Brian L.

Johnson
AHE 554 Stan Goto
December 2014
Philosophy of Education and Diversity
My Professional Area
This writing represents an attempt to describe a personal philosophy of education and diversity.
While this description is by nature philosophical, it is also grounded in personal context, and thereby
customized. Before launching into philosophical underpinnings, then, it may be helpful to explain
briefly some of the context that shapes and informs my approach to the facet of education within which
I participate. My current and anticipated professional working context is in the area of adult higher
education. More particularly, I currently work in a financial aid department at a 2-year technical college
in a mid-sized sub-urban city in the Pacific Northwest. The college serves as a regional hub for
professional technical education in northwest Washington. In my role in financial aid, I encounter many
informal, customized adult educational opportunities where I have the privilege and responsibility to
facilitate adult student access to pertinent parts of a largely bounded set of functionally critical
information, crucial to the achievement of the students own goals. Understood in a broad and basic
way, para-education, can be an accurate label to apply to my anticipated educational functioning, in
this sense: the education in which I participate will help to facilitate in an auxiliary manner the various
vocational educational program areas upon which each student more centrally desires to focus. In the
technical college setting, this education chiefly and ostensibly centers on increased opportunity for
obtaining or improving ones prospects for gainful employment. To a certain degree, this implies that
the educational process that I help to facilitate for students will tap into their secondary educational
desiresit likely will not to a large degree constitute students expected primary goals of attaining this
or that intended degree. Instead, it will facilitate learning in a financial area that supports this primary
educational focus.

In reality, technical college students do have at least some awareness of their need for financial
education and literacy. Part of my role is to tap into that level of awareness, helping the student to
crystalize the connection between the need for at least some increased underlying understanding of
financial aid matters in the sub-strata to support their educational purposes in the upper-level strata.
Fortunately, tapping into students cognizance of need for increased literacy concerning certain matters
of financial support is not so difficult, even though, in any given student, that cognitive awareness may
be small, out-prioritized, or even repressed, at least at the time that they set out to begin or continue
with this segment of their college experience. The natural pragmatism of the technical college setting,
with its emphasis on vocational training, lends itself to this enterprise, perhaps even more easily than
within the context of a comparable, but broader, liberal arts education. As reflected by their choice of
educational venue, the financial (in some form) is never very far conceptually from the educational and
the vocational for these students (Career and Technical Colleges: Careers in Focus, 2014).
Overview of Learner Population
As accurate as such a broad characterization of the technical college students with whom I work
is, it is one of the few such assessments that aptly apply to the technical college population as a whole.
In so many other ways, the population of students with whom I regularly interact is quite diverse. The
technical college student body represents people from ages sixteen to well into their sixties, with
average student body age being around the mid-thirties a characteristic phenomenon typical of many
modern North American technical and vocational training institutions that reflects greater age diversity
than most other community colleges or universities. Recent demographic data from the institution at
which I currently work (BTC Facts, 2011) indicate that students of color comprise roughly twenty
percent of the college student body (a disproportionately large amount in comparison to the
approximately thirteen percent in the surrounding county population (Whatcom County QuickFacts
from the US Census Bureau, 2012)). Students spread themselves across thirty-five two-year degree

program areas, as well as additional certificate areas, general education classes, adult basic education,
and continuing education classes. A minority of these students are either co-enrolled in or coming
straight from high school. Some already have past college education. Thirteen percent already have a
bachelors degree or higher. Many more have had a substantial break time between this college
experience and their last experience of formal education, sometimes decades. Ten percent of the most
recent year of graduates had some self-identified accessibility issue or disability.

Understanding Diversity
As I define it, diversity in the realm of learning and education refers to the variety of learner
backgrounds, experiences, needs, and frames of understanding. I embrace a robust understanding of
diversity that entails a complex, multi-layered understanding of humanity that is not primarily abstract
but has far-reaching implications for each persons daily life and interactions. Snyder, May, and Peeler
likewise affirm that a suitable definition of diversity must encompass both its embedded complexity and
its inextricably connected incarnation, recognizing a complex interaction of multiple cultural social
identities each individual must negotiate everyday(2008, p. 146). In fact, the conceptualizing process
itself of diversity is decidedly not monolithic. At the conceptual level, diversity itself implies not just
certain differences that may be categorized across a single spectrum line, but a continually morphing
sphere of differences that connect and interact with each other on various intersecting planes and
levels. Here Harrison and Kleins persuasive description of diversity in terms of at least three interacting
spectrums (separation (points of view), variety (past educational background), and disparity
(perceived status and/or relative access to resources)) (2007, p. 1202) illustrates the complexity of a
properly full notion of the term and helpfully applies (beyond just the workplace teams with which
Harrison and Klein concerned themselves) to the wider venue of adult learners. In a manner of

speaking, thenand particularly in todays populated and multi-cultural worldunderstanding diversity

