Ryan Ihrig

EDL 318
Teaching Platform and Philosophy

In writing this paper to show my teaching platform and philosophy, I first had to look
back at my autobiographical sketch. My autobiographical sketch mainly focused on the patch
that has lead me to Oxford Ohio attending this wonderful school. The main point that I ended
my paper on was the fact that I have been through much more than many others in my class. This
is because I worked for almost two years to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and pay
for school. Now that I am at Miami and continue on this journey I have found some other things
that I think would be important to add to my sketch. I am still following the same path that I was
on in my sketch which is life science education for AYA. This means that I will be certified for
grades 7-12 teaching life science. I had always thought that I would much rather do high-school
education as to have better intellectual conversations with students. The more I work with
middle-school students however the more I see that might not be entirely the case. I am an
outgoing and sometimes goofy individual. With middle-school students, this kind of behavior
is highly encouraged because it helps them better engage with the topic. You cant be as goofy
with high-school students because they will just think you are weird or trying too hard. This is
not to say that I no longer want to teach high school, it just gives me some more options to think
about and open other doors.
I also had to participate in a Q-sort to see where my curriculum philosophy would
generally fall on a scale. I was not very surprised by the results of this test, showing that I mainly
fall in the categories of Essentialism and Progressivism. Lets look and examine what each of

these are. Essentialism generally focuses on the promotion of individual intellectual growth
founded in the essential skills. Progressivism however is more focused on how knowledge leads
to growth and a teacher is only a guide to facilitate this growth (Poetter, 2012). You may be
reading this and thinking that these two things are not at all similar you would be right and
wrong. Yes, the overall structure is dissimilar between the two, but if we look much closer we
can see the similarities. For me, I see essentialism as something that all students need. They need
to know the basics (essentials) before they can ever hope to progress in the world. When we take
these essentials and use them to expand knowledge and grow into functioning members of
society while always continuing to learn and grow; we venture into progressivism. I believe that
a curriculum needs a healthy combination of the essentials and the limitless growth to really
encourage students to be more well-rounded (Palmer, 1993).
So, in knowing these different things about me, lets take a look at my teaching platform.
First we will take a look at my theoretical platform. Starting with my aim of education, I believe
that education needs to promote a solid basis of information in which the student has the best
possibly chance to grow and question the world around them. The role of the teacher in all of this
is to first build that framework for work to be done off of. The next thing the teacher needs to do
is challenge the student through inquiry and lead the student to question the world around them
and because of it, be disturbed and look for more questions and answers learning more in the
process (Wheatley). In knowing these things we can build a practical view of what I believe my
classroom will look like. All students must have a decent knowledge of the basics of
understanding for whatever topic I am covering. Without a basis they will not be able to move on
to ask thought provoking questions. Because of this, my classes will generally start with solid
review and foundation building. Once, and only once, this is accomplished we will be able to

move on to inquiry. This is where we must allow students to come up with the questions that
shape their learning. This needs to be teacher facilitated so the activities to not stray too much
from the needed material, but they are still the ones asking the questions. If the lesson is covering
environmental issues and students are wondering what environmental affects have on their local
water supplies, this is a great question that can then be facilitated by the teacher to examine
further. Overall my classroom will have a solid foundation in the basics so they are able to
enquire on the world that they live in to try and make it a better place.
Based on this I do believe that my education philosophy has a moderate basis in schools
today; mainly on the essentialism side. Most schools today focus mainly on learning the
essentials of a system. Now whether people believe that schools today do an efficient job in
teaching these essentials is not the topic I am covering. There is a great deal of essentialism in
schools and unfortunately some of that goes into teaching for the test. Many believe that in
teaching for the test, they are teaching the basics that everyone needs (essentialism). While this is
true to an extent it only covers the basics needed for the test, not for life and future education.
This is where the progressivism in me takes over. We need to allow students to have inquiring
minds to explore life and learning and teaching for the test does not do this. So overall, while
schools may do a good job of teaching the essentials needed for their standardized tests, they
do not do well with teaching through inquiry. This is definitely a challenge I will face in
whatever school I end up teaching in.
Well there we have it. While I have not changed ideals since the last writing, I have
learned a decent amount about myself and what I would like to accomplish in teaching. I have
also learned more about how I specifically plan to accomplish these goals through my specific
curriculum.

Palmer, P. (1993) The Heart Of A Teacher. Taken From

https://miamioh.instructure.com/courses/6224/files/folder/Week%25202?
preview=1127900
Poetter, T. (2012) Teacher Leadership for the 21st Century. Print
Wheatley, M. Turning to One Another:Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future. Print