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Personal Philosophies Paper

Alison

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Introduction
The scientific method, Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote, is nothing but the normal working of the
human mind. That is to say, when the mind is working; that is to say further, when it is engaged in
correcting its mistakes.
Taking this point of view, we may conclude that science is not physics, biology, or chemistry--is not even
a "subject"--but a moral imperative drawn from a larger narrative whose purpose is to give perspective,
balance, and humility to learning. (Postman, 1995).
I believe good science teacher will then hone in on a student's natural curiosity, and encourage
them to become productive members of society with the ability to reason scientifically. I believe science
from an essentialist viewpoint to inspire creativity in a future generation of students who I believe are
important to the strength of our future. I have a pragmatic approach to textbooks, that they are not
sufficient to teach students.
Clearly, science is the valuable foundation for today's technological world to build a sound
education. I have a constructivist view that as we mature we become more and more aware of their
surroundings and make observations, and judgements.
Science gives students a way to use their curiosity to explore the world around them. It
encourages them to consider positively the science principles they encounter both in educational and
home experiences. From a pragmatists view, early use of scientific terminology facilitates solid future use
of the scientific thought allowing students to advance to more science courses. The use of the scientific
method is a logical platform for students to develop the ability to critically think.
"How can we be truly strong and healthy as a nation when we are comprised of individuals who
are not strong and healthy?" (Dear Abby, d.n.k.) Through scientific reasoning, teachers encourage the

Personal Philosophies Paper

Alison

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formation of a strong nation such that is filled with members who know what steps to take to be strong
and healthy. Enabling students to harness the power that comes from scientific reasoning can only benefit
our society, ecologically, politically and in everyday life.
Questions, we might say, are the principal intellectual instruments available to human beings. Then how
is it possible that no more than one in one hundred students has ever been exposed to an extended and
systematic study of the art and science of question-asking? (Postman, 1995)
I want to teach science from an essentialist viewpoint to inspire creativity in a future generation
of students who I believe are important to the strength of our future. I want students to leave my
classroom better able to engage in appropriate social interactions. By developing cognitive skills that will
carry them on throughout their college years and careers. I have spent my scientific career surrounded by
curious scientists with their own specialized niches and interests. While each scientists niche is vast and
yet still evolving, I found myself using my own curiosity to bridge the various disciplines and interests.
Through my observation of scientists continually questioning and exploring, I became inspired to pass
this on to the future generations. As a teacher, I want to guide students curiosity and exploration.
I will share my science experiences with my students. It includes traveling abroad and
collaborating with scientists from many nationalities, as far north as the Netherlands, as far south as
Brazil and from lands in between such as France and Germany. I also wish to share my diverse career
itself. I believe I can inspire students to become curious about the science of agricultural where I worked
to develop transformation technologies, through the use of agrobacterium, the gene gun and green
fluorescent proteins. These are technologies that bring lives new robust genetically engineered crops to
better lives, present a way to provide food for growing populations around the globe.
I will share some cutting edge technologies, these revolutionize the detection of contaminants,
and allergens, even authenticity technologies they allow our economies and individuals to remain healthy

Personal Philosophies Paper

Alison

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and informed. I want to teach science because I truly believe I can engage and have an impact on
students. U believe I can shape them into informed citizens capable of making sound future decisions by
utilizing the scientific method both inside and outside of science. Science is like air, without it a sound
national future can not breathe. If a students scientific knowledge is contaminated with miss-information,
they will not be able to participate healthfully in society.
Many students leave their science education with the same misunderstanding they arrived with.
Their brains contain a tangled web of insights from personal observations without a means to cultivate it.
The few new science teachers who emerge with a research based framework and are ready to truly
encourage the students developing minds. There still exists a proportion of traditional teachers who
lecture and expect massive memorization of materials. These short term memorizations are lost almost as
soon as the exam has passed. A new breed of scientifically engaging teachers is needed to help to tilt the
momentum from students attaining momentary retention thru "schooling" (Goodlad, 1983) to facilitating
learning for the formation of a solid and informed educational foundation. I want to teach students
because, I want to help my students to develop a solid foundation to build the way to look at the world.
Retention of science is not encouraged by reading and answering questions from the classroom
textbooks. Rather our students only learn "that 'science' is a pile of facts way too big for us to ever hope to
conquer" (Firestein 2012) The American Association for the advancement of Science in a review of 10
scientific textbooks gave them all unsatisfactory ratings" (CNN, 2000). It is clear that our textbooks are
inadequate to successfully convey the depth of science. Poor textbooks "did not encourage students to
examine their ideas or relate lessons to hands-on experiments and everyday life" (CNN, 2000). Research
based teachers are needed to engage students to make these connections. Students need hands-on
experiments and engaging lessons to understand and retain scientific concepts.
From a pragmatic view, how do we as educators take textbooks that are pre-packaged corporate
facts for curriculum that are 1" deep, and a mile wide, covering a vast number of topics, with little true

