1|Page Dhagat, Sandeep (Fall 2017)

Personal Philosophy of Teaching and Learning

Any analysis of the history of public education in this country will reveal that essentialism

has been the dominant educational philosophy influencing curriculums, classroom learning, and

teacher-student relationships. Essentialism, which began in the early 20th century, stresses a vision

of teaching children a core set of stable and unchanging disciplines: (1) reading, (2) writing, and

(3) arithmetic (Koch 2016). Essentialism promoted the idea of a unified American culture in which

curriculums and teaching practices remain time-honored. The philosophy resulted in teacher-

centered classrooms where knowledge, information, and wisdom was transmitted through a top-

down approach to students (Koch 2016). Strict adherence to lecture and rote learning were (and

remain) easily identifiable characteristics of the philosophy in practice. To say that essentialism

has worked is a half-answer because it necessarily ignores the historical reality that it largely

benefited a small subgroup of the population; that is, white men of middle class and wealthy

families.

In order to teach to todays America which is more diverse than at any other point in

history along racial, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic lines a different type of educational

philosophy is required. Simultaneously, our national and global economy is in the midst of a

technological revolution upending traditional jobs, opening new areas of job creation, and

requiring a more educated and skilled workforce than previous iterations of innovation. In a few

decades, entire professions of the workforce from truck drivers to warehouse laborers will be

eliminated. Whether teachers support or oppose the move towards automation and artificial

intelligence the driving forces of the revolution they cannot sit passively while it changes the

fundamental nature of employment. If we want to prepare students for the reality of the future

for a world where learning and education is continuous we need to adopt philosophies of teaching
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and learning theories that provide students with the skills, mindset, and character attributes that

will help them succeed.

Having been educated in a primarily essentialist setting, when I moved from secondary

school to community college, I noted how in some ways I was poorly prepared. The learning

strategies that served me and my peers so well in high school and middle school rote

memorization, information retrieval and recall, term recognition were shallow and ineffective

for learning more complex and voluminous content. Memorizing anatomical parts and

physiological functions only works in the short-term, yet being a medical or health professional

requires long-term retention. In addition, you must have the ability to process new research and

discoveries, make space in your memory schemas to accommodate the information, and eliminate

now incorrect information. My science teachers taught me how to follow procedures to the dot,

but did not necessarily teach me how to create my own procedures to answer my own questions.

My science teachers taught me how to find research articles through databases and evaluate their

credibility, but did not necessarily teach me how to synthesize that to solve a current problem or

issue. The essentialist philosophies that permeate many science classrooms are not doing justice

to the needs of our students or the requirements of the workforce. This is particularly disappointing

given that science, through experimentation and problem-solving, offers many mediums to

implement more enriching curriculums that are relevant and engaging.

After careful consideration of the history of public education, the demographics of todays

classrooms, and research findings of student preparedness I have concluded that a progressive

educational philosophy coupled with a constructivist learning theory is the most effective for the

science classroom. Progressivism as an education philosophy, formulated by John Dewey, stressed

embedding teaching and learning in the context of daily living (Koch 2016). In other words, Dewey
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envisioned the classroom as a laboratory in which the curriculum stressed curiosity, exploration,

discovery, and situated learning (Koch 2016). For progressivists, the process of learning is just as

important as the subject matter being taught. Classrooms of essentialist teachers are characterized

by student-centered learning, experiential education, problem-based learning, individualized

curriculums, and observation-based assessment (Koch 2016). Constructivism on the other hand is

a learning theory heavily influenced by Piagets cognitive learning theory and Vygotskys social

cognitive learning theory. According to Koch, it most closely relates to what we currently

understand about how people learn (61). Under constructivism, learners interact with people,

objects, and ideas to construct their understanding of what is happening around them (Koch 61).

When encountered with new information, learners experience a state of disequilibrium due to the

perceived discrepancy between an existing mental scheme and the new information (Snowman &

McCown 2015). Driven to eliminate the disequilibrium, students either accommodate or assimilate

the information. Via this process of equilibration, learners progressively make more complex,

accurate, and efficient mental schemes (Snowman & McCown 2015). When progressivism is

combined with constructivism, teaches can construct a learning environment and curriculum that

continuously generate disequilibrium for students to adapt to. Under this coupled philosophy,

which is student-centered and focused on internal mental states, teachers must guide students in

the discovery process and actively confront them with information that contradicts their

preconceived notions.

In a science classroom, both experimentation and problem-solving, support the use of a

coupled philosophy of progressivism and constructivism. Incorporating projects, experiments,

labs, and research assignments as the main mediums of content delivery rather than lectures or

textbook readings will enhance student learning. Students will be forced to use higher-level
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thinking under Blooms Taxonomy, like analyzing, applying, and evaluating. In addition, the

situated learning will provide students with better factual recall, allowing them to activate their

prior learning when encountering new problems (transferability). Overall, the science classroom I

envision teaching in would be developed around a progressivist and constructivist conception of

learning and teaching.

References:

Koch, J. (2016). TEACH3: Introduction to Education. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Snowman, J., & McCown, R. R. (2015). Psychology Applied to Teaching (14th ed.). Belmont,

CA: Wadsworth.