My Educational Philosophy
Metaphor
What does it mean to be educated? Is ‘being educated’ a simple expression of being a student as some point in your life, or is it something more? What purpose des a school in the process of creating educated individuals? Such questions are at the heart of many people’s minds when they consider our current school system. However, such questions should also be on the minds of every teacher, and future educator. As humans, we are constantly taking in information and learning from it. What we are learning, may be inherently different than what is being taught in a classroom, but learning will always occur in most situations. Being an educated and learned individual is a process that, at its’ core, is mostly involuntary and unending.
Learning is involuntary. With every sense, there is a thought and some form of recognition. That information is sorted, stored and can later be recalled. Whether it is a sound of crumpling a piece of paper, or the touch of thick iron rod, the human being is able to recognize and build associations with prior knowledge. Our senses are unceasing in their bombarding ways of providing information that must be processed. So we learn. We learn because it is in our nature to learn. We learn because we must in order to survive. So we learn.
Learning is unending. As knowledge grows and expands within us we are given tools. These tools are rarely every set aside and never touched again, but instead are put to work, even without the knowledge of the worker. Each tool serves a purpose in shaping and creating a key of metaphorical proportions. With every key we gain a door can be opened. With every door that we open we can step onto the path. With every path we have a choice, to go or not. With every choice we are led down another path and then to another door and another choice. Also, with every choice we set grow in coming to know ourselves a little more, fore no choice is made without reason. It is impossible to stop finding new paths and thus we are forever shaping and creating the knowledge within us to create new keys to move forward. Forever, there is a door behind a door behind a door, as though there were mirrors placed exactly opposite of each other.
If this is the case, and this is what education is, what then is the purpose of our school? Schools are one of the mirrors that stand to help the potential of true education and learning be reached. They are the facilitators that help the learner to discover more. A school, though it has walls and bells and rules, is there to provide an array of learning opportunities. There is so much in this world to see and to know, that it is must needs be important to learn more than one’s self. It must also, then, be more important to develop an understanding of others, insomuch that we must meet and interact with others. Schools are both an organized and a social form of learning. They stand as a companion mirror to that of life. Together the two mirrors create the endless possibilities that may come from becoming a truly educated individual.
If learning is always going to happen and never cease, what then is the purpose of a teacher? No one is capable of learning everything alone. If schools are the brick and mortar buildings, then to teach is to become a part of that experience in the way that best fits the needs of the student. To teach is to create the access to knowledge, which is the curriculum, to facilitate what it is to learn and be educated. It is the providing of tools, techniques and talents that showcase what can, may be, and might be achieved. To teach is to adjust the mirrors as it were to help facilitate the eternal doorways.
To teach, in short, is to help the student tour the world and explore its possibilities. To teach is also to help a student learn who they are by providing them with choices, possibilities and access to knowledge. A school then is a place of where learners congregate, think and work together in the pursuit of knowledge and self. To be educated is to be. To be educated is to judge for ourselves the world around us, and thus to discover our views and sense of self. People are not yet complete, nor will anyone ever be, because people are forever learning, therefore judgements and individuals should always be challenged so that they might become more complete as they learn; in so doing learners can see through the mirror that has become more like a window, as people see all the possibilities stretching out before each, and every, one.
To be a student is to be a gamer, while teaching is to be the game guide.
Explanation: Students are coming from the generation of technological entertainment, which means that the sort of education they are getting beyond the classroom may feel like it is not substantial or worthwhile. At the same time, we teachers often talk about authentic experiences as a powerful tool in education. While it is not fair to say that playing video games are going to be authentic experiences; it is fair to say that the experiences that students have while gaming can become teaching moments. In this way, gamers may constantly be being educated.
Teaching, then, is the act of guiding students along this journey. In many video game cases there is a little manual called a game guide, or leaflet. This guide, which is also done electronically now, is designed to help the player gain a basic understanding of the game before they start playing. There is another version of the game guide, which actually guides the player step-by-step along the way. This full guide is designed to give the gamers all the information they need to be successful. It is more of an instruction manual, but every gamer knows that the best ones never give the player all the answers, but merely a more detailed skeleton of material so that there is less effort expended that may be unnecessary or turn the player away from the game.
Teaching can be both the short version and the long version of the game guide. Sometimes it is the teacher’s responsibility to let the students get just the basics and let them loose on their work and in their student career. Other times the teacher may need to give more detail, but the teacher should never give an answer outright to take away the students ability to think, work and grow as they participate in the experience of learning.