Personal Philosophies Paper

Alison

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depth and transform loosely connected to something beyond "a set of unlinked facts" (CNN, 2000)? We
must do so by creating a foundation of memories intertwined with understanding of fundamental science
concepts. In doing so, we create a future informed public. With traditional teaching, creativity is not
encouraged. Memorization becomes the major focus of our classrooms and textbooks. Our student
become overwhelmed by massive amounts of information. "What can schools do for little Eva besides
making still more information available? (Postman, 1995)
Postman's little Eva much like little Hazen's little Elizabeth and Ben may also easily become
bored and even repulsed by science in a traditional science teacher's classroom. Teachers tend to teach the
way they were taught, thus without conviction and effort. Traditional teaching lends it's teachers to give
long lectures because they were trained like this. Lectures are a unidirectional flow of information, and
students spend too much time listening and not enough time engaging. For laboratory experiences,
tradition lends easily to "canned" (Hazen, 1991) labs which do not encourage creative thinking. Eva,
Elisabeth and Ben just need to be able to correctly follow the steps, or even worse not perform the
experiment at all and calculate backwards to obtain the "correct", (Hazen, 1991) answers.
A continual search for the correct but possibly misunderstood vocabulary does little to bolster
creativity. Students arrive in class with pre-formed notions based on observations, facts and myths they
experienced or were taught. The challenge to a teacher is to build upon this foundation to enforce facts,
and replace myths that are unscientific with long lasting thought processes. Keeping students busy with
busy work will not do this job as a student leaving the classroom with the answers to a series of
worksheets only facilitates short-term memorization. Once their worksheet collection is placed in the
recycling bin, everything is lost.
If the student is not given a solid context to place information, the student may incorporate the
information into existing misconceptions to give their myths additional support. Effective teachers must
be aware that students arrive to class with preformed notions regarding science. Additionally, not all

Personal Philosophies Paper

Alison

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students have had equal exposure to all scientific concepts. By the utilization of an interactive, hands on
demonstration students have an equal opportunity to experience growth.
One of the greatest in-equalizer our society as a whole faces is the "problem of poverty" (Cody,
2010). Effective communication and collaboration skill provide tools to advance all levels of society,
lending to evening the playing field beyond the stigma of socio-economic status. Traditional teaching
methods lack a way to instill communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking skills
necessary in today's technological world evidenced by our "children in high poverty schools scoring
below the international average"(Cody, 2010).
Across the socioeconomic divide there exists a cultural movement toward scientific literacy. "We
now speak of scientific literacy as an indispensable element in, if not an actual partner to, cultural
literacy" (Shamos, 1988). Traditional teaching is also questionable in it's ability to stimulate constructive
learning of scientific literacy objectives, the understanding of key scientific concepts, and the application
of science to everyday life.
Rather than tying teacher pay to quality and life-long student education, performance pay
encourages teachers to insure their students are capable of "performing in the first place". Implementation
of broader school standards adds more time in the classroom assessment and removes valuable education
time from meaningful engagements and the installation of lasting memories of new concepts. Across the
board it is clear, there is a need for change, but no changes are being implemented. In fact many teacher
Ed programs continue to in-adequately prepare teachers to satisfy student goals. Third, students not
adequately prepare for life students results in stagnation or worse, in an increase in dropout rates.
Hands on experiments encourage creativity and lasting memories. Such experiments give a sense
of pride to keep students engaged and feel they are free to explore in both classroom, and in the wider
world. Creating a creative environment is imperative. The classroom also has the added benefits of

Personal Philosophies Paper

Alison

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keeping students engaged as opposed to the less engaging long presentations. Teaching through inquiry,
and restructuring science activities can make a meaningful impact on students. Information may be
retained thru their lifetime.
I chose Des Moines Public schools mission statement to evaluate from the perspective of
my personal philosophy. I find it to be similar to my own personal philosophy in the development of
lifelong learning skills (DMPS, 2013). I agree with the approach that students need to be taught
constructively through experiences that forms ingrained memories as opposed to a loose association of
facts and concepts that lose their meaning outside of the classroom context and textbooks. This will form
healthy and informed individuals who are able to make informed decisions based upon fact and reason. I
believe I can become a teacher who is able to instill concepts so they are ingrained and cherished.
I do believe that subjects should intertwine and be supported by each other, and so I also believe
the DMPS statement Graduates demonstrate knowledge and understanding of a rigorous

curriculum integrated into all content areas also applies to my personal philosophy from a
constructivist perspective.
I hadnt yet thought about the need for students to be technologically ready, but upon review I do
agree with the approach. Todays society is tightly tied to technology, so many of our students
experiences are also tied to technology, thus from a teaching perspective there is room for technology as a
learning tool for students to build their knowledge. Students should also be prepared to enter a technology
driven society from a behaviorists perspective, and I believe this statement does fit with both of these
beliefs.
The next statement, Graduates have world awareness (DMPS, 2013). I believe this statement also
fits with my constructivist perspective. I believe that students are continually becoming more aware of the
world they live in, and that by relating educational experiences to real world examples a student will become
even more aware of the world they live in and how the world they live in evolved into what it is today.

Personal Philosophies Paper

Alison

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The last statement, Graduates possess the knowledge and skills to be self-directed and autonomous

is a behaviorists perspective. It is a theory that I am not sure that I believe with as children come to school at
all different levels of development, and some may be developmentally at different levels than others. I belive
it is the teachers role to encourage each and every student to their developmental level, and challenge them
to reach the next. I do believe in setting goals, and that teachers should be instrumental in helping their
students discover and reach those goals, but its not something I personally experienced at the secondary
education level. I do believe that teachers need to model positive behaviors, and that students should learn
from example. but I am not sure about teaching behaviors from a behaviorists perspective. The behaviorists
approach will be something I will do more research on.

References
CNN. (2000). Biology textbooks dont make the grade, scientists say. [Online] Available:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/children/06/27/teaching.biology.ap/index.html
Cody, A. (2010). The lesson of the lemmings: Schools and ecosystems. [Online] Available:
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2010/09/the_lesson_of_the_lemmings_sch.html
Dear Abby, (d.n.k.) Strenghtening Children as Individuals)
DMPS (2013), Educational Philosophy, Mission statement [Online] Available:
http://www.dmschools.org/about/educational-philosophy/
Goodlad, J. (1983). A study of schooling. Phi Delta Kappan, 64(7):52-57.
Hazen, R. (1991). Why my kids hate science. Newsweek.
Postman, Neil. (1995). The end of education: Redefining the value of school. Vintage: New York.