ACTIVITY 1 - Educational Philosophies

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ACTIVITY NO. 1: What is My Philosophy of Education?

Upon examining and interpreting the Philosophy of Education Continuum, I’ve


recognized what kind of teacher I am. Before taking the assessment, I have realized that I
am a Progressivist and at the same time, a Constructivist teacher.

Progressivism mostly became popular as a result of the work of John Dewey


(1897). Dewey's belief was in the experience that students had, and the fact that children will
learn better by experiencing the idea first hand. He believed that students must try and fail in
order to learn and develop understandings about the world around them. In connection to
the quote by Labaree (2005), progressivism is about failing to succeed, while loving and
hating the emotions that follow.

According to Labaree (2005), progressivism is known as "child-centred instruction."


This means that everything that is done in the classroom, is done for the purpose of
facilitating and nurturing the student's development. It bases all of the lessons or plans on
the developmental needs of the children, and believes that a child should learn by doing,
rather than by passively watching. Learning is constructed based on discovery and
experience.

A Progressivist teacher believes that education should focus on the whole child
rather than on the teacher. This philosophy emphasizes that students should test ideas by
active experimentation, and is active not passive. I remember whenever I teach, I don’t
always rely on books and pen and paper activities. I always engage my students in
experiential learning because I have observed that students are challenged and active
whenever they are doing a certain activity first hand. I do not have that teaching style where
the teacher gives everything to the students and spoon feed them. I can also consider
myself as a progressivist teacher because I am not authoritative. I always involve my
students in decision making and planning.

Constructivism in education on the other hand is famous for it has many key
personalities that explained this theory, such as John Dewey (1933), Bruner (1990) and
Piaget (1972).

John Dewey rejected the notion that schools should focus on repetitive, rote
memorization & proposed a method of "directed living" – students would engage in real-
world, practical workshops in which they would demonstrate their knowledge through
creativity and collaboration. Students should be provided with opportunities to think from
themselves and articulate their thoughts. Dewey called for education to be grounded in real
experience. He wrote, "If you have doubts about how learning happens, engage in sustained
inquiry: study, ponder, consider alternative possibilities and arrive at your belief grounded in
evidence."

Piaget rejected the idea that learning was the passive assimilation of given
knowledge. Instead, he proposed that learning is a dynamic process comprising successive
stages of adaptation to reality during which learners actively construct knowledge by creating
and testing their own theories of the world.
A common misunderstanding regarding constructivism is that instructors should
never tell students anything directly but, instead, should always allow them to construct
knowledge for themselves. This is actually confusing a theory of pedagogy (teaching) with a
theory of knowing. Constructivism assumes that all knowledge is constructed from the
learner’s previous knowledge, regardless of how one is taught. Thus, even listening to a
lecture involves active attempts to construct new knowledge.

Influenced by Vygotsky’s social constructivism, Bruner emphasises the role of the


teacher, language and instruction. He thought that different processes were used by learners
in problem solving, that these vary from person to person and that social interaction lay at
the root of good learning. He builds on the Socratic tradition of learning through dialogue,
encouraging the learner to come to enlighten themselves through reflection. Careful
curriculum design is essential so that one area builds upon the other. Learning must
therefore be a process of discovery where learners build their own knowledge, with the
active dialogue of teachers, building on their existing knowledge. Bruner initiated curriculum
change based on the notion that learning is an active, social process in which students
construct new ideas or concepts based on their current knowledge. He provides the
following principles of constructivist learning: Instruction must be concerned with the
experiences and contexts that make the student willing and able to learn (readiness);
Instruction must be structured so that it can be easily grasped by the student (spiral
organization); and Instruction should be designed to facilitate extrapolation and or fill
in the gaps (going beyond the information given).