as a diversity of diversities is helpful to an appropriately nuanced understanding.
I thus define diversity as a complex and evolving multiplicity of differences among human beings
that greatly affect human interactions, growth, and ways of understanding. To flesh out the import of
this point in merely one particular direction for the sake of example, this definition recognizes that
humanity exhibits many ways of understanding ways of understanding diversity obtains at the meta
level, and beyond. Prominent identifiable aspects of diversity include matters related to gender;
sexuality; financial health; access to resources; religious and political views; physical traits, aptitudes,
and skills; intellectual capacity; past education; personality tendencies and effective learning styles;
language and communication skills; nationality and heritage; and philosophical and interpretational
frameworks. Please note that defining, delineating, and measuring even this short list of some common
elements of diversity proves to be amazingly complex (if not impossible) and subject to significant
healthy critique and variable ambiguity. It is, however, fitting that a diversity of evolving understandings
pertain to the concept of diversity itself. Diversity often pertains to inherited pieces of ones identity
that one may be little able to change, if at all; but it also pertains to more malleable aspects related to
ones personal choices. In my understanding of the concept, diversity merits mutual respect and
acceptance (though rarely, if ever, calling for wholesale adoption) regardless of the degree to which it
may be either beyond or subject to ones personal control.
This multi-faceted concept thus shapes a reasoned approach to higher education by recognizing
the need on the one hand to create clear communication and shared understandings while, on the other
hand, allowing plenty of room for development, disagreement, and input from other voices. In my own
professional area, this has many important implications. It means that I strive for clear communication
and common understanding of concepts, while recognizing that, for various reasons related to diversity,
persons with whom I relate may be grounded in very different understandings and may, in fact, have

equally valid approaches and helpful ways of interpreting the available evidence. One of my primary
tasks early in an interpersonal interaction is to quickly and accurately assess common areas of overlap of
understanding between a particular student or family member and myself. My task, then, is to build on
this foundation for a helpful exchange of information, while recognizing that all such forays are to some
degree necessarily tentative. Recognition of diversity also strongly influences my commitment to
accessibility. This aligns with the nature of the state-sponsored community and technical college system
within which I work, which champions access to learners of all levels, as well as with the financial aid
department, which takes a student-centered approach that facilitates access.

Educational Principles and Practices

In my current professional educational context, I consciously adopt a fusion of principles from
different strains of historical educational movements. Far from being capricious, though, this fusion of
philosophical educational strands represents a strategic, constructive and coherent (if eclectic)
educational approach that well suits the setting in which I work, and the students in that setting. A brief
serial summary of these principles reveals the logical connection and, indeed, progression between
them.
First, I draw on a student-centered, holistic learning approach. This derives in a primary way
from the humanist branch of historical educational development. Though humanism in no way
commands a monopoly on student-centered learning (especially prominent across approaches in adult
education circles), it has been a historically prominent influence behind this principle. This means that
students as individuals and groups drive the nature of the learning, such that the student is free to
learn what he or she wants to learn and in a manner desired by the learner (Elias & Merriam, 2005, p.
124). This principle fits with the technical college emphasis on customized educational paths for adult
student learners. It also fits with the tailored delivery of financial information and funding that fits with

a students (and familys) current needs. As an educational facilitator, I help to encourage students to
take responsibility for their own learning based on their identification of their own learning needs. With
the development of technology in relation to the delivery of financial aid, students have gained
increased power to access resources and take control of their own learning. Despite the somewhat
narrow focus of a financial aid department within the greater overall purview of higher education, I
maintain the conscious awareness that students needs are interrelated, and therefore aim to help
students within a diverse population to consider not just their short-term financial needs, but also their
broader needs and desires for themselves as a whole, as well as those of their families and communities.
Second, I hold to a principle of education for educations sake that rises up from the classic
liberal arts tradition. I here employ the broad nature of education present in the liberal educational
stream to build on the holistic understanding of the student from the humanistic stream. At first blush,
this may sound counter-intuitive to a technical college setting that emphasizes hands-on vocational
training. However, I assent to the equally important technical college emphasis on developing skills for
adaptable learning that fits much better within the context of a rapidly-changing world than, for
instance, the mere memorization of a boxed set of information about how to use certain tools. I would
rather have students with whom I work to come away with a greater ability to discern their own
personal educational desiresand know how to pursue learning about the evolving targets of those
desiresthan just to memorize a chunk of technical data that is narrowly relevant for their immediate
vocational situation. While I resist the potential for exclusionary elitism that at times has characterized
manifestations of traditional liberal arts education (and which is typified by the notion of liberal
education being just for those who can afford the requisite leisure time), I embrace the liberal idea
that broad, reflective education can lead to higher levels of awareness, self-understanding, satisfaction,
and critical thinking. In that sense, everyone (not just the so-called rich elite) has at least some leisure

