Carlos Chavez

Professor

Education 202

11/01/2021

My Personal Philosophy of Education

My personal philosophy of education has been formed by my past experiences with my

teachers, what I have learned throughout my time observing different classes for my field

observation, and what we have learned so far in my education class. Of course, as a student that

has been through the lower levels of education, I have an idea of what I would say is a perfect

teacher. This perfect teacher ideal, through this education course, has been reformed and given a

new meaning. My thoughts on teaching have spun a new route that is no longer just in the eyes

of a student of the past but a teacher of the future.

Before I begin to explain my view on teaching and being a great teacher, I would like to

talk about what drove my decision to become a teacher. I was what you would call a class clown.

As a matter of fact, I actually won class clown of 2020 at my school. I was a disruptive child

throughout all my schooling. At every teacher meeting that my parents attended the same phrase

was said: “he is very intelligent but he just talks too much.” And so with that came two different

teachers that I would encounter. Some teacher would put me on an island by myself or send me

to different classes to keep me away from other students. I thought this was okay because I was

taking away from the learning of other students. They would never hold me after school or call

my parents, just push me to the side and pay me no mind. The teacher would make me feel like I

was too much to handle and was not worthy of being in the class. Needless to say, it was not a

pleasant experience in school. But that all changed with my experience with the opposite side of
the spectrum. This opposite side of teachers would embrace my silly and loud habits by making

me feel that calling out and being spontaneous was okay to a certain extent. They would offer

help and try to understand why I was acting out so much. These were not just teachers anymore,

they were something greater. And it was not just me they were giving their guidance to, but

every single child that needed it and even those that did not. These acts of nobility helped fuel

my decision to become an educator by the time I was in the seventh grade. And my decision to

specifically become a mathematics teacher was because I had always had the most amazing

experiences with my math teachers. They seem to almost fit seamlessly with my own personality

and were the ones that let me be - me.

I would like to now examine what my philosophy of education is. For this, I will be

using a couple questions to help myself further explain my philosophy. My first two questions

are, what makes a good teacher? And what is the role of a teacher? These two questions, I

believe, work alongside each other. To be a good teacher, you must play many roles. You have to

be a mentor, which means you must know what you are teaching at a high level of

understanding. Doing so will boost your confidence level, which would give the student the

assurance they need to give you their full trust. Teachers must be a counselors, by providing the

support a student needs with their problems, whether those problems are personal, social, and/or

psychological. Lastly, I believe the teacher must be a role model. This is one of the most

important roles that a teacher plays. Teachers are with their students longer than some of the

students' own parents. At the younger ages, students absorb a ton of information so being a good

role model can and will play a huge part in the student's future whether it be good or bad.

My next question, what is the role of a student? My short and simple answer to this

question is that the role a student plays in school is that of caterpillar. They eat away at the
knowledge that the teacher is providing, increasing their comprehension of the subjects they are

taught. Students are in school not only to learn but to develop analytical and social skills to

hopefully one day become successful butterflies. Students are vessels that need to be filled with

as much positive knowledge that they are able to hold. And teachers are the funnels that help

guide that information in.

My final question is: what would my teaching style be? After taking the survey about the

five philosophies of education that was provided in the textbook, my results were tied with

essentialism and progressivism. I would consider this a fair assessment because those are my

ideas of what teaching should be. As a future math teacher, I believe in having a proper base to

build upon is essential to approve comprehension; without that strong base of the basics, you are

doomed to fail. However, knowledge means nothing if you could not apply it to the real world

which is where I made the connection with progressivism. As I have recently mentioned, most of

my math teachers were my biggest influences. They all shared a mixture of those two

philosophies. We never learned anything outside of what we were supposed to and if needed,

they would constantly go back to prior lessons to develop the fundamental components that

would be lacking. Be that as it may, we still learned to use the lesson out in the real world. An

example of this was when my geometry teacher brought us outside and taught us how to measure

mountains. During my field observation, one of the teachers had their students create posters to

prove that they understand how to use unit rate. The students were highly engaged and seemed to

understand the lesson fairly well. A mixture of both of these philosophies are needed to become

a good teacher.

Of course, not being a teacher yet, I do not fully grasp what it is like to teach an entire

classroom filled with kids. Nonetheless, I know that going in with a positive philosophy of
teaching will help me build an even greater one as time goes on and I am able to gain experience.

Teaching on paper seems easy but after asking countless numbers of educators, I know it will be

a challenge but a highly gratifying one to say the least.