Philosophy of Education
In approaching education at the high school level, there are a variety of factors that one must take into account in order to be effective. High school is a chaotic time for adolescents, with the identity each student seems themselves as occupying often changing every week. As philosopher Adam Kotsko once tweeted, "We ask 18 year-olds to make huge decisions about their career and financial future, when a month ago they had to ask to use the bathroom." Though humorous, this quip serves to illustrate the exact pressures that mount on high school students the further into their high school education they get. Paradoxically, their immediate education, what is happening right in front of their eyes while in class, is not necessarily something that are focused on. As such, any approach to high school education must be one grounded in the creation of self-motivation within students, with an informed understanding of how each individual is viewing themselves not only in relation to the their instructor, but also to their peers. As I will detail further below, my philosophy of education is influenced first and foremost by humanist approaches, focused on finding ways for my classroom to be as self-directed a possible, relegating me towards the position of facilitator rather than someone who simply holds all the knowledge.
The idea of purpose goes hand-in-hand with the concept of identity. As one develops an identity, one simultaneously begins to find purpose within it. For instance, if a student is a star athlete, then that student may begin dressing in athletic clothes with popular logos and brands. Likewise that student, if the culture so dictates, may see his or her grades rise or fall based upon what the culture around them values. The "feeling out," per se, of a student finding out who they are or who they desire to be, is guided by what developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst Erik Erikson termed the psychosocial moratorium (Santrock, 2014). The psychosocial moratorium is "the gap between childhood security and adult autonomy. During this period, society leaves adolescents relatively free of responsibilities and able to try out different roles and personalities" (Santrock, 2014, p. 327). This freedom has direct influence on the classroom, as lessons may come into direct conflict with identities (i.e. religious students encountering opposing ideas for the first time), or perhaps aid students in cementing autonomy in their identities (i.e. a student who wants to be an artist excelling at a project for math class in which they were able to incorporate their artistic skills). This again reinforces the movement towards more constructivist teaching approaches, which is supported heavily by humanism, student-led teaching theory. In a classroom in which students approach education through their own lens, incentive being self-cultivated through a teacher's aim being to create a desire to learn rather than a desire to pass. American schools' tendency to overvalue scores on standardized testing or over-reliance on a 0-100 grade school results in students who do not value education, but rather grades themselves.
But still, even if a classroom is built from the ground up to provide an education in which students can feel comfortable within all the types of identities they will inevitably explore throughout adolescence, a teacher still must find a way to facilitate learning in such a way that identities do not class and every individual student's learning needs are met, whether they be GT or SpEd. Lev Vygotksy's theory of the Zone of Proximal Development illustrates perfectly what my approach to education should hinge upon, namely, finding each student's individual manner of learning and degree of comfort in being challenged. At what point do students find it impossible to solve a problem? At what point is a problem far too easy? Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development puts for the idea that this zone is far from static, remaining constantly in motion throughout an individual learner's life. In blending this with a psuedo-humanistic approach, the employment of this idea is found in providing the student with access to the information needed to solve the problem (each individual student is provided with this information in a variety of forms), and then altering the amount of direct input from the teacher on a student to student basis, as well as encouraging more student-led learning, allowing students to function as facilitators of learning on essentially the same level as the teacher. Each student gets their needs met as well as differentiation occurring for those whose ZPD is on a higher level than their peers.
However, this brief philosophy would be laughably incomplete if it were not to explicitly factor in the effect of outside influences on students, whether known or unknown. A student exists within an almost set system, that, using Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory, forms a group of micro and macrocosms that an adolescent must learn to balance. Going from one extreme to the other, it is not to be discounted within education whether or not a student is sleeping in their own bedroom or in a car with a sibling. Thus, every grade, every assignment, every classroom setting is full of inescapable, often unknowable, contexts for each individual that shapes and molds them into the person they are that day and will become in the future. This brings up again the importance of creating a classroom setting in which students are not taught as a monolith, or taught under the assumption that all are coming into the room on equal "footing," per se. It seems obvious, yet this is perhaps the easy failure to walk into as a teacher, creating lessons as if all students learn the same way, or all have the same innate privileges in life.
