Educational Philosophy

Educational Philosophy 1

EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

Educational Philosophy

Cesar Backus

University of Phoenix Ð'- MAT 501

The Art and Science of Teaching

March 8, 2006

Jimmy R. Marin

Educational Philosophy 2

Philosophy is a belief, questions about existence, knowledge and ethics; any personal belief about how to live or how to deal with a situation. It is my belief that incorporation different philosophies in education, is probably the best way to be successful in teaching. In a classroom of thirty different children, you have to be able to fit in different philosophies, standards and strategies along with their personalities and style of learning. We are constantly learning, whether we're aware of it or not. Education is inevitable; it's all around us because we can learn from virtually anything. When you are cooking, dancing, or even communicating with someone, you had to learn several things to be able to do them.

When it comes to teaching, there is one philosophy that stands out, that is epistemology. The epistemology finds reality within the child's structure of what he/she knows. I feel that learning should be involved with children's real life situations. Learning becomes more understandable to student when they can apply it to their personal life situations, rather than trying to learn things they can't connect with. I would like children to able to think for themselves and solve problems that will allow them to apply them to future similar situations. As educators, any philosophy or a variety of skills needs to be introduced in order to maintain the student interest; making sure their attention is on you and ready for you to introduce them to something exciting. An example of that would be to have them participate in a hands-on activity; this will assist them in connecting to the lecture. Many times, we tend to remember things we did, than things we read. I believe it makes a major difference when you allow students to be part of the lesson and let them experiment for themselves.

When it comes to teaching, children are born with the nature to learn and explore their surroundings. We as educators should allow them to discover their surroundings and

Educational Philosophy 3

learn from their past experiences. Bringing metaphysics to your education allows students to discover the reality of their learnings. Metaphysics is interesting to me because it believes that the truth is within the child, the individual. I believe we as educators have the responsibility to motivate our students to "want to learn," making education fun and exciting, this will encourage them to learn what is real and to explore the world we live in. In order to achieve this, children should be presented with a set of courses that balances their needs; in other words, class should be challenging and enjoyable. Courses should maintain pleasing enough for them to stay motivated, but not too simple where they'll get bored and lose interest. Students should be occupied in learning more; the information provided should be made real and relevant for children. We need to expand their possibilities by providing choices that will expand their minds, challenging obstacles, and encourage their creative skills. In order to provide them with positive attitude of themselves and what they learned, educators must ease the progress of learning by providing the right environment for communication between their schoolmates and their instructor. I also feel it's very important to always commend students for their efforts and achievements; this will only encourage students to continue their positive approach towards education. Educators should praise students for jobs well done, not only academically, but socially. Doing so, not only verbally, but by behavior and work ethics. There are many incentives that could take place in this approach, such as: good tickets for a good job, table points, money voucher to be used within the classroom; which will assist in their math skills, and many other enticing rewards.

Axiology is very interesting to me as well, it finds value in the child, allowing them to become self-worthy; this becomes very important in a person's life. Axiology concentrates

Educational Philosophy 4

on the meaning of life and a higher good. Educating acceptance in young children through exposure of a handicapped, or disabled person, should encourage them to have high moral standards later in life. The experience of axiology develops feelings of empathy, which will ultimately build modest and grateful adults. There are many ways to educate, in other words, educators must be creative when teaching and not bore the students. They have to be able to capture the student's interest and minds. Logic is a great philosophy to allow children to grow through their mistakes. Logic allows children to live with the consequences of their choices. It also allows teachers and parents some control, for the reason that logic teaches children to be responsible, and prepares young people to live in the real world, with choices and consequences. For example, "because you were disruptive, you will not be able to go to the library with the rest of the class." In addition to logic comes ethics, this allows children to learn from their past mistakes. Ethics is a valuable philosophy because it allows children to understand cause and effect. Reading to children good books that have moral endings is a great way to introduce ethics. Educators can instill in students basic ethics in a everyday manner, for example: saying please and thank you, greeting people properly, rather than just saying "hi", respecting the privacy of others, not interrupting, honesty, courteous, being responsible for your own actions, and many other moral values.

Philosophy makes a great impact on educators, because

...