I am also a Constructivist teacher because I do believe that it is the learner’s


experience and own comprehension that will help him understand the world and make
decisions for himself. I am as well convinced that learner’s past experiences must be
considered in everything the teacher does inside the classroom. As a constructivist teacher, I
make sure that learners have interactions with objects, events, and people around them.
Additionally, I provide my students experiences that will allow them to hypothesize, predict,
and manipulate.

To my surprise, the result of the Educational Philosophies Self-Assessment


somehow seems to be different to what I thought I am. The result of the assessment shows
that I am a Constructivist, Reconstructionist, Humanist and a Information Processing.
What are these philosophies? Since I already cited Constructivism above, I will now cite the
other three philosophies.

Reconstructionist. According to Gregory (2002), it is a constructivist pedagogy that


rests on immersing students in problematic aspects of their experience as a basis for guiding
students to construct knowledge, skills and dispositions that enable them to engage more
meaningfully with these experiences. Put another way, by activating students’ interest in
learning through their own active intelligence in developing and testing their own ideas and
hypotheses as a group, and engaging in self-correction, their experiences, including their
habits of thought, feelings and actions, are reconstructed as more meaningful. As
constructivist pedagogy the community of inquiry requires a skilled philosophical facilitator
who is procedurally rigorous and prepared to appreciate the philosophical implications of
students’ philosophical discourse). The overall task of the teacher is that of a philosophical
facilitator who is sensitive to the immediate concerns of classroom practice, but also aware
of the interplay between classroom practice and the methodologies and other practices of
the professional disciplines. Such thinking requires a redefinition of teaching and learning.
For an effective model of inquiry we need look no further than Dewey's educational theory
and practice. In fact, given that Dewey was heavily influenced by Peirce’s notion of the
community of inquiry, particularly its emphasis on pragmatic considerations of fallibilism and
self-correction, and that the pedagogical guidelines contained within his educational theory
and practice were influential on Lipman’s own theories and curriculum, it is a necessary
starting point.

According to Dewey (1916), democracy is an associated form of life. He viewed


school as a cooperative society on a small scale. The school is to be an agency to restore
community by being the centre of community life. In order to experience the social value of
education and its interdependence with society, schooling should engage students in real-life
problems to solve

in order to connect with home and social life. This means that the teacher takes on a dual
role as classroom practitioner and as a professional engaged in the problems, both
epistemological and methodological, of the scholarly community in which they belong, and
as facilitator to construct through a process of dialogue and intellectual self-correction the
experience and knowledge of students into a form that is meaningful so that they become
experts. To these ends the teacher needs to engage students in rich tasks that involve
discussion, investigation, and experimentation (depending on the disciplines), as well as
practical service learning that involves an exchange between proponents of new beliefs and
the rest of the community most directly affected by the social problem in a caring, communal
inquiry so as to actually reconstruct the problem.

Humanism. According to Bunge (1987), Humanistic approach is based on the body


of knowledge concerning human culture, handles cognitive problems concerning intellectual
and artistic problems, aims at understanding its referents, and uses primarily heuristic
methods. Abraham Maslow, looking at the humanistic approach as a unifying force that will
synthesize the fields of behaviorism and psychoanalysis are separate and will integrate
aspects of subjective and objective, personal, and the public from the human into a complete
holistic psychology (Graham, 2005).

Bernstein (2011) viewed the humanistic psychology approach to personality focuses


on mental capabilities that set humans apart: self-awareness, creativity, planning, decision
making, and responsibility. Those who adopt the humanistic approach view human behavior
as motivated mainly by an innate drive toward growth that prompts us all to fulfill our own
unique potential and thus to archive an ideal condition known as self-actualization.
Sukmadinata (2011) presented the function of the humanistic approach to teachers: first, as
a teacher who was instrumental in terms of intellectual development, mastery of knowledge
and thinking ability. Second, as a coach, role to play in terms of skills development,
intellectual skills, social and physical-motor. Third, as a mentor, a role in developing the
affective aspects, control values, attitudes, motivations, etc. The main purpose of this
approach is revealed through behavior, both as individual actions and as an interaction with
others. Behavior should be interpreted, understood and dealt with in such a manner that the
student is able to understand himself and to use strengths.
Information- Processing. Theory was developed by American psychologists
including George Miller in the 1950s. It is a cognitive theory that focuses on how information
is encoded into our memory. It describes how our brains filter information, from what we’re
paying attention to in the present moment, to what gets stored in our short-term or working
memory and ultimately into our long-term memory.

