While considering my teaching philosophy, I have been reflecting upon my own learning and how different teachers either worked or didn’t work for how I learned. When I look back on my time in elementary and high school, it was a time that I was simply meeting expectations of teachers. Although I did not dread going to school, I was not the type of student that enjoyed learning or that understood why we had to do certain things. As a very logical thinker, I simply did things that I knew I had to in order to move forward, not because I enjoyed doing them.

With that being said, I did learn a lot. I was able to attend college and university where I did find a love of learning. The content was exciting and I was learning things I knew could be applied to future careers, depending on what I ended up doing. In particular, I’ve been reflecting on my experience taking the history of terrorism. Terrorism was not something I was interested in or really understood, but the course met a requirement I needed for entering the teaching program and I thought it might be a good way to better understand terrorism when I see it on the news. I wrote my final paper about the Palestinian Liberation Organization in July. A few months later, conflicts arose between Israelis and Palestinians. The feeling of understanding the background of the conflict made the course immensely worthwhile. I was able to develop opinions about current events because I had learned about the basics of the topic and could create connections. Although this example is more recent than my decision to pursue teaching, it was a highlight in my education as it fully applied what I had learned and was a topic I had no prior knowledge of before taking the course. It has become an important foundation of developing my philosophy of teaching over the course of this semester.

With these personal experiences in mind, as I frame my own pedagogy and consider the teaching philosophies that align with my beliefs, I have been leaning towards Essentialism. As Essentialism is centered around the “acquisition of basic skills” (Edmunds, A. et al., 2015, 236) and the structured practice of those essential skills (Edmunds, A. et al., 2015, 236). Although there are many attractions to the idea of progressivism, which focuses on inquiry-based learning and problem-solving skills (Edmunds, A. et al., 2015, 236), connections cannot be made without any prior background knowledge. As the common phase goes, “you don’t know what you don’t know.” With not being taught something, students might not even know it exists. If students are expected to problem-solve or make connections to ideas or concepts that they have no background knowledge about, they will be unable to do so. As stated by Daniel T. Willingham, “knowledge comes into play mainly because if we want our students to learn how to think critically, they must have something to think about” (2006, para. 1). Essentialism works to build up a foundation of knowledge so connections can be made in the future with the background knowledge at hand.

However, there are other aspects of Progressivism that align with my pedagogy. Based on my personal experiences, I do not expect every student I teach to love learning, but I will certainly do my best to provide opportunities for kids to enjoy the learning process rather than only meeting the requirements. This means considering the individual learners as the interests of students will vary. Using content that matches the interests of the students, when possible, means incorporating aspects of Progressivism into my philosophy. Additionally, the Progressivist aspect of relating learning to real-world content (Moore D. et al., 2022, para. 5) when applicable is something I believe peaks the interests of learners. In my experience, it gives purpose to learning and engaging in the lessons instead of only aiming to meet the requirements, as I often did during my time in school.

The harmonious pairing of these two philosophies, Essentialism and Progressivism, algin with my philosophical beliefs that have developed around my personal learning experiences.

References

Edmunds, A., Badley, K. R., Nickel, J., & Edmunds, G. (2015). Educational Foundations in Canada. Oxford University Press.

Moore, D., DaSilva, A., Grow, J., Hooser, A., & McClain, J. (2022, August 22). Philosophical Foundations of Education. EESE 2010 Introduction to Education. https://mtsu.pressbooks.pub/introtoedshell/chapter/chapter-3-2/ 

Willingham, D. T. (2006, Spring). How Knowledge Helps. American Federation of Teachers. https://www.aft.org/ae/spring2006/willingham