time to allot to such worthy educational pursuits in his or her lifetime: the chance of developing the
gifts and faculties of human nature and becoming a full human being (Livingstone, 1995, p. 3).
This leads to a contrapuntal third principle lying in creative tension with and derived in
mindfulness of education for educations sake: pragmatic application, drawn from the progressive
tradition. While the progressive adult educational tradition is not the only one to emphasize practical
application of learning, it perhaps features it most conspicuously. In fact, notions of progressive
education likely influenced the early adoption of vocational training in local high schools in the first half
of the twentieth century, leading to quasi-independent vocational programs growing out of the high
schools, which, in turn, eventually led to technical colleges like the one at which I currently work. Labs,
tools, and job training are as important at the technical college as class instruction, reading, and writing.
In the area of financial aid, I utilize a pragmatic educational approach to facilitating customized learning
by making sure that students of all backgrounds a) know how to access information that is relevant and
helpful to their own identity; b) can apply the information that they access in a beneficial way; c)
comprehend the connection to supporting their own preferred programs of learning, and d) carry with
them one or more next steps that connect with their own perceived understanding of their current
educational disposition.
A fourth principle constitutes another feature of progressive education and builds on the
pragmatic principle: the idea of life-long learning. Though the idea of life-long learning certainly did not
begin or end with the historical progressive educational movement, it nevertheless is a hallmark of
progressivism to a special degree. Progressivism pushes the idea that learning transcends both the
classroom setting and the years of ones childhood. This broadened (Elias & Merriam, 2005, p. 61)
view of education fits with the diversity of learners in the milieu of the technical college. I desire, for
instance, to foster in students a desire to commit to a lifetime of increasing financial literacy rather than
simply provide forms to fill out.

Fifth, in keeping with holistic life-long learning, I endorse the progressive goal of positive change
in society as a strategic educational principle. Some in the technical college setting are tempted to
isolate technical education in a way that reduces technical training to the transfer of knowledge of
certain techniques and coping mechanisms. With solid progressive adult education roots as well, this
principle recognizes that students, as diverse citizens of this heterogeneous world, have a function to
play in shaping broader societylearning not just for learnings sake, but also for humanitys sake
(Bergevin, 1995, p. 42). To allow students to have an understanding of education that is narrowly
limited to only the self-serving perceived needs of their own self and family is doing a disservice to
them. By helping from a progressive posture to raise awareness that we all have opportunity to
influence and improve conditions far beyond ourselves, I also stand with the post-modern notion that
education, politics, and lifestyle choices are all related in holistic, inseparable fashion. In my work in
financial aid, this principle means that I encourage students to give back to the community, share their
testimonial experiences with others, keep connected with their instructors, facilitate future field trips
from their program to their places of employment, and be active alumni.
In summary, in expressing these five philosophical principles, I clearly have drawn most deeply
from the well of the progressive movement in adult educationnot surprising, perhaps, given the
vocational setting of the modern-day technical college and the pragmatic context of my own
employment in post-secondary career training in financial aid. Additionally, it is clear that certain
philosophical underpinnings rising out of traditional liberal and humanistic approaches to adult
education also strongly shape my own amalgamated approach. In communicating these five principles, I
recognize that, within a different format, I could mention and unpack many other influences from the
various philosophical streams of adult education that shape my understanding and practice and that
bubble to the surface at various times in my work. However, for the present context, I have limited my
description here to briefly elaborating on the five most conspicuous philosophical strains running

through my current approach to education, and the way that a robust, wide-ranging, and likewise
conspicuous understanding of learner diversity powerfully has shaped my conception and application of
each.

References
Bergevin, P. (1995). The Adult, His Society and Adult Education. In S. B. Merriam (Ed.), Selected Writings
on Philosophy and Adult Education (second., pp. 3745). Malabar, FL: Krieger.
BTC Facts. (2011). Retrieved November 25, 2014, from
http://www.btc.ctc.edu/AboutBTC/BTCFacts/indexBTCFacts.aspx
Career and Technical Colleges: Careers in Focus. (2014). Retrieved November 25, 2014, from
http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/Articles/Pages/CareerandTech.aspx
Elias, J. L., & Merriam, S. B. (2005). Philosophical Foundations of Adult Education (third.). Malabar, FL:
Krieger.
Harrison, D. A., & Klein, Katherine J. (2007). Whats the Difference? Diversity Constructs as Separation,
Variety, or Disparity in Organizations. The Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 11991228.
Livingstone, R. (1995). Cultural Studies in Adult Education. In S. B. Merriam (Ed.), Selected Writings on
Philosophy and Adult Education (second., pp. 17). Malabar, FL: Krieger.
Snyder, C., Peeler, J., & May, J. D. (2008). Combining Human Diversity and Social Justice Education: A
Conceptual Framework. Journal of Social Work Education, 44(1), 145161.
Whatcom County QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau. (n.d.). Retrieved May 22, 2014, from
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/53/53073.html

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