Kelly Baucom

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Myers

Philosophy of Education
The Purpose of Education
Throughout my career as a student, I have been fortunate enough to experience a variety of
educational experiences. I have attended both public and private schools and have lived in places
with both conservative and liberal values. I was born in Bedford County, Virginia, which is a
very conservative and rural area. While living in Bedford County, I attended Lynchburg Christian
Academy, a private school that enforced a series of fundamentalist, conservative values. My
parents chose to send me to this school for my first years as a student because its values fell in
line with the moral foundation of my family. Attending this type of school taught me the value of
structure and consistency. The rules were very concrete and well recognize at LCA, which
allowed me to realize the value of structure. Additionally, all of the students at LCA were
required to wear uniforms. As a child, I did not appreciate the value of uniformity but as an adult
reflecting upon the purpose of uniforms within an educational setting, I can understand the added
level of consistency throughout the student body that uniforms allow.
After my family moved to McLean, Virginia, near Washington D.C., I was enrolled in the Fairfax
County public school system for both financial and transformational reasons. McLean, and the
surrounding area of Metro Washington, is home to a very liberal community of individuals.
Attending public school for the majority of my educational career allowed me to recognize the
value of self-expression, responsibility and autonomy. In a public school setting, though students
are often encouraged to express themselves and learn to appreciate their individuality, the
temptation to imitate those that are the most popular or are particularly well liked is strong. I
truly believe in the value of self-expression and the difference that supporting this idea can make
in a students educational experience.
Because I believe in the value of both structure and self-expression, the philosophical orientation
that I most agree with would be progressivism. I would advocate for a progressivist approach to
education because I believe that it embodies the best of both the conservative and liberal ideals.
Progressivism focuses on the needs and inclinations of the child rather than that of the teacher,
yet does not give the student full reign of his or her activities that could cause the teacher to lose
control of the classroom. Therefore on a scale of one to ten, one being completely teachercentered and ten being completely student-centered, I would rate myself as a five because I
believe in a very even balance between the two extremes.
The Progressive Education Movement was first promoted by John Dewey in the 1880s and lasted
for approximately sixty years. Dewey proposed the idea that the student is a social being and
therefore education should be centered on the nature of each child and the relationships that they
build and sustain with others. I completely agree with Deweys ideas about how education
should be constructed and maintained as well as how schools should be managed. The

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fundamental purpose of education is to teach information and life lessons that will allow students
to contribute to society in a beneficial way. But by implementing the ideals associated with
progressivism, one of the primary goals involved with education will be to create and preserve a
sense of community that will affect the students in a positive way.
Curriculum: What Should Be Taught and Why?
The curriculum that is taught to students is one of the most important components of education,
however, the way in which it is selected is often somewhat corrupt. For example, in some school
districts, the parents of the students are very involved in the process of deciding the curriculum.
This can cause bias and the inclusion of unnecessary material or exclusion of important
information and concepts. I think that the curriculum should be somewhat standardized
throughout the United States, especially for subjects such as mathematics, science and language
arts. I think that national regulation of education could be beneficial because it would provide a
widely recognized standard that each state could follow and be held accountable for. I believe
that localized standardized testing, such as the SOL tests in Virginia, should be done away with
in order to increase the freedom that teachers have in regards to the topics that they teach and
how they choose to teach those topics. There is one subject area that I believe should remain
localized, which includes history and social studies. Although the history that involves the
history of our nation and the history of the world as a whole should be standardized, the history
and social studies topics taught at the elementary level should involve materials largely
pertaining to local and state issues.
At the elementary level I believe that the subjects should include mathematics, science, language
arts and writing, social studies and history, art, music and physical education. I also believe that
Spanish and Chinese emersion programs should be included in the curriculum for elementary
schools because it would allow the students who speak English as a first language to somewhat
communicate with a large portion of the ESL students. In addition to assisting the social
capabilities of ESL students, these emersion programs would allow for students to be
exposed to a foreign language at a young age and therefore give them the opportunity to become
proficient in one of the emersion languages throughout their primary and secondary educational
endeavors. I also believe that learning how to build and sustain lasting relationships should be an
extremely important part of the generalized curriculum. Relationship building is crucial in order
to make mutually beneficial connections and construct a strong sense of community. In my
middle school and high school, Best Buddies was one of the most popular organizations on
campus because it gave students the opportunity to interact and build relationships with people
that were different from them and in a way that was perhaps out of their comfort zone. I would
want to integrate mandatory programs similar to Best Buddies into the curriculum in order to
encourage this sort of mutually beneficial relationship building. These types of programs would
benefit children with physical and mental disabilities in particular because they would provide a

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welcoming community within the school setting as well as incorporate these students into a
normative classroom setting.
Nature of the Learner
Because I would be enforcing a progressivist approach to education, the students would be
expected to embody a more extensive sense of responsibility than would a child being taught
under an essentialist method. However, the teachers would help keep the students accountable
for their responsibilities, especially at the elementary level. To ensure that the students would be
included in the guidance of the courses, the teachers would give the students a list of assignment
and assessment options that they could choose from to complete. This would allow each student
to learn the topics at hand in a way that they could best understand and retain the information.
Although the variety of assignment choices would allow students to be more interested in and
passionate about their tasks, this framework would also require students to be more responsible
for their own individual assignments.
The learners would also be responsible for keeping track of their assignments, especially the due
dates of these assignments. The learners should be required to come to class prepared. This does
not solely include arriving to class with any necessary materials; being prepared as a student
means coming to class ready and willing to learn. Students should also be responsible for their
attitude; learners should come to class with an accepting and flexible attitude. Obviously the
students cannot be expected to have perfect attitudes everyday while at school, however, they
should always strive to enact the highest standard of respect and kindness towards themselves
and others. I want the students to be comfortable within their environment and be able to express
themselves in ways that allow them to learn and understand to the best of their abilities. As far as
relationships between students are concerned, I would want to establish a standard of mutually
respectful and equal exchanges between one another. I would also want there to be a sense of
equality between students and teachers so that the students feel comfortable interacting with the
teachers on a somewhat personal level, however, a sense of respect and deference for those that
are in positions of authority must be present in order to maintain an organized educational
environment.
Teaching Methods That Should be Used and Why
Throughout my fifteen years of educational experiences, I have been exposed to many different
types of physical learning environments. I believe that there are two types of physical learning
environments that are the most effective within a classroom setting. The first includes small
groups of students known as pods. Because pods are made up of several desks grouped
together, it allows students to maintain their individuality and personal space while still forcing
the learners to build relationships with the other people in their group. Pods are useful for

