running head: PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

Candace Monroe
Philosophy of Education
Dominican University
April 6, 2015
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
-Albert Einstein
Educator William A. Ward once said, The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher
explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.(School, slide 10). My
responsibility as an educator is to inspire my students to create, challenge, design, have fun,
make change, question, and become well-rounded citizens while learning in a safe environment.
I believe that education should be child-centered and hands on. Every student has the ability and
desire to learn. It is my role as their teacher to tap into each of their strengths and interest to aide
in awakening that desire within them.
I as an educator am preparing students to be informed agents of change in their
communities. According to the John Dewy Project on Progressive Education (2002), ran out of
the University of Vermont, this is a sentiment that I share with progressive education.
Democracy means active participation by all citizens in social, political and
economic decisions that will affect their lives. The education of engaged citizens,
according to this perspective, involves two essential elements: (1). Respect for diversity,
meaning that each individual should be recognized for his or her own abilities, interests,
ideas, needs, and cultural identity, and (2). the development of critical, socially engaged
intelligence, which enables individuals to understand and participate effectively in the

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affairs of their community in a collaborative effort to achieve a common good. (para.

1).
This belief has become truth for me through the diverse teaching opportunities I have
been afforded. In a low-income urban school, I helped students plan a community outreach event
to inform their peers of domestic violence. This project started after a student shared a poem she
had written. Other students in the class connected to her poem. This sparked their desire to learn
more about the problem, and then do something about it by getting their message out to the
community. This was the first time in my early career that I realized teaching revolved around
the learner, not the content. Students should be equal stakeholders in their education.
I believe students prior knowledge, personal interest and curiosity should guide the
content being taught. Within any content, I as a teacher should be able to create an integrated,
interdisciplinary unit that teachers the 21st century skills and grade level standards that my
students must master, while fulfilling their desire to learn the information important to them.
Students learn best by actively constructing their own understanding based on his or her
knowledge, skills and experience. This style of teaching gains and maintains student engagement
while using strategies that foster student independence, self-determination and self-advocacy.
(California, pp 14).
While working with struggling readers in a progressive school community, I learned to ask
myself, Am I teaching and supporting all children in their growth and development across all
domainssocial, emotional, physical, linguistic, and intellectual? (Morrison, para 3). This
school culture taught me what it really means to teach holistically child-centered. Every child is
a unique and special individual. Consequently, we have to teach individual children and be
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respectful of and account for their individual uniqueness of age, gender, culture, temperament,
and learning style. (Morrison, para 4).

I believe teaching individual children is the foundation of great and effective educational
specialist. I believe in creating an environment where students feel safe enough to show their
goodness through all aspects of themselves. I demonstrate personal knowledge of students
disabilities and their effects on learning and behavior through the planning and implementation
of differentiated lessons and individualized education programs (IEP). These lessons consider
my students ideas, preferences, learning styles, and interest. They make students active
participants in their own education and development. (Morrison, para 5).
To prepare individual students to become agents of change who are active participants in the
curriculum building process, I believe that the education process should inspire students to
design, analyze, make and be innovative. Building with their own hands, designs that theyve
crafted which were informed by the learning that they sought after and then sharing that tangible
product with an audience, is a powerful component of learning. According to the 2013 Maker
Movement Manifesto, this is a philosophy I share with the Maker Movement and fits in with a
child-centered education.
Making is fundamental to what it means to be human. We must make, create, and
express ourselves to feel whole. There is something unique about making physical
thingsSharing what you have made and what you know about making with others is the
method by which a makers feeling of wholeness is achieved. You cannot make and not
share The act of making puts a small piece of you in the object. Giving that to someone
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else is like giving someone a small piece of yourself. Such things are often the most
cherished items we possess. You must learn to make. You must always seek to learn more
about your making The best hope for improving the world is us, and we are responsible
for making a better future... (Hatch, pp 4-5).
The Maker Movement, tinkering, project-based learning, and integrated curriculums are
all valuable educational vehicles that make learning inspirational. They are tools that provide a
child-centered classroom that builds conscious and engaged students. I believe with these tools, I
can foster a safe, culturally aware classroom, that acknowledges and explores differences, meets
each child individually and will create dynamic, critical thinking, analytical citizens who will
one day create change in their communities.
Taking the time to get to know and understand whom each of my students is, is the key to
creating and maintains effective environments for student learning that suite the
social/emotional, developmental, intellectual, and cultural needs of all of my students. The
information gained from the knowledge of whom my students are allows me to use the
appropriate pedagogical skills during instruction, and the most efficient way to monitor and
interpret student learning. I believe knowing my students holistically is the only way I can
engage and support their learning.
The late author, Alice Wellington Rollins once said, The test of a good teacher is not
how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions
he inspires them to ask him which he finds hard to answer. (School slide 7). I do not expect my
students to come or leave my class knowing all of the answers. My goal is to teach them how to
ask tough questions and where to look for or make solutions. I as a teacher dont know all of the
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answers, but I am always striving to better my teaching practice and learn more. Teaching brings
me joy; I hope I will one day master the art of teaching.

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References
Books:
Hatch, M. (2013). Maker Movement Manifesto Rules for Innovation in the New World of
Crafters. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Websites:
Bajarin, T. (2014, May 19). Why the Maker Movement Is Important to America's Future.
Retrieved April 1, 2015, from http://time.com/104210/maker-faire-makermovement/

California Teaching Performance Expectations. (2013, March 1). Retrieved April 1, 2015, from
http://www.ctc.ca.gov/educator-prep/TPA-files/TPEs-Full-Version.pdf
John Dewey Project on Progressive Education. (2002, January 1). A Brief Overview of
Progressive Education. Retrieved April 1, 2015, from
http://www.uvm.edu/~dewey/articles/proged.html
Morrison, G.S.. (2010, July 20). Child-Centered Education. Retrieved April 1, 2015, from
http://www.education.com/reference/article/child-centered-education/
School Mioveni, L. (n.d.). Quotes about Project Based Learning. Retrieved April 1, 2015, from
http://www.slideshare.net/AnaTudor/quotes-about-project-based-learning