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Emilia Cervantes

Professor Shkorupa

EDU 201/ my philosophical portrait of myself

25 March 2015

My Philosophy of Education

Through my experience in EDU 201, and the field observation assignment, I learned to

form my own definition of education and see the type of teacher I want to be. As a future

elementary teacher, I believe in students involvement; learning from doing, and improve

inequities so they become problem solvers who can identify the problem and find solutions.

Thus, I will use a progressivism and social reconstructionism approach. As well as my learning

styles, visual and tactile, will influence on how my future students learn.

My goal is to impact young lives through a positive environment using a progressivism

approach, letting students use their curiosity with hands on lessons. As well as a social

reconstructionism that shows students inequities and encourages them to find solutions. Thus,

my role as an educator is to help students find their individual talents and interests. This can help

students to be proactive people who foresee problems and find possible solutions, thinking

ahead.

In my field observation, I like how teachers have hands on lessons, and the school is

about students. For example, the teacher I observation, did a math lesson where students were

separated into two groups; two students would take turns to jumped and measure each others

jumps, and took turns at measure each others head. Also, the school provided a flexible

curriculum, including gym, and art. Compared to traditional schools, where students learn by

textbooks, drills, tests, and little flexibility. Therefore, seeing students getting excite with the
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progressive approach has ensure me that I will use this in my future classroom. For example, I

will guide my students as they plan a field trip; learning new information and find ways to

navigate. Moreover, in my textbook for my EDU class, I learned about the different teaching

philosophies and realize which one appeals to me. Furthermore, the schools talked about issues

like bullying but I want to take on a radical approach by using the philosophy of society

reconstructiveism. Even having a lesson about climate change, the ways it affects our planet,

and ways to fix it. This gets them be deep in though and find solutions. Also, my personal

learning styles which are visual and tactile; I learn best with a text that has pictures or graphics,

and using my hands and body to learn, learning by doing. This can be incorporate into my lesson

by doing assignments that allow students to create visual images through drawing or building,

and with hands on activity where they can touch and move. Like having them spending three

days using a thermometer to measure the weather then with the data; they draw their results like

what was the temperature, and if it was cloudy or sunny. Thus, students interactive with those

lessons and get excite about it.

I notice that the teachers or the school did not talk about diversity but it will be part of my

future classroom; talking about important people of different races and talking about different

cultures. For example, have an assignment where students research different countries, and use

PowerPoint to present to the class, and use special months like womens month or African

Americans month; to do lessons about important people of that race or sex. It lets students see

that their race or culture are being resented, feeling connection to the lesson. Thus, teaching them

about inequities, different race, and different cultures; getting them to have globe awareness by

knowing what is going on around them.

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The teacher I observation was strict with her students but still had a lot of misbehavior

interruption. Combining her approach of strict discipline but also being soft; before writing

misbehaving students up, I will ask them why they did it, explain why it was bad, and other ways

the students could have solve the problem. I will also not give homework or assignments as

punishment and deprive students of a learning experience; I will use supervised time outs. I do

not believe in corporal punishment. Furthermore, I will give each student a fresh start the next

day. I also watched a video in my EDU class, where a teacher had a meeting with a students

parents to discipline that student behavior. I like this approach and will use it if a student

continues to misbehavior. First, I will write them up then call their parents to explain what

happen and set up a meeting with both parents and the student. Overall, I want a positive

environment where children are kind and respectfully. In order to achieve this, the discipline

needs to be strict and students should know what is expected of them but also give them chances

to correct the misbehavior.

The school and teacher have a system where students can trade a certain amount of paper

dollar bills like the monopoly money for prizes. I dislike this system because they are having

problems with students stealing their peers paper money. Therefore, I believe Feedback is a

better tool than the token system. For example, I will correct students if they did an assignment

wrong but also tell them what they did right and show them how to fix it. Giving them positive

feedback, I want my students to learn not to give up and learn to be self-satisfied so they do not

always do things for prizes but for themselves. Overall, I believe positive feedback helps to build

their self-esteem rather than prizes.

I see myself in five years as a Las Vegas second grade elementary teacher. Moreover, the

reason why I want to stay in Las Vegas is because my dad has ALS; my mom needs my help
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often with my dad. By being close to them, they can call me for help. I also want to teach second

grade because they are at an age where they can absorb the information and are curiosity about

the world. Furthermore, the subjects I will teach are science, math, social studies, and English

language arts.

As a future elementary teacher, I will focus on students involvement, learning by doing

and reshaping our society. I want my students to become problem solvers who can find the

problems and consider multiply solutions. Therefore, my teaching philosophy will be

progressivism and social reconstructionism. Also, my learning styles which are visual and tactile

will influence on how my students learn. Thus, I believe in the progressive and social

reconstructionism approach, affecting the way my future students learn, and my classroom

management; gaining the skills needed to find solutions.