Educational Philosophy

Anastasia Craig

April 17, 2016

After taking many surveys and doing much pondering, I have decided that the philosophy

that I personally identify most with, in respect to education, is progressivism. Progressivism is a

student-centered educational philosophy that specifically emphasizes individual development

and real world problem solving skills. I believe that I identify most with this educational

philosophy because I believe in developing students as completely as we possibly can as

educators. Which includes promoting their personal development emotionally, physically,

socially and intellectually.

Progressivism is a continually developing educational philosophy that began to make its

impact during the substantial period of educational growth from 1890 to 1920 in America.

Philosophers such as John Dewey promoted and encouraged progressivist ideals in American

schools during this time. They did have many successes with this movement until Russia beat

America with their launch of Sputnik into outer space in 1957, which led to a significant decline

in the movement. Even though this decline was experienced, several aspects of the progressive

education movement are still alive and well in our current education system. These aspects

include: problem-based instruction, cooperative learning and guided discovery.

Many teachers have taken this on as their primary way of teaching in modern education

because when this is your philosophy as an educator, you do not solely rely on lecturing as your

main way of teaching content to your students. In these types of classrooms there is an

abundance of questioning and group, small and large, discussions that take place in order to

guide students in their learning comprehension. These questions and discussions are meant to

guide students in the ways that they are searching for true meaning in their lives all while

connecting the content that you are teaching them to the real world that exists outside of your

classroom walls.

As a future educator I can see myself applying this philosophy to my teaching style in the

exact way that was previously mentioned. I do not see myself purely lecturing my students on

the material that is to be learned. Not only because I find this method boring while you are

teaching, but after having been a student for so many years I feel that this method is not nearly as

effective as other hands on methods. I see myself engaging my students in multiple discussions,

hands on activities and asking many questions that will promote their learning and retention of

the content that I will be teaching. These activities, discussions and questions will reflect on the

emphasis that is placed on the learner thinking and involvement that I feel is necessary in every

classroom, and are prime examples of a progressivist educational philosophy.

I can understand how other educators may affiliate with other educational philosophies

such as social reconstructionism, perennialism and essentialism, but none other than

progressivism matches up with my own personal views of education as well as how I want to

teach my future students. Social reconstructionism is the most closely related to progressivism in

the fact that it is also a student-centered philosophy, and that discussion is used as a primary

teaching method. But, they do differ in the way that progressivism focuses on ways that content

is being taught in the classroom and creating connections to the outside world, whereas social

reconstructionism focuses more on how teachers and schools can incorporate what is happening

in the world into the curriculum and content that is being taught. Topics that this curriculum

would focus on could include social issues, social inequity and perhaps how students think that

we could create a more just society.

Having a well-developed educational philosophy is something that is crucial to every

aspiring, and current, teacher. It keeps us on track with what we believe to be important, how to

carry those important things with us into our future classrooms, and how to execute these ideals

in the way that we teach content to our future students. Our educational philosophy is something

that will keep us in pursuit of the goals that we have set not only for our students, but for

ourselves as well.