Running Head: PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING Gowan 1

My Philosophy of Teaching and Learning

Caroline Gowan

Wesleyan College
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“Education is the most powerful weapon with which we can change the world.”

~ Nelson Mandela

I used to believe that education and schooling were synonymous. I believed the simple

idea that education happens inside the walls of a school where a teacher instructs necessary

content and students learn the skills that are needed for a successful life. As I have progressed in

the education program at Wesleyan, I have come to view education as lived experiences over

content standards. While content standards are the tool used for measuring instructional

effectiveness, I have developed my personal philosophy aligned with progressivism.

Progressivism is a child-centered philosophy associated with John Dewey. The primary

idea of progressivism is that the child is a growing and developing person and education helps

them live and grow best, and to interact with their surroundings in such a way as to live a richer

life. (​Kilpatrick, W. H. (1942). “Progressivism is rooted in questions that arise by experiencing

the world.” As I have taken classes at Wesleyan, I have identified my own learning style to be

kinesthetic. I learn best when interacting, experimenting, and engaging with what I am learning. I

am a doer more than I am a listener. As a student, I would plunge into tasks that required

problem-solving much more easily than I would be able to listen or watch someone demonstrate

how to solve the problem. I preferred movement over sedentary activities. I thrived when

working cooperatively with others and I was valued for my creative contributions. My very

favorite learning experiences involved field trips and opportunities to put my hands on objects

and artifacts. I excelled at classes that involved labs and practical application. I am actually quite

good at trial and error. I do not view incorrect answers to indicate that I am wrong as much as I
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am growing. When I know what doesn’t work, I am able to narrow down what does works. I

know some auditory learners can absorb information by just listening to what someone says. I

know some visual learners need some type of visual to attach to the spoken words to learn. But I

believe that offering as much content in a kinesthetic style, allowing movement, working

collaboratively, and engagement with the content is a successful way to teach all students of all

learning styles. My own personal learning style is why I am so drawn to a progressive

philosophy. I believe that learning is most meaningful when the learner is fully engaged and

using all of his or her senses. My frame of reference for learning has guided my philosophy for

teaching young learners. My​ philosophy will stay moldable so that as I learn and grow as an

educator, I can adapt it to my future philosophy.

I am fortunate to have some great role models who influenced me as I identified my

passion. I grew up with a teacher for a mom. Even before I was old enough to go to school I

knew I wanted to go because that is where she went every day. But, when I was old enough, I

rode with her to and from school, hung out in her classroom before and after school, and

pretended I was teaching in her classroom while she was in faculty meetings. By the time I was

in second grade, my Christmas list included a whiteboard, markers, books for my classroom

library, and a real grade book where I would evaluate imaginary students. I even made up my

discipline referral forms that I needed for a couple of incorrigible imaginary children. I now

recognize this type of play as supreme engagement with my passion. Even at that age, I was

learning by doing.

As a student, I was never a teacher’s favorite. I was extremely aware of how frustrating I

was in my first-grade teacher. She was a no-nonsense, authoritarian type who consistently
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corrected me, moved my card to undesirable colors, and made me stand by the fence at recess

because I was so wiggly. I couldn’t help it but she thought I could. I wasn’t wiggling and moving

around to be mean or disrespectful. It irritated her, and it seemed to irritate some of the students

who sat around me. When we would do lessons as a group, I was never on the right number.

When we were going to read a story, I jumped ahead and looked at all the pictures before starting

to read and she hated that. And, every time a butterfly landed on the window sill, I stared at it

like it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen until she came by and knocked on my desktop

to redirect my attention. And, I never finished my morning work. It was not that much but it was

hard for me to concentrate when there was so much activity and shuffling about as students

entered the room and unpacked their backpacks. So my first-grade self identified as “bad,” and

not pleasing to the teacher. I wanted to please her but when I determined that I couldn’t, I quit

trying. I don’t remember learning much content in first grade but I do remember learning how

much I disappointed the teacher.

In second grade, I had a wonderful teacher, Mrs. Chambers. We had a dog with her

backpack as a class pet. We called our desks our “offices” because that was where we got work

done. But we also moved around the classroom a good bit. She had a throne where we could sit

if we were reading for the class. She always wore a smile and she didn’t seem to mind wiggling.