In the end, my approach to education is one that requires a blending of several systems, as required by the American system. If it were up to me, assessments would be used to assess rather than grade, lowering the stakes in which students must perform for their futures. Yet, the system that exists is the system I must adjust to, and it is through this window I look and teach.
The idea of purpose goes hand-in-hand with the concept of identity. As one develops an identity, one simultaneously begins to find purpose within it. For instance, if a student is a star athlete, then that student may begin dressing in athletic clothes with popular logos and brands. Likewise that student, if the culture so dictates, may see his or her grades rise or fall based upon what the culture around them values. The "feeling out," per se, of a student finding out who they are or who they desire to be, is guided by what developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst Erik Erikson termed the psychosocial moratorium (Santrock, 2014). The psychosocial moratorium is "the gap between childhood security and adult autonomy. During this period, society leaves adolescents relatively free of responsibilities and able to try out different roles and personalities" (Santrock, 2014, p. 327). This freedom has direct influence on the classroom, as lessons may come into direct conflict with identities (i.e. religious students encountering opposing ideas for the first time), or perhaps aid students in cementing autonomy in their identities (i.e. a student who wants to be an artist excelling at a project for math class in which they were able to incorporate their artistic skills). This again reinforces the movement towards more constructivist teaching approaches, which is supported heavily by humanism, student-led teaching theory. In a classroom in which students approach education through their own lens, incentive being self-cultivated through a teacher's aim being to create a desire to learn rather than a desire to pass. American schools' tendency to overvalue scores on standardized testing or over-reliance on a 0-100 grade school results in students who do not value education, but rather grades themselves.
But still, even if a classroom is built from the ground up to provide an education in which students can feel comfortable within all the types of identities they will inevitably explore throughout adolescence, a teacher still must find a way to facilitate learning in such a way that identities do not class and every individual student's learning needs are met, whether they be GT or SpEd. Lev Vygotksy's theory of the Zone of Proximal Development illustrates perfectly what my approach to education should hinge upon, namely, finding each student's individual manner of learning and degree of comfort in being challenged. At what point do students find it impossible to solve a problem? At what point is a problem far too easy? Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development puts for the idea that this zone is far from static, remaining constantly in motion throughout an individual learner's life. In blending this with a psuedo-humanistic approach, the employment of this idea is found in providing the student with access to the information needed to solve the problem (each individual student is provided with this information in a variety of forms), and then altering the amount of direct input from the teacher on a student to student basis, as well as encouraging more student-led learning, allowing students to function as facilitators of learning on essentially the same level as the teacher. Each student gets their needs met as well as differentiation occurring for those whose ZPD is on a higher level than their peers.
However, this brief philosophy would be laughably incomplete if it were not to explicitly factor in the effect of outside influences on students, whether known or unknown. A student exists within an almost set system, that, using Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory, forms a group of micro and macrocosms that an adolescent must learn to balance. Going from one extreme to the other, it is not to be discounted within education whether or not a student is sleeping in their own bedroom or in a car with a sibling. Thus, every grade, every assignment, every classroom setting is full of inescapable, often unknowable, contexts for each individual that shapes and molds them into the person they are that day and will become in the future. This brings up again the importance of creating a classroom setting in which students are not taught as a monolith, or taught under the assumption that all are coming into the room on equal "footing," per se. It seems obvious, yet this is perhaps the easy failure to walk into as a teacher, creating lessons as if all students learn the same way, or all have the same innate privileges in life.
In the end, my approach to education is one that requires a blending of several systems, as required by the American system. If it were up to me, assessments would be used to assess rather than grade, lowering the stakes in which students must perform for their futures. Yet, the system that exists is the system I must adjust to, and it is through this window I look and teach.
Bibliography
Santrock, J. W. (2014). Child Development
(Fourteenth ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
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