Right now I’m thinking about all the different philosophies on education that we’ve read, and I’m thinking about how it will be as first-year teachers to coordinate our beliefs about knowledge and the realities of public education at our new schools.
On the whole, I think that my experience in education was traditional. Classes were broken into subjects, and product was valued very highly. I’m not sure if it was valued more highly than process, but the product was very important. Even though my experience in school was probably more traditional, I knew that I was valued and cared for. There may be things that I wish had been different, like more emphasis on the emotional and exploratory side of learning, but on the whole it seemed to work well. Although, now that I’m writing this, I’m realizing that it probably did work well for me because I am white and middle-class.
Today I read the two Moodle articles, the first on a Montessori school, and the second the Reggio Amelia philosophy and practices in Italy. This reading was really interesting. For example, I hadn’t seen the Montessori theories broken down into the different age groups of elementary students. The Reggio Amelia theories are interesting because they seem so different to the model of education that I received. The Montessori approach is also very different from my experience, although these theories probably were influential in my schools at a more subtle level.
I’m looking forward to our student teacher placements, and beyond that to our first teaching jobs. Public education may be influenced by progressive theories, but the realities of “No Child Left Behind,” standardized testing, and positivist practices are still very prevalent. What will it be like for us to enter into the realities of teaching? To what extent can these theories be put into practice once we’re hired? Will the theories be subtly influential, or more concrete? I’m just thinking about how theories become part of our practice given the reality of public education as it is now.
I’m curious about how these pieces all fit together.
PS: I really like reading everybody's posts. It's been really nice getting to know you guys.
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I've also been doing a lot of thinking about the different theorist and how much all of this will play a role in my own philosophy. After reading the Finding in the Freedom chapters today, I feel like I'm totally buying into the whole contructivist approach, the author just does such a great job coming up with different analogies to prove her point. I personally feel like I'm benefiting a lot from the contructivist approach with our own classes we've been taking, for the first time in my life I don't feel like I'm studying material just so I can get a passing grade on the next test. I'm really enjoying the discussions/ice breakers/blogging/working as a team/learning with my own thoughts. I like that our professors aren't just saying, This is how you teach....
ReplyDeleteI too can't wait to get to work with the student teaching, it's like we've been doing nothing but discussing interesting science or art activities, or learning about different teaching methods. I just want to try it on the real thing.