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younger grades because the students often learn from each other and work in groups to solve
problems. Group work is very important, especially at a young age, because it teaches students to
work together and delegate responsibilities in order to complete a certain task. The second type
of physical learning environment that I believe to be the most effective is known as the
discussion format. The discussion format involves one table surrounded by a number of chairs in
which both the students and the teacher interact on a conversational level. This composition is
most effective when employed in small classroom settings at a secondary level. The discussion
format is especially effective because it provides an environment in which learners feel most
comfortable sharing their ideas and opinions; in addition, it makes the students feel equivalent to
their teacher in the most positive aspects while still maintaining a sense of automatic respect and
reverence for authority.
I envision my classroom being an environment that cultivates imagination and creativity in
which my students feel as if it is their home away from home and want to return to class each
day. I will display my students artwork on the walls of the classroom and personalize the space
as much as possible. I also want my desk area to be open to my students so that they feel
comfortable approaching me with any questions, concerns or ideas that they may have.
Throughout my educational career, my favorite teachers have been those that take into account
the thoughts, feelings and opinions of their students and who take the time to get to know each
child on a personal level. That is the type of educational habitat that I want to cultivate within my
classroom.
There are many factors that play into creating an effective classroom. First, establishing a level
of familiarity within the classroom is crucial. Students need to feel calm and comfortable within
their educational setting in order to achieve the highest level of focus and processing ability.
Second, organization is key within the classroom. Whether or not every student is neat and tidy
on a personal level, the classroom needs to be organized in order to cultivate an organized
manner of thinking for the students. If the environment is chaotic and unorganized then the
students way of thinking will reflect that condition. Third creating a good relationship between
the teacher and the student body is extremely important in order to cultivate an effective learning
environment. The students need to be able to approach and interact with the teacher without fear
of rejection or neglect.
The Role of the Teacher
The relationships that the teacher builds with all of the different parties involved in the
educational experience are extremely important. The bottom line is that all of these relationships
are mutually beneficial, meaning both the teacher and the other party involved are positively
affected by the interaction. In regards to the administration, teachers should be ready and willing
to accept and encourage constructive criticism from their superiors. In addition, teachers must be

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flexible in the case that the administration chooses to make sudden changes to the curriculum
and or classroom procedures. For example, if the school principle chooses to schedule daily staff
meetings before the start of class, the teacher should attend each of these meetings without
complaining and/or arriving with a poor attitude. Teachers should also attempt to build
cooperative bonds with their fellow teachers. These relationships are especially important in
todays educational climate considering the fact that most schools require teachers to collaborate
with each other and feed off of each others practices and ideas. For example, there might be an
instance in which a teacher is struggling with a child with a disability; good relationships with
fellow teachers might serve as an advantage in this situation because they could give advice as to
how to adequately handle the situation. The relationships that teachers build with parents is
important in terms of maintaining favorable relationships with the students. If the parents are
content with the teachers style of instruction, evaluation and discipline, then the students will
often respond well to the discourse of the classroom as well. For instance, scheduling fairly
frequent teacher conferences might make parents feel more comfortable with their childs
learning environment and would most likely cause the parent to respond to a potentially negative
situation in a constructive manner. Naturally the most important relationships that teachers build
are with their students. Teachers are responsible for shaping the minds and behaviors of these
young individuals for over half of their waking hours and so it is important that the relationships
are strong and memorable.
Teachers are very prominent role models within the lives of children and therefore need to
promote values that will allow the students to become to best versions of themselves. The types
of values that teachers should promote include kindness, fairness, generosity, perseverance,
acceptance, patience, forgiveness, respectfulness and responsibility. A teachers job is to mold
and shape young minds into functioning individuals that will benefit society for the greater good.
If a student walks out of the classroom knowing more than they did before they walked in, then
the teacher is doing his or her job. It is also important to remember that what the students are
taking away from the classroom is not limited to facts and information, children learn life lessons
within the classroom, they learn how to build relationships and develop into decision-making
individuals.
Ongoing Professional Development
Though I have enjoyed this class immensely, what I have acquired this semester is just the tip of
the iceberg in terms of what I will learn about being a good teacher and creating an exceptional
educational environment. I will continue to expand my wealth of knowledge throughout the rest
of my career at JMU and I especially look forward to learning about being an effective teacher
through hands on experience with students. I believe that my ideas about what is and is not the
best way to educate will change and evolve as I gain more experience.

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I believe I need to start paying attention to current events more frequently and become a more
informed citizen. I need to stop procrastinating and letting my disorganized personality get them
best of me and start systematizing my schedule and my time in a more efficient manner. I need to
continue to have a positive and passionate attitude towards becoming a teacher, I will continue to
be excited about my future profession and putting forth all of my effort into my task at hand,
which is being the best educator and mentor that I can be.