Educational Philosophy
Being an educator, I have been challenged to develop a philosophy of education. In my view, these documents are a little silly because they are less pragmatic and more pie-in-the-sky. However, it is definitely fun to consider what the educational world would be like if I had my way. So, the following is my stab at it.
Ultimately, my philosophy boils down to two maxims:
- Education is student-focused.
- All ideas are fair game.
Allow me to unpack those.
Education is Student-focused
As a teacher, I am certainly a learner. In fact, the most difficult aspect of teaching for me has been pulling myself away from my inner-student long enough to grade papers and evaluate how my pupils are doing. The dichotomy definitely exits. I am both teacher and student. However, in my workaday job, I must focus less on my own education and more on that of my students. Consequently, what I do is less about me and more about them.
To this end, I hope to create opportunities for self-discovery. This is why I embrace the Socratic method and open discussion in many of my classes. While there is value to lecture, I think that the most meaningful learning experiences happen when we are guided to learn for ourselves.
My hope is to create a student-focused environment in the classroom that allows students to learn and discover for themselves.
There are two primary challenges to this:
- Student Motivation
- Teacher Preparation
My biggest challenge is to keep students motivated. Ultimately, learning is up to the student. The teacher exists to guide and prod. Anyone who has any fantastic ideas about how I can do this better is certainly welcome to share them with me. I’d love it!
The second challenge is to adequately prepare. When operating within a discussion-based class, the teacher, as leader, needs to be prepared for whatever the students throw into the arena. On one hand, this probably caters to my learning side. I have to know as much as I possibly can about a topic. On the other, this is an amazingly difficult task for me as I like control. The key to a student-centered class, however, is relinquishing some of that control.
The other challenge in preparation for class is learning what kinds of questions to ask, how to ask them, and when to ask them. Asking the right question at the right time is crucial. It’s the difference between a very confused student and a student who has just experienced a profound epiphany. How do you prepare for that? I think you just have to try it out. I fail all the time.
All Ideas are Fair Game
I truly believe that every idea is worth exploring — even if that idea runs counter to my thought, understanding, worldview, religion, etc.
Sometimes a student brings an idea into class that is totally wrong (or just plain weird). Stifling that student, and chastising him/her in front of the whole class is always counter-productive. Rather, because my style of teaching is highly democratic, that student’s idea should be explored.
The trick, of course, is knowing how and when to lower the hammer on an idea that is truly atrocious. Occasionally, you have to do it. Again, I think this is probably learned through experience, and I’m still learning.
On good days, the ideas that students bring are truly challenging. These ideas force me to rethink how I viewed a given topic. Even if I come out thinking exactly as I had before, I am better for having been challenged.
I think the same is true of students. Teachers exist to challenge them and force them to rethink the paradigms and structures that they have built around their brains. Sometimes they’ll continue thinking exactly as they did before. That’s fine. But they’ll own that thinking more than they did before.
Encouraging students to think for themselves is my ultimate goal.
Hello there!
I recently discovered your blog. The first of your blogs which I read was “Bible Curriculum”–loved it. I found your writing and bloggers’ feedback on it both informative and very reassuring–to me, a first year teacher this upcoming fall–as I will be writing most of my curriculum.
If I may, here is some thoughts on the your current post:
–I love that your teaching is “student-focused” and socratic. My favorite courses in college were socratic and catered to the student more so than the teacher’s lecture (monologue is the enemy, I typically say).
–you want to help “students discover themselves?” I find this language confusing to me because it assumes that there is an immaterial “identity” inherent within each student that merely needs “discovered”. I find this curious because I do not believe personality, skills, and knowledge are merely “discovered” (as if knowledge eternally exists within a person)–such a stance is reductionistic (sorry, if I’m taking your blog too far as trying to be exhaustive if you are not).
I believe such immaterial qualities are formed and developed (“nurtured” is the phycological term). Take for instance the athletic realm. Yes, a person may have DNA that is genetically predisposed to perform at a high level (a professional baseball player typically gives birth to an above average baseball player as a son), but it in order to produce an excellent player, that depends even more on the level of ‘coaching’ the player receives. Inherent DNA isn’t everything, is my point.
In the same way, a highly competent student is developed by the teacher and his methods (over long amounts of time and exposure to credible educational experiences), not by “self-discovery.”
do you agree, disagree?
–Also, I appreciate your mentioning of a student’s atrocious ideology and perspective. However, I may take a more “absolute” stance on epistemology than what you may favor. Take again, the athletic analogy. If I’m coaching a student’s baseball swing and he disagrees with my methodology–however, to use your word “atrocious” his opinion may be–if I don’t convince him of my approach, he will remain a lousy hitter at the plate. In a similar way, a student in the academic realm may disagree with me about a historical event, regardless of however “challenging” his ideology may be, he is wrong because the eye witness accounts (passed down via scholars) tell me I’m right.
—Agree? Disagree? Maybe history is a poor example, maybe the existence of God is more fit. Either way, does that makes sense?
@Matthew — First, thanks for reading an engaging. Allow me to address some of your questions/comments/concerns.
