Jared Weber Philosophy of Education Education is a field that is in a constant state of motion.

There are constantly programs and ideas being introduced in an attempt to better the experience of students both academically and outside of school. With this constant fluidity, the most important point thing to keep in mind is what is the purpose of education? Everyone has their own best answer, and if you were to ask 10 different people this question, then you would probably receive 10 different answers. They might be similar, but there is a very slim chance that they would be exactly the same. After pondering this question, I think the purpose of education is introduction. This may sound strange upon first being stated, but it is not as far-fetched as one might think. Education is the constant process of introducing new concepts, ideas, and facts to a population whose world view is still mostly limited and is also trapped in a specific location for an extended period of time. Regardless, the student is constantly being introduced to things. Elementary school sees students introduced to the concept of formal schooling for the first time. They begin interacting with other children their age on a daily basis in an academic setting. They may have interacted with children every day, but it was most likely in a different, much more jovial, setting. In middle school, students are introduced to the concept of accelerated courses, whether they are in the Honors courses or not, the concept is now introduced as is most students, mainly men, reaching of puberty. Once an individual reaches high school, it can be difficult trying to figure out what they want to do for the rest of their life, let alone build a plan on what theyre going to be doing for dinner that night. However, high school, and middle school classes are perfect for this purpose. They continue introducing students to ideas that could affect a student so profoundly that they swap to an entirely new major when going to college because it is oddly fitting for that

individual. Once students reach college, they continue to be introduced to new ideas and topics, but they begin focusing it in on a specific field. Almost any field that they might enter will be able to have ideas that are new to the individual and need to be introduced to them. It is a never ending cycle. While this entire introduction process is going on, students are constantly introduced to new students, new specials on television that present new information, other teachers, and possible future business connections. The students garner these connections and it, hopefully, expands their worldview. In our global world, there is a flow of goods, services, and humans between the countries of this planet. With this constant flow of culture, it is more than likely that a school will, at some point, acquire students who may are in need of an ESL program to assist these new students from other countries learn English and become fluent participants in our society. It is easy for the students who grew up in the district to discriminate against those new students that have only recently arrived in America or have recently begun attending the school in question from another area. Students will often treat the foreign students, foreign either by country or district, differently than their peers because they are unfamiliar with the culture. A student who school of choices from an inner-city area and is fluent in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) but struggles with Standard English (SE) will likely be treated in a similar manner to a student who has only recently arrived from a foreign country and speaks broken English. They are different, so they are treated differently. This is part of the reason why a greater employment of multicultural education would be beneficial to many students. By understanding the foreign students that the local students are going to school with better, they can treat the foreign students in a more appropriate manner. AAVE represents another issue in itself. Oftentimes, AAVE is stated to be an incorrect

method of speaking English, carries the connotation of lesser intelligence levels, and is generally frowned upon. When telling a classroom of students who speak in AAVE that they are speaking wrong and need to conform to a new method of speech, teachers not only run the risk of turning students off to the learning because they are insulted, but they are also expecting students to change years of language learning. Changing years of speech patterns is no easy task. AAVE, like any form of speech, has rules that it is required to follow. By trying to flat out erase this dialect from the speech patterns of an individual, a teacher will most likely fail at their attempted task and alienate the individual. AAVE needs to be worked with, not against. Teachers shouldnt try and destroy AAVE speech patterns in individuals, but they should teach them the rules and methods for speaking Standard English (SE). AAVE is not an incorrect speech form, but is inappropriate in some settings. AAVE is inappropriate in most formal settings, such as in a business setting. This would be a setting for the usage of SE. Many informal settings, like hanging out with friends, would be an appropriate time to for these speakers to use AAVE. By teaching inner-city students to use SE in appropriate settings while still keeping their AAVE knowledge, teachers can help students achieve gains in professional settings while maintaining their cultural traits. Incorporating AAVE into a classroom is one example of how a classroom can be made more multicultural and possibly keep students interested. Another issue that is in the education field is in regards to alienating women. For many years, the curriculums of classes such as English and History were very male oriented. However, recently, the History classroom has taken large steps to giving more space in history books to women, and not just the important ones. They look at everyday women much more than they have throughout the past. In the English classroom, one might say that female representation is extremely strong, in some cases to the point of being too much and alienating male students.

There is a larger number of female teachers than male teachers in the English field. In many English classrooms run by female teachers, there is a general trend to teach literature that is female-centric in nature. While this would be acceptable if there was a mixing with other types of literature, this is not usually the case. It usually results in the teacher focusing almost entirely on literature that tells the story of a woman and are often quite feminist in nature. This tends to alienate male students who might otherwise be very interested in the English field. This is a trend that I have noticed through my own educational experience, both at the high school and college levels, as well as by discussing the topic with students from a variety of places here at Grand Valley. When questioning students about this trend, I have noticed students generally respond in the affirmative to my position. While it is important to not under represent women in the educational experience as they have been in the past, it is also important not too over represent them now and alienate other students. A problem that appears in some schools and, I believe, one of the reasons that teachers have received a lot of flak recently is the teachers who have tenure and are in the classroom just to collect a paycheck. When this occurs, those students in the class will most likely not understand the material which they might need for other classes later in school or for standardized testing. This student will probably complain to their parents about the teacher who then may speak with their friends about the poor teacher that their student has. This raises the thought process of teachers being nothing but glorified babysitters since the students arent learning anything. The problem is that this specific population is small within the greater teacher population, yet they are portrayed as the majority. This results in cutting of teacher pay and benefits because people dont want to pay a lot of money for someone to just watch their kids all day. These cuts can cause teachers to become bitter with the system and thus increase the

number of teachers just collecting a paycheck which just leads to a negative spiral. This suggests the path of incentive-based teaching, however, this idea has its own set of problems. A teacher could receive a group of students who are generally either unmotivated or unintelligent and score poorly in the class as a result of themselves and not the teacher. Teachers can also doctor grades to make themselves appear better and receive a larger paycheck. I think that the correct solution to this problem is to give teachers a base pay of slightly lower than what they receive right now and create an incentive system in which performance is assessed in comparison to performance in previous classes and years while having very stringent requirements that would minimize the ability of teachers to doctor grades. By looking at prior performance while minimizing doctoring, a more accurate representation of teachers ability can be determined. This way the teacher is not penalized if a student who traditionally fails school or struggles in science classes ends up failing his or her course or struggling in a science class. There is a lot of good in the field of education, but there are also a number of problems that need to be addressed. Addressing these problems can be difficult sometimes due to the trend of cutting the education budget that has been seen in recent history. Some of these problems even stem from the budget cuts. However, we must play the hands we are dealt. The purpose of education is introduction. Students are introduced to new concepts and ideas all the way until graduating college. Some ideas that could use a more widespread introduction are multicultural education, a degenderizing of courses such as History and English, and incentive-based pay. I think that education has come a long way in being more accommodating to minority groups, and not focusing mainly on men in the classroom, but there is still a ways to go. Incentive-based pay is another idea that, if carefully employed, could lead to huge educational gains in certain areas.