragmatic and existentialist ideals. Pragmatists view the world as a whole and groups of people have the ability to cause real, substantial change. An educator should make sure that students are receiving this message through understanding the democratic society that we live in. Your choices can change the world, and there are events that are happening that you may or may not want to change, so you should start looking at them right now! There are a myriad of problems that individuals come across, and that the world goes through, so a student should learn that he or she has can acquire knowledge and actively affect the outcome of his or her life. The existentialist side of

pedagogy would stress that the student should not lose sight of who he or she is while pursing these social changing roles. A student should be aware that his or her choices can change what is taught and what is learned. Choice is valuable, not only in changing the world, but in changing who you are. A student needs to understand their responsibility in society, through pragmatism, and their responsibility for his or herself, through existentialism. Current Practice While I hold all of these wonderful ideas about harmonious schools and classrooms that will help an individual find out who he or she is and, in the process, discover how he or she wishes to put a footprint in history, I find that my ideas become hard to implement in the English classroom. I offer students choice in projects, listing multiple ideas for projects and offering up an additional choice that is student based that they can come up with. What I have found, when I do this, is those that are active participants in class or enjoy art, music, or theater (where creativity is often fostered and encouraged) are the ones that take and cherish the choice. Others find it overwhelming and often ask not just for guidance, but for me to make the choice for them. When students have been pushed through a system that offers a more idealist approach that stresses the teacher as the holder of a fixed body of knowledge that you must spew out onto a standard test, it is hard to deviate them into a new philosophy. There are factors that force me to be in a realists fixed and finite world of information, like through book lists that tell each teacher in each grade the only sets of books that are available and that they should be teaching. I try to break from these barriers by using a pragmatic approach and asking students to analyze the literature and having fishbowl discussions, where all opinions and questions are welcome and encouraged and problems with understanding a symbol or plot point can be examined by all and answers can be discovered. So while I am stuck in a stiff realist/idealist school system, I find ways to pragmatically and existentially teach by bringing in articles, igniting conversation, and making sure students discover what they like within a subject matter. Instructional Goals

I want to become more of an existentialist teacher and break away from the rigid structure of schools today. I want to offer students more choice and have them lead the class. I want to discover what it is like to be more of an assistant in the classroom, helping students discover what they like about a subject, rather than looking through the standards and telling them what they should be learning, whether they like it or not. I want the ability to leave a classroom behind with a sub and find that the students are becoming teachers themselves, and helping each other learn even without me there. I still want to keep my pragmatic side and make sure that students know they are a part of a bigger world, but ultimately, that their choices matter most. I want students to graduate school and feel that they know what they like, and therefore have some sort of path to follow. Actions to Achieve Goals The first action I can take to accomplish these goals is ask students what they want to learn that year. I do not think a lot of students are posed that question, and by that being the first question out of my mouth at the beginning of a year, or even a semester, students would already have a sense that the classroom was theirs and not just mine and the administrations. Yes, being restricted in a subject matter would not make the classroom wholly existential, but within those parameters I could offer students different types of writing assignments and ask them which they would like to try. I could make reading the newspaper a daily, or bi-daily part of the curriculum so students could discuss and be aware of the world around them. Students could discuss anything they wanted to in the paper, I would not restrict it to a certain set of articles. I could offer students more than just a novel, or even the newspaper, but could encourage the reading of articles online, blog posts, the back of cereal boxes, a plethora of written pieces in which to critically analyze the use of text and the way it effects both the individual and the world. The biggest challenge would be to instill choice from day one. I believe if I was able to let students know that there were 5 assignments to do in the semester, but they got to choose what they were and thus be in charge of what they learned, how they learned, and what they wanted to be graded on, the students would be more willing to take risks and be used to a choice-based classroom. Letting go of control can be difficult, but I think that is the first, and most important, step to realizing my ambition of becoming a more existentialist based educator.