Educational Philosophy

The Educational Philosophy Test along with its scoring sheet is an interesting way to look at ones personal teaching philosophy. Like all questionnaire based tests, it is not completely accurate but it can be used as a tool to reflect upon your own philosophy, why you think the way you do, and why others do not suit you. Based upon my scores I am technically a Reconstructionist. In fact, the only other philosophy that I scored high on was Progressivism; however, Progressivism is a little too reliant on personal experience for my taste, even if I do believe in its focus on adaptability.

The questions that determine Reconstructionism/Critical Theory are quite interesting. For instance, even though I love literature, I believe it is worthless if we do not use it as a tool to expand our minds and enact new modes of thought. Schools do far too little work in social reform and it should be a primary aspect of education. Without a focus on change, what are we truly promoting in our schools? Traditional values are a nice thought, something to remember and understand eras, but if we emphasize "passing on tradition" our society will continue to deteriorate. Those who believe that remaining stagnant is a viable option are living in a fantasy world. We need to be able to adapt to technology, to philosophy, and to current issues. Without context we are only teaching our students a jumble of information that they can vomit out during a test, only to forget it in the future. Thus, question 25 is essential to my education philosophy. "Essential skills" is such a cop-out term, as if you could definitively create a list of things that everyone needs to be able to do. It's ludicrous. If we're not pushing our students to become better people, to consequently better society, I honestly don't see the point in education. If you wanna create automatons who all think and believe in the same manner, good for you. We will continue to spiral as a society. But, if we want to do anything worthwhile, to truly benefit our students, we have to strive towards creating a better society. Apathy is a dangerous contagion that continues to spread throughout our country and, if there isn't a push to destroy it, we will continue to be in a state of entropy.