I remember an incident that was pivotal for me. Our desks were arranged in pods of four, each

touching another desk. When I was working with my crayons and paper and pencils and books,

my desktop didn’t seem to have enough room so my supplies often encroached on another

student’s desk and he complained about me, loudly. Mrs. Chambers warned me several times to

keep my things on my desk but those things never stayed put. Finally, after more complaints, she
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called me over to her teacher cabinet and showed me her box full of bulletin board borders. She

asked me to pick one that I liked and I chose one with balloons. We went over to my desk and

while I held the border in place, she taped it along the edge of my desk. The pretty border created

a ridge so that my crayons and books would not roll off my desktop onto anyone else’s. There

are so many teachers that I had that would have pulled my desk out of the group and put it

against a wall so that my supplies would not bother other students. This simple act of kindness

made me adore her even more. This is probably my earliest memory of the importance of the

mutually respectful relationship between a teacher and a student.

At its core, education is a relational experience, that requires developing a relationship.

The difference between my first and second-grade teachers provides me with a strong frame of

reference for the value of the relationship between the teacher and the learner. In a positive

relationship, the teacher becomes a mentor or a guide and creates a working alliance. In recent

years, there has been quite a bit of study into the value of the relationship to the learning process.

We now have “a better understanding of the role of collaborative interactions in these settings

has the potential to improve teaching effectiveness and student learning” (Rogers, 2009). “The

process of teaching and learning is a collaborative endeavor” (Rogers, 2009). I believe that as a

teacher if I fail to build a relationship with the learner, he will never engage with me, and

therefore the content. One of the challenges I anticipate as a teacher is trying to build curiosity in

a concept that the learner is not interested in. This is when the relationship between the teacher

and the learner will take over and he will hopefully buy what I am selling.

I believe that learning is accomplished by engaging with content that is interesting to the

learner. Because not all content is something that a learner finds interesting, it is my duty as the
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teacher to help the student develop interest by situating the new content in a framework that is

familiar to the learner. I believe that a successful teacher will view students individually instead

of as a group and will identify the learning styles that the students classify as the way he or she

learns best. A proficient teacher does not give information but helps students discover the

answers they seek. Every learner has intellectual curiosity or questions he or she will voluntarily

seek answers to. In addition to the grade-level standards, I believe the teacher should indulge the

learner so that the student’s interests will be validated and there will be a reason to praise his or

her work.

The primary purpose of school is to offer students exposure to a standardized set of

skills that are necessary to function in life. As the student progresses in school, the lessons

transform from what (rote knowledge) to how (conceptual application), to why (critical thinking

and judgments) (Abrami, et.al, 2015). It is in early childhood that curiosity leads to learning. If

you watch a child play alone in a backyard, he may explore a puddle with a stick, an insect, the

bark of a tree, or a hanging vine that will hold his weight. Nobody had to tell the child to go

interact with those things. His curiosity compelled him to explore his environment. Whatever he

learns through that innocent exploration will become the scaffolding which will later be

introduced to surface tension, insect exoskeletons, how to identify trees based on their bark and

invasive vines.

I believe that children innately want to learn and desire to please adults. They have varied

interests, learning styles, and behavioral, cognitive, physical, and emotional needs. The early

years of development vary widely from child to child based on economic status, culture, family

structure, and access to opportunities. By the time the children come together as a group in
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kindergarten, they have a wide range of needs. I believe that our attempt to standardize learners

beginning at age five is a recipe for devaluing a child who is outside the norm. In my field

experiences, I have noticed a difference in the way children solve problems based on what is

modeled for them at home. Some children can use their words to try and explain a position while

other children use force and aggression to solve problems. Some children are better with

computer applications because of their level of access to technology at home. Some children

come to kindergarten already reading while others don’t even know that letters make sounds. I

believe that one of the most critical elements of early childhood education is to identify and

value what a child already understands about his or her world and begin to develop their learning

from there.

I believe that in early childhood, schooling is fairly standard as far as skills. It begins with

literacy and number skills because those are the building blocks for all other learning. However,

as students go from grade to grade, I believe we should offer more differentiated opportunities

for learning. I think we would see more success and less dropping out if we just asked the

student what she wants to do and how we can help her get there. I think about my high school

classes where I was forced to take some math classes that have yet to make sense to me like

finding the area under a curve or solving math word problems about trains. Some kids hated the

literature classes but thrived in the arts or history. I do believe that as students mature, there

should be more life skills required such as budgeting, taxes, loans, interest rates, home

maintenance, resume developing, interviewing skills, entrepreneurialism, etc. Those are contexts

that are far more useful to live beyond high school than one more literature or foreign language.
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It would also narrow the achievement gap and reduce dropouts if the students experienced more

success and felt like there were more options than just college prep.

