Personal Philosophy of Education

This assignment will allow you to articulate your own philosophy of education and organize the bits and pieces of a lifetime of being a student and observing the world around you. By bringing your philosophy of education to a conscious level, thinking carefully about it, challenging your assumptions, and organizing your ideas into a written statement, you will have a solid foundation on which to begin teaching. A well-developed sense of purpose, values, and underlying beliefs about teaching and learning will help to maintain focus throughout your teaching career.

Think about your own approach and experiences in education. Make a list of all of the things that are important to you as a student and to you as a teacher or future teacher. Consider why you think these elements are important. You may use your Reflection Paper as a basis to organize these thoughts. What will you do as a teacher to ensure that these important factors are present in your classroom and are reflected in your instructional strategies and classroom-management techniques?
Read about the major philosophies of education: Essentialism, Perennialism, Progressivism, and Social Reconstructionism. There are others, but these four represent a broad range of general recognized educational philosophies and should serve as a good starting place by which you will build your own. You can find these in the document titled “Four Philosophies: Overview” or you may do your own research. Explore philosophies that match your beliefs.
Write a paper in which you discuss your beliefs in terms of the four philosophies, and explain which of these resonates with you the most and why. Your paper should be well structured and logically organized to demonstrate how your teaching philosophy (i.e., values and beliefs) relates to what you will do in the classroom (e.g., instructional strategies, use of technology, role of collaboration, types of discipline, respectful rapport). This 1-2 page paper should describe your core beliefs about teaching and learning and how these beliefs will be enacted in the classroom. To support your ideas, please provide specific examples and connect these to at least 1-2 specific philosophies. Include an Annotated Bibliography. Remember to cite any sources in APA format that you used to help you develop your ideas or that inspired your teaching philosophy.