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Alexander Bonde-Balutowski

Professor Connie Christensen

EDU 202

3 April 2019

Artifact # 1 – Philosophy of Education

Ask any student what a great teacher does or does not do; you will receive a wide variety

of opinions. This wide variety stems from the student's personal opinions as well as the

philosophy a student is most comfortable with. The teaching strategy that works on one student

may not work on others and may be counter-intuitive, and it could create a stressful environment

for teachers who must find new and creative ways to instruct students. Why would anyone want

to become a teacher? Throughout the following essay we will explore my personal reasons for

wanting to pursue teaching, what philosophies I want to bring into my teaching career, as well as

my plan to instruct students, and the qualities I want to bring into the educational community.

Ever since I can remember I have enjoyed helping and teaching others; I have always

gone out of my way to do so. As a junior in high school, I was given the opportunity to

participate in a program called Outdoor Lab. This program takes sixth grade students in Jefferson

County, Colorado, and gives them the opportunity to learn about the ecosystem while living in

the mountains. This additionally provides high school students the opportunity to go with the

sixth grade students to act as teachers (High School Leaders) and teach a variety of topics. It was

during my time as a high school leader that I realized my passion for teaching. In each of my

Outdoor Labs those that I was paired with told me that I would be a great teacher. At first I

laughed and joked; as I got older I realized that they may have had a point. My passion for

teaching began to fade after leaving high school but was reignited when I did teaching
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observations. It was extremely motivating to see how invested the teacher I was with was into his

students. This investment was just not based on their education, as he also cared very deeply

about their personal lives as well. The level of commitment that he had inspired me even more to

be the best teacher I could be and to bring the same trait with me into my teaching goals.

Each and every teacher has to take their own approach to how they want to attempt and

teach multiple students. For some teachers, this means taking the strict approach and making

their classroom solely based around lesson plans. This type of teaching philosophy would fall

into either Essentialism, “Essentialism strives to teach students the accumulated knowledge of

our civilization through core courses in the traditional academic disciplines,” (Sadker &

Zittleman, 2016, p. 162) or Perennialsim; “ Perennialists organize their schools around books,

ideas, and concepts and criticize essentialist for the vast amount of factual information they

require students to absorb in their push for “cultural literacy”,”(Sadker & Zittleman, 2016, p.

164).On the opposite side of things, some teachers take a more relaxed approach to teaching and

focus on student-centered philosophies. These type of teaching philosophies would include

Progressivism. “Progressivism organizes schools around the concerns, curiosity, and real-world

experiences of students,” (Sadker & Zittleman, 2016, p. 167), Social Reconstructionism “Social

Reconstructionism Encourages schools, teachers, and students to focus their studies and energies

on alleviating pervasive social inequalities and, as the name implies, reconstruct society into a

new and more just social order,” (Sadker & Zittleman, 2016, p. 168) and finally Existentialism.

“Existentialism asserts that the purpose of education is to help children find the meaning and

direction in their lives, and it rejects the notion that adults should or could direct meaningful

learning for children,”(Sadker & Zittleman, 2016, p. 171). Personally, I find it interesting how as

America has grown older as a society and a nation we have moved away from Perennialsim type
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schools to more of an Existentialism style of schools. In my own opinion, this is a positive

switch and I am fully on board. As we have progressed as a civilization, children have easier

access to more information as well as different ways of learning. A perfect example of this

would be an online school. If you went back even as recent as a decade ago, the idea of online

schools would be outrageous and many people would say they would not attend. Fast forward to

present day and it is not uncommon to have hybrid students that go to online school as well as in-

person classes or even all online students.

One of the most important strategies that I want to bring into the classroom when I begin

teaching is an open environment. I believe that every student should have the right to share what

they believe and represent it up to a point. When it comes to conflicting views, I believe students

should talk about both their sides and respect others’ opinions. With that being said, however, if

the conflicting views lead to a conflict, I would sit down with both students and attempt to work

through their conflict until both can respect each other's views. Additionally, I would attempt to

expose the students to as many different cultures and real-world experiences as I can. There are

far too many students that know a lot about the subjects they are presented within the school but

have almost zero real-world experience. At the end of the day, I want to help as many students as

I can, regardless, if it is with their educational learning or their real-life learning.

As a teacher, I will come into contact with children from many different cultures and

ethnicities and one of the most important things is to be understanding. It is incredibly important

that I attempt to take each students culture into account when creating lesson plans so that I do

not offend their culture or them. Additionally, I believe that a an important trait to carry with me

into my teaching career would be to stay unbiased. There are far too many teachers that bring

their past experiences with a certain culture or race into the classroom. This puts these students at
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a distinct disadvantage because the teacher will treat them differently from other students and

may lead to a decrease in the child's education for no fault of their own. Finally, the last trait that

I want to bring with me into the future would be to stay current on my own education. It is not

fair to any student to be provided outdated information as if it is new, regardless if the teacher is

conscious of it or not. In order to reach my future, I first need to finish my degree. Also, I plan

on volunteering as much as I can to aid in my understanding of not only my community but also

the different cultures that live in it. I personally cannot wait to see what my future holds for me

and to help as many students as I can.

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