EDUC 400

Sean M. Patterson

Philosophy of Teaching Reflection

My score indicated that I most closely aligned with Perennialism

and Essentialism. I had thought I would score highly on these in the

first place. I had read the resources and thought that I would most

closely identify with those two. The two things I disagreed with most

were behaviorism and reconstructivism. It wasnt surprising to see

those results.

I thought the test fairly accurately captured the way I feel about

education. I stated before that education is a privilege and we teachers

should treat it as such. The reason I think it is a privilege is because we

have this great responsibility to pass down certain universal truths to

students for the betterment of society. These truths are the laws of

mathematics, physics (science), logic, and morality. Yes we will teach

other things like history and ELA, which are extremely important, but

they are always up for debate and reinterpretation. On the other hand

the body of universal truths that I stated above are not really up for

debate; they may be debated, but it is much more nuanced. For

example, we can argue whether it is right or wrong for a man to steal a

loaf of bread to feed his family, but murdering your friend is not really

a debatable topic. It transcends cultures and time. These laws that are
transcendent should be taught in schools. Does that mean that there is

no time to explore what students want to learn about? Of course not.

That leads me to my next point: The test was not really a fair

assessment of ones realistic thoughts on this issue. I thought that

there were good arguments in all of the philosophies. For instance, I

kept seeing people say something like, I think that progressivism is

the best because I believe learning should be learner-centered. I

believe that too, but I dont think that learning will come solely through

that structured. At times there will be room to give autonomy to your

students and allow them to venture into the cast ocean of knowledge

and learn what they want.

However, I am in a 2nd grade classroom that would be a complete

disaster if this where the atmosphere one hundred percent of the time.

Conversely, if a classroom environment were always rigid and stiff and

teachers were constantly lecturing, then the students wouldnt learn

that way either because of the lack of relationship and enjoyment in

learning. There must be a balance in everything. The reason I most

closely identify with perennialsm is because I believe there is a central

body of knowledge that we ought to draw from as teachers. I dont

believe we ought to go rogue and start teaching why communism

might work in some places, or why gay marriage should/shouldnt be a

national policy. Our opinion should stay out of it in a lot of cases and
instead we should present to the best of our ability the universal truths

and let the student decide if they will accept or reject these truths.

In closing I agree with the results, but I do not at the same time. I

definitely look at myself as a conservative. I think we ought to

conserve and preserve what is right and true and get rid of the rest to

build our society. However, I think there are multiple ways one can go

about teaching these things. On Monday, we can lecture and discuss,

and on Thursday we can allow them to pick a topic and research it so

they will be able to discuss it with the group. There can be middle

ground and it is not always as black and white as the test made it

seem. Overall, the test was certainly a good experience and I enjoyed

learning more about different perspectives.