Rachel Martin

EDU 218 A

Professor Kokiko

January 27, 2019

Educational Philosophy

“A teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops.” -Henry Addams.

Teaching isn’t entirely about the content of what you teach, but also about life lessons. It

includes encouragement, fostering creativity, and motivating your students in order to help them

create a sense of wanting to constantly learn. Teachers who motivate their students help them to

follow their dreams. My philosophy of education includes allowing for activities with young

kids which foster high curiosity and creativity. It includes a compilation of student-centered

learning, such as using the principles of progressivism, while also having the structure of

teacher-directed learning, such as perennialism. How to accomplish this goal comes with time,

experience, and more classes within the educational department to learn more about different

techniques.

Education shouldn’t be seen as something mandatory a child must accomplish, but an

opportunity to grow in all aspects of his life. The whole foundation for education is based upon

trusting a teacher to help one uncover the depth of knowledge and understanding of each subject

area as well as discovering who one is. A teacher is with the students for about seven hours a

day in the United States. This is more waking time spent with the teacher than the parents spend

with their own child before and after school. That is why teachers have such a big impact on the

growth and development of each and every student; the students during school hours come to the

teachers when there is a problem as well as look up to the teachers.

 Education should create a sense of wonder and awe about the world. The world of

education should, from a very early age, incorporate multiple subject areas into one lesson

because everything in the world is interrelated. Studying music without knowing math fractions

does not work well because music is math. The same goes for reading: knowing how to read but

not being taught how what the meaning is behind the words which interrelate does not help the

person to understand and synthesize the information. My philosophy professor this week said

something which is very valuable to education: a real education has to do with the other person

seeing it on his own. If schools are teaching rote learning, then no one is learning anything

useful because real learning begins to foster a crave for knowledge, curiosity, and truth.