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A Philosophy of Education
By Mike Hyland
To have a fruitful conversation on any topic it is crucial to define the terms. Webster's defines philosophy as: a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought. So, simply put, my educational philosophy is my personal theory regarding the activity of teaching and all that education encompasses. More narrowly, one question I must ask myself is: What is the purpose of education?
In a sentence, I feel the goal of the educational process should be to nurture each student's innate, evolutionarily created curiosity, and to provide that child with the tools to arrive at his/her goals with their emotional well being and long term happiness firmly intact. I would also argue that the most vital of all of these skills, while the simplest to understand but quite possibly the hardest to teach, is self control.
At root, I feel children are born to this world possessing an inherent drive to prosper in their specific cultural setting, and to ultimately succeed in having children of their own (whether they do or not is clearly a matter of choice). We as society have been given a tremendous gift by Mother Nature. Children are predisposed to taking in voluminous amounts of information and learning a wide variety of skills. Our responsibility, as a local and increasingly global community, is to decide the content, and the most efficient and healthiest way to deliver that content.
I believe there is a culturally dependent factual knowledge base that must be learned in order for a person to truly thrive physically, emotionally and intellectually. My responsibility as a teacher is to help each child independently construct this "fact base" in a manner best suited to the child.
Ignorance and isolated elightenment may be bliss, but only in a vacuum; to be happy in society one must have tools and information. Happiness in humans can come in many shapes and sizes, but in my mind the most fulfilling sense of happiness comes as the result of feeling that your entire existence is valued and validated. This value and validation is usually the product of effort and discipline.
Family Involvement
In order to be successful a multitude of supports must be in place and roles must be clearly defined and understood. Ideally, a teacher's role in emotionally nurturing a child is simply to supplement the unconditional love and support that child is receiving at home and to encourage the child to take social and academic risks that will augment their natural emotional and intellectual growth.
A parent's role is to supply their child with a steady stream of unending and non-negotiable unconditional love. In my mind, both teachers and parents need to be focused on preparing the child for the road, and not the road for the child. This means providing support socially and academically. Both roles have their unique challenges and opportunities.
Teachers provide, out of necessity, a more objective mentoring force in a child's life while parents are by nature more subjective. Parents are, in a sense, supposed to believe (or at least act like) their child is capable of achieving anything, and dismiss any evidence to the contrary. This allows children to see themselves as they want to (through their parents' eyes) and to see them as they are, and how they should be, (through their teachers' eyes.) Both perspectives are and must be, loving, respectful, and necessary for growth but different by definition.
For the child's "trajectory" to be at its peak, parents and teachers need to have as much honesty in their relationship as is possible and both teacher and parent must feel respected and trusted for the relationship to be rich and effective. Additionally, although it is a two-way street, I feel the responsibility lands squarely on the teacher when it comes to accommodating varying perspectives and differences, be they cultural, academic, or social. After watching my father teach for his entire adult life, and after working in an elementary school in various capacities, coaching sports, and providing private music instruction, I've concluded that unless communication remains at the top of the priority list for both parties, the greatest successes for the child will be unnecessarily elusive.
The Teacher's Role (My Personal Utopia)
First and foremost I think it is clear that no two teachers are alike and there will be considerable differences in each teacher's conception of what their respective roles may be. It behooves each of us to bring the full weight of our thoughts to bear on deciding what it is we feel our roles to be. Success appears when structure follows function, and unless we understand that function, success will be hindered.
I have already briefly mentioned my thoughts on what a teacher's role should be in the family involvement portion of this discussion, but I feel it bears repeating and elaboration. Ideally, a teacher's role in emotionally nurturing a child is simply to supplement the unconditional love and support that child is receiving at home and to encourage the child to take social and academic risks that will augment their natural emotional and intellectual growth.
One can easily focus on the nuts and bolts of curriculum and content when discussing a teacher's role, but it seems the gift of great teachers lays not so much in the what, but in the why and the how.
As to the what: It should go without saying that children need to develop their academic skills to the utmost of their abilities and that they should be continuously enriched with truly deep material. Expectations should be high and remain so throughout their education.
As to the why: Utopia for me is an earth that is populated with educated and empathetic people. The key to society coexisting is in understanding each other and in everyone having the ability to walk a mile in each others' shoes. A teacher, second only to a parent in this role, has the responsibility of teaching children to perceive the world from differing points of view. Self-understanding and empathy breed confidence, and these lead to happiness. Teachers are in a unique position to create a happier world by helping kids to better understand their world, and themselves, socially and academically.
As to the how: As children get older they need to love and know themselves before they can reciprocate. Teachers must, using all the tools at their disposal, enable and encourage students to become confident in their knowledge and social abilities. Unconditional love and an unwavering (even if feigned) confidence in each child must accompany realistic expectations and goals in order for the child to thrive.
The skill set list for a master teacher is a long and undeniably daunting one, but if we want to create the perfect world that we each envision, it is a skill set we must strive with passion and fire to attain.
Student Success:
There is no one single metric for success. Values vary from one person to the next and from culture to culture. Success, then, is an unstable concept and one that can be difficult to measure. It would follow, I would argue, that the only accurate and true measuring for success must be done by the individual. But children don't have the emotional or academic skills yet to truly evaluate their successes, which is where teachers enter the picture. Again, there exist certain academic skills and knowledge that can be measured and expected, but it seems apparent that success has a largely social and somewhat intangible component.
I myself measure success in a phrase: Educated Happiness. Being a happy fool, most would agree, is a less than desirable state in which to exist. I feel that true success, and therefore true happiness, is attained when an individual is informed and aware of their history and surroundings. Armed with this knowledge and those skills they can then intensely pursue happiness which, in my eyes, makes them successful. An ignorant happiness is an empty one. But the happiness of which I speak is very long term, so it would follow that we need a good way of monitoring short term success. This is a much trickier task.
In a very real sense the only true measure for success in children is whether or not they are socially and academically prepared for the next steps in their lives. Success, for all of us, is preparedness for the next challenge life may throw our way. But, again, because it is impossible to always know what that step may be, an infallible measurement is unachievable.
It seems, given the ethereal nature of trying to measure success in children, my personal approach is to shift the focus back towards myself and ask: "What am I doing, and how am I doing it? Is this child prepared for the next step?" If I can answer yes to the second question then I return home fulfilled. And quite possibly, in a very real sense, my own fulfillment may be the single most important factor in me realizing the goal of producing educated happiness in children. |