(1) “Discovery.” In the above post I mention discovery twice: (a) self-discovery, and (b) “discovering FOR themselves.” In both cases, I mean the essentially the same thing. The will to learn comes from the student and my job is to guide them to discover things for themselves without overpowering them and giving them every piece of information. When students learn things on their own through problem solving, deep thought, discussion, or myriad other ways, they tend to retain that information longer and know it better. So, by “discover for themselves,” I mean that a student needs to work for the answers.
On that same note, however, high school is a time of identity formation/realization. My students are discovering who they are vis-a-vis the rest of the world and vis-a-vis God. So, there is some of that going on too.
(2) Atrocious Ideas and Epistemology. No doubt, some ideas are just wrong, baseless, factually incorrect, etc. However, with most things, especially in the Humanities, there is some play. A thing may be mostly right, or may have some good evidence, etc.
Let’s look at your two analogies: baseball and history, because I think these are both good here.
Baseball. True, a player may think that a coach’s method is wrong or dumb, but that does not necessarily mean that that student will not become a better hitter. Look at Major League Baseball and compare a bunch of swings. You’ll find that a lot of players have many of the same things going on as well as many unique elements.
Let’s transmute this into a real world situation, only in golf. Tiger Woods was the greatest golfer in the world. His coach was Butch Harmon. However, Tiger found some things about Hank Haney’s methodology that he liked; Tiger thought he could make his swing better. He fired Butch and brought Hank on. In the end, Tiger Woods is still the best golfer in the world — only now with a different swing.
History. Read modern historiography and you learn that the idea of pinpointing historical events and their meaning is extremely problematic. This gets to your epistemological issue. How do we know what happened? How can we be sure of anything? How can we be so trenchant in our understanding of these events? Is there any wiggle room? Is it possible that the eyewitness was wrong? Is it possible that the eyewitness is biased? Is it possible that the eyewitness wasn’t there at all? I think these are questions that need to be asked (though, perhaps they don’t need to be asked about everything…we can reasonably assume that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776 without too much argument).
So, I think a student can disagree with a teacher and not necessarily be wrong. As a teacher I don’t need to hold on to the notion that my ideas are the only write ideas. Instead, I think learning should be a conversation — I may not always see eye-to-eye with a student, but if he/she can back it up with some good evidence, I’m OK with that.
When we don’t let go of that, when we as teachers aren’t willing to take part in the learning process, we run the risk of becoming ideologues.
The teacher should be teachable too.
I hope this helps you to understand what I was getting at.
Helpful indeed.
Funny, regarding my examples, I was thinking “if he’s smart, this is how he will counter/answer this” and that’s exactly what you did. Touche’
thank you.
I mentioned this briefly above, but this fall will begin my first year as a Bible Teacher. My preparation time is severely shortened by a 7 week missions trip I am leading from June-July, so I have been reading veraciously on education (as my degree is biblical studies) and took some a lot of substitute teaching jobs (for practical experience–I viewed it as my ‘student teaching’).
–What advice would you have for me?
–Also, I have had trouble finding any texts on how to be an effective Bible teacher in secondary classroom setting (most are soft “how-to’s” written for sunday school teachers). Are there any articles/books you would consider “a must read” for Christian educators?
Hey Matthew,
I’m out of town. Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you.
(1) Books for Christian Educators. I have not found any information about how to be an effective secondary Bible teacher that I found was worthwhile. If you do, let me know. Recently, our entire school read Piety and Philosophy by Dr. Richard Riesen. This was a good text for big-picture thinking (e.g., what exactly is “Christian” education?).
(2) I have a few thoughts on the “advice” end which are based largely on my first year of full-time high school teaching:
(a) Beware of the “Gotcha.” Several new teachers I know (including me), have fallen pray to what I call “gotcha mode.” This is where your attitude toward your students deteriorates and you start looking for mistakes. That’s not good. Negativity just isn’t good. So, don’t go there.
(b) Know your audience. Realize that these are high school students. Know what your grade level is capable of. Their abilities change so much from freshman through senior year.
(c) Accentuate the positive. Don’t allow others to give you negative information about them. If a teacher wants to tell you about how awesome a student is, then great. I had a teacher tell me what a great Chemistry student a certain kid was; I was extremely surprised because this kid was failing my class. It was good to know that he had talents and abilities in other areas. But, if a teacher comes to you to complain about a student — get out of the situation.
(d) Get some actually teacher training. I went through a program for secondary teacher certification for Texas. I actually learned quite a bit about being a teacher.
That’s all I got. I’m no master…pretty new at this too…
Teachers may find useful and intersting the following: http://www.orhanseyfiari.com/arigreatteachers.html
I happened on to your site because I am conducting an exhaustive search for a bible translation that is more “middle of the road” in terms of intent while still communicating the general thought of the original text. This bible will be used as a supplement to the KJV Bible I already own. I like the flow of the ESV, which is the translation that you have recommended. However, I seem to prefer the NRSV, or the RSV. My faith background is quite mixed. There are Baptists, Methodists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses in my family. I was also hugely interested in your blog when I saw your quote about the notion of immutable God. I long to study the bible in the most non-biased way possible. Any suggestions are comments you have are WELCOME!