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

Before taking the Educational Philosophies Self-Assessment, I have already in

mind what kind of Philosophy in Education I am practicing. This is through analyzing the
given Philosophy and Education Continuum Chart. I believe I am a Progressivist and
that I am practicing the Philosophy of Progressivism.

According to this philosophy, the child grows and develops as whole through his
own experience or through self-activity. The outstanding leaders of this school are
Horace Mann, Stanley Hall, John Dewey and William Kilpatrick. Emphasis in this
concept is placed upon interests, desires of the individual, upon freedom, and upon the
learner rather than the subject-matter.

A progressivist believes that learning is an active process, in which the learner

himself is definitely involved. This point of view states that the learning process is
essentially experiencing, doing and understanding. This concept calls for active doing
which involves the mind, the body and the emotion of the individual. It connotes chiefly
of doing, feelings and thinking the actual thing to be learned. In other words, learning is
in itself a natural experience. This simply means that the child learns what he lives,
accept it to live by, and that he learns this response in the degree that understands and
accepts it.
I can say that I am a progressivist because every time I conduct my classes I
always let my students engage in experiential learning. I also recognize the fact that no
two individuals are exactly alike, that is why I always give activities and experiences that
meet the needs and should be in accordance with the abilities of every student.

According to Duka (1999), this philosophy asserts that learning is a dynamic or

active process and a learner learns best if he is an active participant in the learning
process.

After taking the Educational Philosophies Self-Assessment, my top Philosophy

od Education is Constructivism which scored 25 and Progressivism which scored 21.

I believe these two go together because both are student-centered.

Constructivists believe that learners actively construct own understandings of reality
through interaction with environment and reflection on actions.

Twomey Fosnot (1989) defines constructivism by reference to four principles:

learning, in an important way, depends on what we already know; new ideas occur as
we adapt and change our old ideas; learning involves inventing ideas rather than
mechanically accumulating facts; meaningful learning occurs through rethinking old
ideas and coming to new conclusions about new ideas which conflict with our old ideas.
This concept applies to my teaching because I allow my students to predict, imagine
and pose questions through given activities.
 Piaget (1977) asserts that learning occurs by an active construction of meaning,
rather than by passive recipience. He explains that when we, as learners, encounter an
experience or a situation that conflicts with our current way of thinking, a state of
disequilibrium or imbalance is created. We must then alter our thinking to restore
equilibrium or balance. To do this, we make sense of the new information by associating
it with what we already know, that is, by attempting to assimilate it into our existing
knowledge. When we are unable to do this, we accommodate the new information to
our old way of thinking by restructuring our present knowledge to a higher level of
thinking.
Similar to this is Kelly's theory of personal constructs (Kelly, 1991). Kelly proposes that
we look at the world through mental constructs or patterns which we create. We develop
ways of construing or understanding the world based on our experiences. When we
encounter a new experience, we attempt to fit these patterns over the new experience.
For example, we know from experience that when we see a red traffic light, we are
supposed to stop. The point is that we create our own ways of seeing the world in which
we live; the world does not create them for us.

Upon knowing that I am a constructivist and upon learning all these concepts
above, I can say that all these somehow apply to my way of teaching. In constructivism,
a teacher lets his/her students actively construct their own knowledge and that reality is
determined by experiences of the learner (Elliott et al., 2000, p. 256). It is way too
relatable for me as a secondary teacher. Whenever I present new concept, I give them
the general concept and let them construct their own knowledge based on their
experiences.

As a constructivist, I urged my students to be actively involved in their own

process of learning. My role here is to be a facilitator providing students with
opportunities to test the adequacy of their current understandings and I do not take the
role of the "sage on the stage."

The other Philosophy which ranked second is Progressivism. I was not surprised
with this result since I have already assessed myself.

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) above, 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.
Citations:

Arends, R. I. (1998). Resource handbook. Learning to teach (4th ed.). Boston, MA:

McGraw-Hill.

Elliott, S.N., Kratochwill, T.R., Littlefield Cook, J. & Travers, J. (2000). Educational

psychology: Effective teaching, effective learning (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill
College.

Piaget, J. (1977). The development of thought: Equilibration of cognitive structures. (A.

Rosin, Trans). New York: The Viking Press.

Twomey Fosnot, C. (1989). Enquiring teachers, enquiring learners: A constructivist

approach for teaching. New York: Teachers College Press.

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

American Romance. Pedagogica Historica. 41. 275-288