Romnick C.

Portillano

Each of us has an attitude toward life, to our students, politics, teaching-learning processes, and
previous personal experiences that informs and shapes our set of beliefs or even our decisions. Although at
some point of time we are not conscious of it, these set of beliefs, or personal philosophy, informs how we
live, work, and interact with others. As a teacher perhaps, what I believe is directly reflected in both my
teaching and learning processes. My actions will somehow manifest the philosophy that I am living with.
For almost six years of teaching, I realized that education and philosophy are interrelated. Philosophy
becomes the theory while educational practices that a person is exercising become an arena of application
of the latter.

As a teacher, I believe on the significance of teaching basic or essential skills to my students.

Learning can be at its best momentum when the students have learned first the ABC’s of any course you
want them to digest. This is so true with one of the features of k-12 curriculum on the spiral progression of
the topics apparent on learner’s material so with the teacher’s curriculum guide. If one had not learned the
basics, they would never have reached the level of understanding to extend or question them and move
their subject further. Learning basic concepts at the very first place is important it’s because they are your
foundation to bigger things. This is actually what existentialism as a philosophy is ideally portraying.

Few would deny also that today, emerging beliefs flag the value and impact of student-centered
philosophies. It is again with strong conviction – as what the constructivists try to emphasize- that I hold on
the belief that all learners have innate potentials and could be unlocked by the world we provide to them
thereby giving them the chance to discover and unleashed their respective inclinations. With the so-called
learning opportunities, it can be generally assumed that each learner individually (and socially) constructs
meaning---as he or she learns. I am utterly convinced that this philosophy is driving me subtly and is
manifested in the activities I have provided to students like groupings in solving task and group
performances.

On second thoughts, those philosophies mentioned earlier is not that great as how we see it. For
me, everything can be void if the attitude sucks. If the behavior of the students is not beneficial to the
society. Intelligence is useless without right and sound attitude. Lenient also to the philosophy of
progressivism, I am certain that the fact that smart people sometimes behave stupidly is, of course, not
exactly wholesome. It’s a common knowledge that Philippines is subdue with educated people. We can’t
deny the fact that Filipinos have high regard on education. However, touching on the economy and politics
things, we are altogether testified and satisfied that the root of poverty and constant nonprogressive
platforms is due to corruption. Sadly, instead of having public officers seeing their office as a place of trust
where intelligent people go to serve, our politicians see it as a place to solve their earthly material problems
and opportunity to correct financial deficit. Dissecting the issue, we can say that we have intelligent leaders
but lacks values. Therefore, I believe that education should not train students in pure academe but give
commensurate focus on developing the student’s moral compass. As a teacher I am convinced that a not
too brilliant person with a great attitude is more valuable to an organization than a brilliant person with a
bad attitude. In an organization setting for example, Richard Branson stressed that it is desirable to hire for
attitude and train for skill.

In a nutshell, we can understand that philosophies are like ingredients in cooking. You need to take
a perfect parcel from each to arrive at the best taste of your food.