In my philosophy of education, the teacher
strives to possess (1) a mastery of the subject, (2) a nurturing, calm
demeanor, and (3) a consistent willingness to demonstrate the lesson in action.
The goal of the teacher is to free the student from the anxiety of having to
learn and the consequences of poor performance; this results in a sense of
contentment within the student. When
this state is achieved, the student desires to learn and apply knowledge, and
the teacher can accurately assess learning.
To create this “flow,” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) the teacher must create lesson plans and
teach in a manner that emphasizes teacher demonstration. I offer a real life
case of integers. It had been my opinion
and strategy to teach that adding positive and negative numbers must be
accompanied by the illustration of a number line to guide the students which
way from zero to bounce. It confounded me that students could not understand
how a number line worked; specifically that zero was, in fact, a number – they
kept skipping it! I lectured - and the
students collaborated - endlessly. One
day, having failed repeatedly at this lesson, I scattered plain algebraic tiles
onto the group table and said, “The positive numbers are blue, and the negative
numbers are red.” Quite literally, that
was the last full sentence I uttered for the rest of the period. In that moment, my students and I simultaneously
recognized a system that needed no discussion. A non-verbal dynamic exchange of information
had begun. It was quiet, effective, and
profound. I seek always to recreate this
phenomenon every day I teach math.
By my reckoning, the student
solidifies learning through observation and quiet reflection instead of teacher
lectures or from subject matters that compete for the attention of the student.
In this way, Perennialism and Essentialism
are at odds with my view. The prior
insists that learning is teacher-centered while the latter, that the
acquisition and practice of Western knowledge (as opposed to the thoughtful,
meditative manner of young Buddhist monks) is one if its highest indicators of
student success (Morrison, 2009).
It can be further argued that my
doctrine completely dismisses the other major philosophies of education, but
that’s not true. I, too, look to the
latest scientifically based methods in the same way Progressivists, Humanists, and
Social Reconstructivists all do.
Specifically, my educational model
embraces brain-centered instruction as a reliable queue for how a teacher can
instruct and how a student can learn.
This supremely scientific approach advocates music, safety, neuron-stimulating
visual prompts (circles over squares), and memory-based teaching strategies and
I completely agree (Stone, 2009). But my
lesson plans and agendas would prioritize demonstration. The teacher would stimulate the learning modality
with a thoughtful, real life application of the topic, rather than overly rely
on lecture and group work (or a combination thereof) or an Existentialist
exercise to summon an emotional connection to the idea being taught.
The essential question of any doctrine
is: What good actually comes of it? Essentialism,
for example, champions mathematics - but does applying the philosophy cause
students to learn more math? My
philosophy does not champion any subject; rather, it advocates a state of
mental clarity and happiness in which educational rigor thrives.
Conclusions and Future Study
I would like to expand this paper to
include a broad survey of literature regarding happiness, Eastern philosophy,
and Micronesian traditions of apprenticeship in navigation and fishing to
include how wind and water dynamics were taught by demonstration.
References
Stone, S., (September
29, 2009). Brain research, instructional strategies, and
e-learning:
Making the connection. Learning Solutions
Magazine. Retrieved
Morrison, G. S. (2009). Teaching in America, fifth edition.
London: Pearson
Csikszentmihalyi, M.
(1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal
experience.
New York: Harper &
Row
Link, S., (2008).
Essentialism & Perennialism. Research
Starters. Retrieved
from http://www.dswleads.com/Ebsco/Essentialism%20&%20Perennialism.pdf