Republic of the Philippines

Northwest Samar State University

Rueda St., Calbayog City 6710
Website: http//www.nwssu.edu.ph
Email: main@nwssu.edu.ph
Telefax: (055) 2093657
ISO 9001:2015 Certified

The Teaching Profession

Carmen B. Fiel BEED-4B

Activity 4
An Exercise to Determine Your Educational Philosophy
Find out to which philosophy you adhere. To what extent does each statement apply to
you? Rate yourself 4 if you agree with the statement always, 3 if you agree but not always, 2 if
you agree sometimes, and 1 if you don’t agree at all.

STATEMENT 1 2 3 4
1 There is no substitute for concrete experience in learning. /
2 The focus of education should be the ideas that are as relevant /
today as when they were first conceived.
3 Teachers must not force their students to learn the subject /
matter if it does not interest them.
4 Schools must develop students’ capacity to reason by stressing /
on the humanities.
5 In the classroom, students must be encouraged to interact with /
one another to develop social virtues such as cooperation and
respect.
6 Students should read and analyze the Great Books, the creative /
works of history’s finest thinkers and writers.
7 Teachers must help students expand their knowledge by helping /
them apply their previous experiences in solving new problems.
8 Our course of study should be general, not specialized; liberal, /
not vocational; humanistic, not technical.
9 There is no universal, inborn human nature. We are born and /
exist and then we ourselves freely determine our essence.
10 Human beings are shaped by their environment. /
11 Schools should stress on the teaching of basic skills. /
12 Change of environment can change a person. /
13 Curriculum should emphasize on the traditional disciplines such /
as math, natural science, history, grammar, literature.
 Republic of the Philippines
Northwest Samar State University
Rueda St., Calbayog City 6710
Website: http//www.nwssu.edu.ph
Email: main@nwssu.edu.ph
Telefax: (055) 2093657
ISO 9001:2015 Certified

14 Teacher cannot impose meaning; students make meaning of /

what they are taught.
15 Schools should help individual accept themselves as unique /
individuals and accept responsibility for their thoughts, feelings
and actions.
16 Learners produce knowledge based on their experiences. /
17 For the learner to acquire the basic skills, he/she must go /
through the rigor and discipline of serious study.
18 The teacher and the school head must prescribe what is most /
important for the students to learn.
19 The truth shines in an atmosphere of genuine dialogue. /
20 A learner must be allowed to learn at his/her own pace. /
21 The learner is not a blank slate but brings past experiences and /
cultural factors to the learning station.
22 The classroom is not a place where teachers pour knowledge /
into empty minds of students.
23 The learner must be taught how to communicate his ideas and /
feelings.
24 To understand the message from his/her students, the teacher /
must listen not only to what his/her students are saying but also
to what they are not saying.
25 An individual is what he/she chooses to become and not /
dictated by his/her environment.

Interpreting your scores: If you have 2 answers of 2/4 in numbers:

1,3,5,7 - you are more of progressivist
2,4,6,8 - you are more of a perennialist
9,15,20,25 - you are more of an existentialist
10,12 - you are more of a behaviorist
11,13,17,18 - you are more of an essentialist
14,16,21,22 - you are more of a constructivist
19, 23, 24 - you are more of a linguistic philosopher
 Republic of the Philippines
Northwest Samar State University
Rueda St., Calbayog City 6710
Website: http//www.nwssu.edu.ph
Email: main@nwssu.edu.ph
Telefax: (055) 2093657
ISO 9001:2015 Certified

Analysis:
If you have 2 scores of 4 in several of the 7 clusters, you have an eclectic philosophy
which means you put the philosophies together. If you scores less than 4, this means that you
are not very definite in your philosophy. Or if you scores are less than 3 in most of the items,
this means your philosophy is quite vague.
B. Reflection
What discovery did you have from this activity? Your realizations and learnings?
The discovery that I have from this activity base on the result from the test to determine
my educational philosophy, is I’m more of an behaviorist and essentialist however, I can’t fully
admit these results but it’s somewhat related to my personality because I behave or react
depends on my environment however, on my opinion, my behavior doesn’t define on what
environment I have because I’m this kind of person who easily adapt what’s on my
environment and when it comes to the result of being more of an essentialist, I somewhat
relate myself to this because I believe on what I have learned from essentialism that “the
purpose of schooling is to impart necessary knowledge, skills and attitude to enable young
people to function as fully develop human beings in the modern world” thus, I study hard to
acquire essential knowledge, skills and attitude that I can use as my weapon in the future.
However, when it comes to educational philosophy, I sometimes I agree on these
statements “human beings are shaped by their environment” and “change of environment can
change a person” because not all students have the capabilities to adapt on their environment
and it depends on how they could able to handle themselves from their environment while on
the latter, I sometimes agree to these statement also that “curriculum should emphasize on the
traditional disciplines such as math, natural science, history, grammar, literature” and “for the
learner to acquire the basic skills, he/she must go through the rigor and discipline of serious
study” because serious study is not applicable to all students because not all students has
interest on these traditional disciplines.
As I knew my result from the test, I began to search deeply where I learned many things.
I learned that behaviors are acquired through conditions which conditioning occurs through
interaction with the environment and I also learned that essentialism is the combination of
idealism and realism. In conclusion, as what I have learned from the different philosophies of
education, I realized that even though we have different philosophies in education, In my
opinion as a future teacher, we should adapt all of these educational philosophies for us to
become more flexible in every classroom situations.