Voices Article Reflection

This was an incredibly interesting article that captured so many different philosophies from a wide variety of popular historical figures. While I did not necessarily agree with every philosophy, there were certainly some that I sifted through and found particular pieces that fit my philosophy.

Confucius' main philosophy was that the teacher was merely a transmitter of knowledge. They inspired students with truths and great ideas. I believe that as an educator that is what I will be doing. While discovery is very important, I know there will be times when I will need to share the knowledge I know with my students to better their learning. On the other hand, Socrates believed that the teacher's role was to draw the knowledge out of the students. He believed in a unique concept of teacher-less education and that knowledge could not be transmitted from teacher to student, but that the students had to discover on their own. While I cannot fully agree with Socrates, I do like his idealistic approach to have students fully discover on their own--perhaps at one point. However, now I believe that a combination of direct instruction and independent concept development is important.

For the enlightenment educators, I liked that concepts that Pestalozzi brought to the table. His philosophy was based primarily around the whole student and their feelings and emotions. As educators we are most certainly not solely teaching our subject to students, rather we are teaching our students to also be healthy emotionally and have a stable head, heart, and body.

In the Twentieth-Century American Educators, Dewey's philosophy on teaching is one that I have experienced as a teacher and it is wonderful. At Upward Bound, every environment students are in they feel comfortable and it allows them to flourish. By creating a learning environment that allows students to have meaningful interactions with peers, students are able to even further their learning by having rich conversation about topics that they wouldn't otherwise discuss if they were not open to discussion.

I did not find a connection with every philosophy in this article; however, I do really like many of the concepts talked about and believe that I could develop, if I haven't already, around some of these philosophies to make me a better educator.

The History and Philosophy of Education--Voices of Educational Pioneers
By Madonna M. Murphy,