The instructional methods that I align with are hands-on activities that allow for

exploration, problem-solving, and critical thinking. Because I am a kinesthetic learner, I have a

genuine understanding of the importance of diving in and interacting with the content over

reading and remembering. I believe that no matter if a student is auditory, visual, or kinesthetic,

they can all learn by doing. I think that engaging with the content is the highest level of thinking

and the most likely that it will be remembered over memorization. In fifth grade, I had a science

teacher who believed in experiments. Every day when we came into class there were paper

towels, vinegar, food color, baking soda, iodine, plants, microscopes, straws, marble, plastic

containers, etc. all over the front table. I used to get so excited before she even began teaching

because I knew we were going to DO something. I had lots of teachers who would show us a

video clip of an experiment or Bill Nye The Science Guy who explained why things worked, but

I was always drawn to the engagement with the objects and I understand why I can remember

those lessons more than the videos.

As I reflect on how classrooms were managed when I was a student, I can identify

several parallels. In early childhood, nearly all of my teachers used the color cards, and each time

a student did something wrong, her card was moved to a color that had more severe

consequences. Not being perfect could get your card moved to yellow where you had to stand on

the fence at recess or moved to red where you got a note in your planner or even blue where your

parents were called. As I got older, teachers just expected complete compliance and if you did

something wrong, she would write you up. I am still observing teachers and carefully noting how
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they organize their classrooms and maintain order. I would like to do something different but I

am not quite sure what that is yet. I do know that I have a real understanding of and appreciation

for the particularly wiggly children, so I believe instead of making them stand still I would rather

have them dance. Instead of taking away the time they need to run and expend energy, I would

rather have them play chase. I would like to try alternative seating options. One of my field

experience teachers has some chairs, some carpet seating, some bouncy balls, and some desk

bands that students can put their feet on and move them without disturbing others. I have noticed

that wiggly children can totally engage with their work while bouncing those bands so it seems

to lead to better concentration. I am very interested in offering this type of seating for students

because I would rather accommodate a wiggly child than punish them.

Assessment is one of the critical elements of teaching and learning. It is the

communication between the teacher and the learner (or parent) about how much of the content

has been mastered. Grades are not exclusively communication for the learner. I can learn how

well I taught the content based on how the students performed. If I have thirty percent of the

class that fails as an assessment, I can assume I need to do something different than I did before

when I first offered the information. I believe rubrics are the best way to evaluate project-based

learning because whatever I am grading reflects a sliding scale of proficiency. Too many rubrics

that have graded my work either gave you credit for doing it or not. I think that developing a

rubric to score project-based learning will allow for points to be given for students who go above

and beyond the expectation. I also believe that it is important for me to look at the instrument

used for assessment carefully. Lots of teachers use a test created by a textbook because it is

supposed to measure the standards, but if I have a large number of students who don’t perform
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well on that instrument, I think it is worth looking at it critically to determine if the students had

trouble with the content or the test.

The way I learned and was taught has a strong impact on what I now believe. I have been

fortunate to have almost as many teachers and professors that I want to emulate as well as a

number of them that I don’t want to be like. My philosophy of teaching is deeply connected to

relationships. “Significant learning is a result of significant relationships” (Comer, 1995). I

believe that in early childhood, a parent cares more about how the child is nurtured for learning

more than how many words the child can read or computations the child can perform.

“​Education is ​the​ tool that gives child life choices. A teacher who establishes mutual respect

cares enough to make sure a student knows how to survive school, and gives that student the

necessary skills is providing a gift that will keep affecting lives from one generation to the next”

(Payne, 2008). I want to be the kind of teacher that students remember for believing in them and

accommodating their individuality. I want to be an advocate for children who are particularly

wiggly and for those that encounter difficulty with the standard way many skills are taught. I

want to be a teacher who makes a difference.

Bibliography

Abrami, Philip C., Robert M. Bernard, Eugene Borokhovski, David I. Waddington, C.

Anne Wade, and Tonje Person, 2015, “Strategies for Teaching Students to Think Critically: A

Meta-analysis”, ​Review of Educational Research,​ 85(2): 275–314.

doi:10.3102/0034654314551063
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Comer, J. (1995). Lecture was given at the Education Service Center, Region IV.

Houston, TX.

Kilpatrick, W. H. (1942). The Case for Progressivism in Education. Journal of Visual

Impairment & Blindness, 36(1), 31–34. ​https://doi.org/10.1177/0145482X4203600107

Payne, R. (2008, April). Nine Powerful Practices. ​Educational Leadership,​ ​65,​ 48-52.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr08/vol65/num07/Nine-Powerful-Pra

ctices.aspx

Rogers, Daniel T. (2009) "The Working Alliance in Teaching and Learning: Theoretical

Clarity and Research Implications," International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and

Learning: Vol. 3: No. 2, Article 28. Available at: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2009.030228