Philosophy of Teaching

Philosophy of Teaching

It is my deep conviction that learning is a process that is intended to transform people’s lives, way of thinking, and their experiences through the acquisition of knowledge skills and competencies. It is meant to affect the cognitive as well as the motor faculties of the learner to make him become a better person able to handle life challenges and solve the problems he is likely to encounter along the way. I believe learning is a continuous lifelong process that is not limited by age or locality. Different people learn at different rates depending on their mental abilities to grasp and process new sets of information and their experiences. It may be done through different ways and processes whose effectiveness again varies from one person to the other. The process is guided by different philosophies that can be applied together during a given teaching/learning process or differently for different outcomes.

The classroom in which I teach is spacious enough with working surfaces at the sides that are ideal for carrying out some tasks. The spaces are ideal for creating room for movement of the learners and the teacher and for altering the sitting arrangement, especially during discussions. The number of learners in the class is twenty-five. This is ideal to ensure that there is maximum teacher, learner interaction. It ensures that each learner gets as much assistance from the teacher as possible. The teacher also gets enough time to look at the learners’ work, give assignments, and to mark them correcting and guiding the learners where they have missed the point (Diehl, 2006). It is also important for each learner to participate in well in-class activities like making presentations.

To ensure that proper learning is going on in my class, I will employ more than one method of teaching. This is to make sure that I am able to reach the needs of each student. By this, I mean the slow learners and fast learners (Cohen, 1999). It is my belief that each learner is endowed differently and that learning occurs at different paces whenever students are situated in the same classroom. The preferable philosophy for me is the progressive approach, which is also known as the learner-centered approach. In this approach, all the concentration and emphasis is placed on the learner. The learner directs the learning process while the teacher plays the role of an instructor (Diehl, 2006). This method will help learners develop their manipulative skills since it involves a lot of hands-on activities. The learner, therefore, enjoys the process of knowledge acquisition since he can use his five senses to derive the results in whatever activity he is carrying out.

This method will also be ideal for my students because it raises the curiosity of the learners, therefore, making them more receptive to the new set of knowledge. Under ordinary circumstances, learners find it difficult to concentrate in a class for a whole lesson learning something that they feel they do not need or do not see its application in their lives. They easily get bored to have to sit and be given instructions without the freedom to do one or two things as far as the learning process is concerned. This means that they enjoy and participate more in the process that they have control of e.g., by adjusting some parameters in an experiment and therefore influence the outcome (Cohen, 1999). This improves the retention ability of the knowledge acquired.

However, at given intervals will have to switch to perennialism as another philosophy to be used. This approach is teacher-centered to a great extent. This will be effective when it comes to teaching principles rather than facts. I will have to take some time to explain the principles that apply in the area of learning and use the opportunity to initiate discussions among the learners. This will enable my students to develop the inquisitive and reasoning mind to be able to reason out and ask critical questions as to why some things happen the way they do. The method is also going to be very relevant in my classes since it is going to boost the morale of my learners since they will always feel that their input is considered and contributes to the learning process.

At some point also I will have to employ the behaviorism philosophy in my teaching. I intend to use this method to help correct the unbecoming behavior, which never lacks in young people since they are growing and are bound to make mistakes here and there (Staddon, 1999). I intend to reward those who show some good behavior and temporarily withdraw some of the privileges from those learners who show some behavior that is out of the expectations. This is going to shape the learners to become good citizens who respect other people and their properties and also help them become law-abiding citizens (Staddon, 1999). However, I might not use this philosophy other learning processes since it might not apply well.

I will not leave out essentialism philosophy in my teaching. In some instances, the learners will need to be taught some concepts which are mostly factual. Some testing will have to be administered along the way. This is important to establish the progress made in certain areas. I do not intend to use this approach in many instances since its full implementation limits the cognitive and motor development of these learners (Cohen, 1999). The learners also have no control over what they learn; therefore, they tend to persevere in class since their motivation level is quite low, and the interest in the lesson is nor aroused. This might make the learners dislike school hence perform poorly or even end up dropping out.

The one philosophy I might not apply in my teaching is the existentialism philosophy. This philosophy requires that the learners be subjected to a completely different learning program where each learner is allowed to learn at their own pace. The learning process is, therefore, not uniform. The learners are also allowed to choose the subjects of their choice, which will prepare them to become the kind of people they individually feel they should become but not necessarily prepare them for a future career (Cohen, 1999).

In the course of my teaching, I do not intend to change my philosophy. I believe this is what will make me get the expected outcomes in my students at the end of the learning period. This will me develop a wholistic learner whose behavior, cognitive, and motor faculties are taken care of in the process. It is this approach that will guarantee a friendly and enjoyable learning environment for my learners and, therefore, help them discover the hidden abilities in them as well as develop their confidence, which will enable them to face the challenges of the 21^st century.