Philosophy of Education

Welcome Letter

It's important for teachers to communicate their beliefs, goals and practices to parents and students at the beginning of each school year. This can usually be done in the form of a welcome letter that goes out to parents. I believe this letter is necessary to start forming the relationship between the teacher and the parent. Click here for an example of a possible Welcome Letter that I would distribute at the beginning of the school year to my students and their families. Welcome letters don't have to detail the events of the entire school year, but they can share general plans and ideas about what their students will be doing at school.

People think of education as something they can finish.

- Isaac Asimov

Since I’ve started my university studies to become a teacher, my professors have been asking us to think about our philosophy of education and what being a teacher means to us. I thought it was odd that I had to write an essay on my Philosophy of Education in one of my first education classes in my first semester because I hadn’t spent much time yet developing this philosophy at a university level. However, I’m glad I wrote it because I think it would be interesting to write a similar essay in my last year at McGill and compare it to the first essay. This way, I could track how my ideas have shifted after spending more time in classrooms and receiving more training.

The Image of the Whole Child

Everybody has their own image of the child, which can be based on experiences, facts, myths, or personal judgments. In order to get a whole image of the child, one can take into account the many domains of their development. Children demonstrate signs of affective, physical, social, cognitive and esthetic development (these are the 5 domains that make up the child). These areas of growth have contributed to the way in which children are viewed, in the past and in the present. The whole image of the child can be represented by a pencil case filled with various items, which each serve as a symbol for a characteristic that I believe is fundamental to the child and how people view them. The pencil case itself, chosen for its connection to education and children, represents the whole child.

Pencil: Children take pencils in their hand to write, which symbolizes how children take their learning into their own hands by playing an active role in their education. This goes along with the Reggio Emilia Approach, which puts a lot of emphasis on the child’s role as an active constructor of knowledge and on the nature of the knowledge to be learned. The approach is built on the belief that children have rights rather than only needs, which means that their opinions and thoughts are taken seriously. This approach views children as researchers who investigate and reflect deeply, which is why they are given the opportunity to explore the world on their own (Mercilliot Hewitt, 2001).

Colored Crayons: These address an important aspect of our image of the child: multiculturalism.

Affective Domain:

Eraser: This serves a symbol for the risk-taking that can characterize many children, and seeing as how risk taking can lead to mistakes, the eraser is appropriate.
Led: This represents how sensitive and fragile children can be because led breaks very easily. People often perceive young children as being emotionally unstable and temperamental, but this is because they are still developing their emotional competence.

Physical Domain:

Ruler: Children are in a constant state of physical growth and development, which can actually be measured with a ruler. They are mentally flexible, but this can also apply to their bodies.
Elastic Band: Represents mental flexibility. Children are often seen by society as being flexible, energetic, fast, and more agile than adults, which is where the elastic also fits in.

Social Domain:

Glue: This represent how sociable children are and their ability to make friends. We chose to use glue to represent how sociable children are and their ability to make friends.
Tape: On the other hand, the egocentric quality of children is represented by tape because everything sticks to tape. Young children see the world through their eyes and therefore see one point of view.

Cognitive Domain:

Calculator: This serves as a symbol of how intelligent we believe children are. This was chosen for intelligence children because calculators are often related to mathematical thinking and higher processes.
Magnifying Glass: Represents the curious quality of children. This is an appropriate symbol because it represents the disocery of new things and innate curiosity.

Aesthetic Domain:

Paintbrush: This represents creativity in children because children can use it to express their creativity without resorting to words, to create things that may not exist in reality, and to showcase their originality.
Scissors: This is a tool that allows children to use their imaginations freely by creating all kinds of shapes.

Some information about developmental domains taken from Kostelnik, Rupiper, Soderman & Whiren, 2014.

"What Teachers Make" by Talor Mali

In all honesty, I think it takes a special kind of person to be a teacher. Like many professions, not everyone is cut out to be a teacher – and to be a good one. There’s so much time and effort that goes into education and teaching others, and that’s part of what my philosophy of education is based on. Before I get to that, I wanted to talk about the way teaching is valued in our society. Like I said, not everyone can be a teacher, but I believe a lot of people think they could easily do the job of a teacher. This, I think, is because the teaching craft is highly undervalued in our society. Teaching may appear simple – give homework, tell students not to pick their noses, line children up at the bell, explain a concept or two, but it is actually highly complex. That’s what people don’t realize, which is really disappointing to see. When I think about the way teaching is viewed, I think back to a video I saw when I started university, entitled “What Teachers Make” by Taylor Mali. Here it is:

Every time I watch this video, my mind is blown by the power behind Mali’s words. I get goosebumps simply from viewing it because he expresses exactly what I feel in such a clear and direct way. I always get inspired to be the best teacher I can be! When I’m struggling to take on a certain task as a teacher, or when I feel discouraged, I often think about this spoken word poem and it reminds me about the importance of teaching. When I feel down about the way society views teaching, this poem helps to remind me why I’m in this field and how rewarding teaching actually is. Taylor Mali is a truly inspirational teacher and you can visit his website here. I also found a really cool comic strip that adds images to the poem. This image is from the ZenPencils blog and can also be found here.

Iceberg Metaphor

To go back to my own philosophy of education, I came up with a metaphor to explain my take on it. I think of education as an iceberg. In essence, only a small portion of the iceberg is visible out of the water, while the large majority of it is submerged and hidden. This idea has always fascinated me because there’s approximately ninety percent of the iceberg that isn’t visible. I have related this idea to education because I believe there’s a huge part of education that, although is very present, isn’t visible or tangible. What we see on the surface is only a little bit of what actually goes into an education and into what makes it so significant and special. Moreover, students are often not aware of the elements that are making their education worthwhile. Students and teachers alike gain experiences, knowledge, skills, and memories that can’t be measured in concrete ways. Only individuals know what they have gained, how they have developed and grown as a result of education. A large part of education comes from the relationships that are formed between students as well between students and teachers. These types of relationship are not a luxury of education; they are required to make education function and to keep students engaged and interested. To me, education is about constantly learning new things, whether it is about yourself or about traditional knowledge. Schools should be reserved for pure learning and growth.

According to Palmer (1998), teachers are the ones with the power to either prevent kids from learning or to enhance this learning. Teachers have many roles to play in the classroom, one of the most important being that of a guider for students. Teachers have the responsibility of guiding the learning of their students instead of directing and controlling it. My notion of the parts of education that are hidden below the “water level” also applies to teaching and not only learning. Teaching isn’t all about technique, just like learning isn’t all about getting the right answers on tests. I believe, partly because of my personal experiences with teachers, that these mentors in our lives are incredibly significant people.

In addition, Taylor Mali’s poem impacted me in a profound way because I connected to what Mali said about what teachers really do in their classrooms. Some of his lines in particular resonated with me. Mali says that “[he makes] parents see their children for who they are and who they can be” (Mali, 2008), which I think parents can sometimes miss on their own. Mali’s poem did not only focus on the traditional knowledge that he instills in his students, but it also highlighted the importance of other aspects that teachers can bring out in students. As he says, “[teachers] make kids work harder than they even thought they could”, which is exactly what they should be doing (Mali, 2008). The bond that students form with their students enriches any educational experience and although it isn’t visible, it definitely makes a difference.

Extra Scoop...

After I finished writing about my education philosophy here, I read a very interesting news article on Buzzfeed about an amazing teacher making other educators reflect and think about their teaching practices. Check out my post about it to see how it connects to what I’ve been describing here about the complex relationship between the teacher and the student.