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Personal Philosophy of Education

Ariana Callejas Lazaro

Department of Education, College of Southern Nevada

EDU 201: Intro to Elementary Education

Susan Bridges

24 July 2022
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I am choosing this profession to help change the life of at least one student. My

educational career has always been great because I always had help and support from my peers,

family, and teachers. I was also always part of after-school programs that offered tutoring and

other resources to help me have the best school experience. It would mean everything to me if I

were able to pass this along and also help my future students enjoy school and have help when

they need it. Unfortunately, there has never been one specific teacher I remember who has

inspired me but they have all had the same characteristics which have helped me get to where I

am today. They have all been caring, supportive, respectful, fun, energetic, and overall created an

environment where I could always say what I felt without fear of judgment, ask for help on my

homework or other tasks before, during, or after school, and whenever I needed to talk they were

willing to lend an ear. These schools were not fancy or private, they were public schools in the

city where the teachers either had a bad school experience and wanted their students to never go

through that or have also had amazing school experiences and simply want to pass this along.

The personal knowledge and skills that will help serve me is my ability to be empathetic.

I am able to understand other people, where they come from, their struggles, and what they want.

This helps me build relationships with whoever I meet because of my ability to respond to them

appropriately because I am able to understand them. This will help me observe my student and

see their strengths, weaknesses, abilities, and need either in school or at home to help them

obtain the best school experience. My field observation helped me understand the teaching

environment in terms of how flexible it can be. There were many fun activities done that I would

have never thought of because of how creative the teachers and schools were.
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The educational philosophy that most closely fits my current beliefs about education is

that what is learned should connect to the real world and help prepare students for the future. By

this, I mean that the students should be able to connect with nature, and each other, and develop

their skills in and out of the classroom. This environment will be warm, safe, and friendly to

them and will provide them with the opportunity to discover, create, solve problems, and see

their ideas come to life. Teaching about nature in this environment through science or bringing

outside real-world skills by being passionate in how they teach will help boost their motor skills,

social-emotional skills, gross motor, and fine motor skills, and cognitive and language

development. As well as connecting with the environment of the classroom, I also believe that

teachers should always try and prepare the students for the next year and the world in general.

Every lesson plan they plan, the subject they teach, or activity they do, should have the target to

make meaningful and engaging activities where all students will learn something, and not

teaching it or doing that activity just because they have nothing else to do or they feel like it. No

one knows what the future will look like and these students may have a different future with

different jobs than the one we had or the generation before us so teaching them life lessons, as

well as academics, will help them adapt to a new future. The historical events that set the stage

for how I think about children and schools would be School District of Abington Township v.

Schempp. The reason for this is that I am a firm believer that everyone should learn and try

things for themselves without the influence of others. In this case, if a student's religion does not

have them pray or have the Bible and they want to try it or learn about these subjects, they

should do it on their own time and not have adults push these things onto them, especially young

kids whose brains are not fully developed yet and believe everything they hear and see.
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The instructional strategies I will implement are direct, interactive, experimental, and

independent. This will help me appeal to their learning styles because they will learn in every

way and discover things they may not have known about themselves. I will also approach student

diversity by making sure there is respect and no bullying for one's background, ethnicity, race, or

gender and assess everyone equally, except if they have a learning disability.

The characteristics and skills I need to have in order to continue this career are being

patient, empathetic, a good listener, a communicator, able to collaborate and adapt, and a leader.

There are many more but I think these are the most important because one might have to deal

with the same questions and answers over and over again. Also, being a good listener will help

build relationships with students, while being able to collaborate will also help build bonds with

coworkers, and adopting is useful when receiving a new class or moving to a new school. Being

a leader is important to help motivate and drive an effective classroom where students can learn

to the best of their ability. My long-term goal in terms of education is to open my own school one

day in a third-world country or in a poor community. That being said, the specific steps I need to

take in order to achieve my goals and the requirements for a teacher license are to obtain a

doctorate in education, complete my practicum, student teaching, and then the Praxis Exam to

qualify for a license. I will also need to have experience in teaching in order to open my school

and decide if I want to run it and teach, simply run it, or teach and have someone else run it for

me. I would like to have a school where students in poor communities can go and learn to the

best of their ability to go to college or start a business to help their families and themselves out of

poverty. In the end, I have a long way to go in terms of school to become a licensed teacher but I

know what I want to see in my class and what I need to have in order to complete my goals.