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Historical Influences

Since the early 1900s, the US has swung from one view of education to the other.  John Dewey was noted for being “the real spokesman for intellectual America in the Progressive Era” (Bonner, 1963).  He favored a child-centered curriculum that had students learn through experience instead of rote memorization.  Although the movement was popular for its ideals, many protested that it was full of “frills”, lacking in rigor, and inadequately preparing youth to be productive in society.  This led to a more conservative approach called essentialism.

A major event that changed education in the United States was the launch of Sputnik in 1957.  During the middle of the Cold War, many feared that the US was behind in the technological race because of a lack of trained teachers, engineers and students.  The structure that was to be adopted was based on Jean Piaget’s idea of a spiral curriculum sequencing pattern, where subjects are presented over a number of grades with increasing complexity and difficulty.  Many at the time viewed education to be a major factor in the elimination of poverty.  So, teachers were advised to once again employ a more student centered approach to find a way to get those students to participate more in class.

These progressive to conservative and back to progressive views seem to happen every ten years.  Right now, I’m learning to have a more student-centered approach to teaching.  It is my personal opinion that this is a better view of teaching.  One that gives more power to the students to choose what is interested in them and I, act as a facilitator.  It is with this view that I hope they enjoy their time at school by learning what interests them and become lifelong learners.

Diversity and Equity

I have taken a class on curriculum where they stressed an anti-biased approach to teaching.  This is an approach that can and should be applied to any type of curriculum that I may choose to apply in my class.  The idea is to analyze and filter any biased views based on cultural, gender, religion, physical and mental disabilities, and economic class.

There have been many changes demographics in the population of our pluralistic country over the years.  It will be my goal to make sure that all members of society would be represented so that my students will be successful later in life.  The potential for conflict and discrimination would be reduced if they are exposed to factual and concrete information about all members of our society.

Legal Influences

Since education is not mentioned in the United States Constitution, the power and legal rights are reserved for the states.  As a future employee of a state run public school, there will be many laws and legal issues that I will have to abide by.  Two such laws would be the No Child Left Behind Act and the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was passed in 2002 with several key provisions that school districts would be accounted for.  The most immediate provision that would apply to me is one that asks teachers to be of high quality as defined by the state.  One criteria would be for me to acquire a bachelor’s degree before I teach which I should be done with by spring of 2008.  Another criteria of the NCLB’s definition of a highly qualified teacher is that teachers must pass a state test that shows they are proficient in reading, writing, math, and other subject areas that apply to elementary school curriculum.  Washington State has such a test called the Washington Educator Skills Test – Endorsements that I’ll have to pass before I could lead my own classroom.

The Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) is a standards based assessment.  According to Linda Shaw (2006) only half of the 10th grade students pass the test; a test that all students must pass before they receive their high school diploma.  This has lead to much controversy around the state amongst educators and parents that say that the assessment asks for unreasonable expectations and asks unusual, culturally biased questions.  For now, the most I can do is make sure that my kids are prepared to tackle the requirements that our state and federal government asks of them.  It is my hope that I can find creative and meaningful ways for them to learn topics they may encounter on this test.

Organization & Governance

The public school system in the United States is not run primarily through the federal government.  Each of the 50 states have their own educational agency that provides instruction to the 14,700 plus school districts in around 90,000 schools that are run by 3 million teachers (Snyder, 2001).  The policies for these schools are set by governors, state boards of education, and local school boards.  The structure for how the public schools are run is a combination of state and local powers and responsibilities.  Because the educational system is not run by one central education policy, the school I teach in may vary a lot from state to state and even from school district to school district.

As a teacher, I may have little say in how the schools are organized and funded.  It would be up to me to choose a district that has similar beliefs in teaching philosophy and of course, offers a favorable salary.  I know there will be expectations that are given to me from the state in the form of grade level expectations, and I believe that it is good to have these skills defined for instructors to follow.  With a clear path shown by the learning requirements, I will be informed of where my students are coming from and where they will be going.  So that when they leave my classroom to go onto another level, I will know I showed them the way and have prepared them adequately for their journey.

Philosophical Influences

This is my first quarter participating in Central Washington University’s double major program.  I had taken Intro to Education at my previous school and briefly gone over the topic of the many different approaches to education: Essentialism, Progressivism, Perennialism, and Existentialism.  It is my opinion that these topics have been greatly discussed in detail by many and that they may give you a more in depth view of the goal of the particular philosophy they are writing about.  It would take me far many words than the word count allotted me for to explain the beginnings of just one of these schools of thought.

I do know this; the school that I’m attending has adopted to present us with a more constructivist approach to teaching.  In my exploration of the school of thought, I found it to be eclectic in nature; that there were traces of the original four philosophies that I had learned in an earlier class found in constructivism which I’d like to go over briefly.

There are five themes that are mentioned in the many theories of constructivism.  The first is that of active agency.  Active agency basically means that our experiences are active in nature.  This is different than determinism where humans are merely pawns in play of a larger force.  We are able to actively choose how we go about our lives, and one who teaches should be aware of this.  It should be a teacher’s goal to help students acquire knowledge in subjects that they are interested in.  This is also a main idea behind Progressivism.  Order is the second major theme regarding the constructivist theory.  This is the thought that as humans, we devote much of our lives to the ordering process; or how we organize our experiences through our tacit, emotional-meaning making processes.  Perennialism looks to find meaning in the everlasting or the ideas that come up year after year, generation after generation.  Constructivists argue that our organization or activity is recursive.  This is a view that there is a self and within the self, we derive our own meaning.  A teacher’s role in an existentialist classroom is to help students find their own way of thinking by exposing them to the many paths they may take in life.  The fourth contention is that of social-symbolic relatedness.  Individuals develop their sense of self through their social and symbolic systems.  In other words, students develop meaning through their peers and the symbols they develop within each other.  An example of this would be allowing the students to work together within groups to explore and find meaning in a particular activity within themselves rather than the teacher telling them what to think.  Finally, the last contention would be that of lifespan development.  Through the interaction of these last four articles, hopefully develops the idea that what they are doing is meaningful and to never stop learning.

Friedrich Hayek (1952) said that “much that we believe to know about the external world is, in fact, knowledge about ourselves.”  To me, this translates into interaction between the novel and the familiar.  This is how students learn best, by constructing thoughts of their world around them through past experiences.  It is my goal as a teacher to help them through this process.

References

Webb, D. L., & Metha, A. (2003). Foundations of American Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merril Prentice Hall

Ryan, K. & Cooper, J. M. (2004).  Those Who Can, Teach. Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Company.

On Purpose Associates. (2001).  Funderstanding – Constructivism.  Retrieved October 31, 2006 from http://www.funderstanding.com/constructivism.cfm

Shaw, L. (2006). Failure rates of minorities on WASL "painful". Retrieved October 30, 2006 from http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003257791_wasl14m.html