Educational Philosophy Essay -- Education Teaching Educating Essays

Educational Philosophy Writing my educational philosophy has required me to do an extensive amount of personal research that has taken me on some wonderful, inward journeys over the past few months. Voyages through my cognitive and behavioral personas from the beginning of my educational endeavor back in 1992 up until the present day. I have been digging diligently through my archives pulling out old papers I composed regarding my initial views toward education. I have reflected on my days in the writing center at George Mason University as a composition tutor. Plus, I evaluate myself in the classroom now as I teach at the local community college as well as in the local junior high and high schools for my student observation requirements at Concord College. Through all this, I’ve come to understand that my view of education, my philosophy towards education, and my professional development plans are all derived from three goals I have formed which identify my belief in why school exists . Just as John Goodlad (1984) identified four reasons for schooling in A Place Called Home, I’ve formed my own list after a considerable amount of self-reflections and observations. First, I feel as though school must continuously strive to increase academic achievement in all students. In order to do this, the classroom must be focused on academic learning time. The students must be allocated time to become highly engaged in the lesson. This means active learning needs to be increased and other actions, such as administrative measures and straight lecturing, need to be decreased. My second goal is that school must foster positive social relationships among the students. The key to this is in creating an e... ...panish as well as in Health Studies. Also, I maintain active membership to the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in order to keep me informed on new and old theoretical and practical instructional methods regarding grammar, composition, and literature. Continuous educational growth and learning is a major component to my personal wealth and satisfaction as an English teacher. I believe cooperative learning is one key to how I might skim the surface of my educational focus on heightened academic learning time, positive social relationships, and heightened emotional needs of all students. Works Cited: Goodlad, John. (1984). A place called home. New York: McGraw-Hill. Slavin, Robert., & Cooper, Robert. (1999). Improving intergroup relations: Lessons learned from cooperative learning programs. Journal of Social Issues, 55 (4), 647-661.