George A. Miller has provided two theoretical ideas that are fundamental to the
information processing framework and cognitive psychology more generally. The first
concept is `chunking' and the capacity of short term (working) memory. Miller (1956)
presented the idea that short-term memory could only hold 5-9 chunks of information (seven
plus or minus two) where a chunk is any meaningful unit. A chunk could refer to digits,
words, chess positions, or people's faces. The concept of chunking and the limited capacity
of short term memory became a basic element of all subsequent theories of memory. The
second concept, that of information processing, uses the computer as a model for human
learning. Like the computer, the human mind takes in information, performs operations on it
to change its form and content, stores and locates it and generates responses to it. Thus,
processing involves gathering and representing information, or encoding; holding information
or retention; and getting at the information when needed, or retrieval.

Based on the assessment, my top result is Constructivist, with a score of 23, which
fits to my first self-assessment. Next is Reconstrucionist, with a score of 22. This result made
me realize and remember that I am the kind of teacher who always inculcates social
involvement and reform to my students. I then recall that there were times where I let my
students present or perform that reflected social issues and made inquiries and dialogues
about the things that were happening in the world in that moment of time. I also believe that
the learners have the power to change the world in the future and it is my duty as a teacher
to form and equip them.

My 3rd assessment result is Humanism. It means that I let my students decide on


their own, and be responsible for every decision they make. Which based on my experience
is true. I am the kind of teacher that is not authoritative. I believe that as young as they are,
they must already know how to be responsible for their own choices and accept the results
in every action they make. I also stand that they are the controller of their own destiny. I am
as well an encouragement of socialization where I let my students interact with each other
and the people around them outside the school.

However, my 4th result is somehow contrary to what I believe I am. An Information


Processor is someone who makes meaning through symbol-processing structures of a fixed
body of knowledge.He/she also teaches how information is received, processed, stored, and
retrieved from the mind. What makes it contradictory is that I am really not that particular in
remembering. I am more interested in the experience or the feeling my students have in the
activities they have conducted. In addition, I myself is not that top-notch in terms of
information retrieval. There are times when I forgot things and also struggled in decoding
information.
Citations:

Bernstein, A. (2011) Essentials of Psychology (USA: Wadsworth). 443

Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bunge, M. (1987). Philosophy of Psychology. (New York: SpringerVerlag.)

Dewey, J. (1897). My pedagogic creed. The School Journal, 54, 77-80.

Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education (N.Y.: Free Press).

Dewey, J. (1933). How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective


Thinking to the Educative Process. Boston, MA: D.C. Heath & Co Publishers.

Graham, H. Psikologi Humanistik Dalam Konteks Sosial, Budaya, dan Sejarah,


Translated by Achmad Chausairi & Ilham Nur Alfian (Yogyakarta: Pustaka
Pelajar,2005).

Gregory, M.R. (2002) ‘Constructivism, Standards, and the Classroom Community of


Inquiry’, Educational Theory, 52(4): 397-408.

Labaree, David. (2005). Progressivism, Schools and Schools of Education: An


American Romance. Paedagogica Historica. 41. 275-288.

Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on
our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63(2), 81–9

Piaget, J. (1972). Intellectual evolution from adolescence to adulthood. Human


Development, 15(1), 1–12

Sukmadinata, N. (2011). Landasan Psikologi Proses Pendidikan. (Bandung: PT


Remaja Rosdakarya).

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