THE TEACHING PROFESSION

Online Distance Learning

Week 1-5

CHAPTER ONE: YOU, THE TEACHER, AS A PERSON IN SOCIETY

I. YOUR PHILOSOPHICAL HERITAGE

ACTIVITY 1.1 An Exercise to Determine Your Educational Philosophy

Find out to which philosophy you adhere. To what extent does such statement apply to you?Rate
yourself 4 if you agree whit the statement always, 3 if you agree but not always, 2 if you agree
sometimes, and 1 if you don’t agree at all.

Statement 1 2 3 4
1. There is no substitute for concrete experience in learning.
2. The focus of education should be the ideas that are as relevant today as when they
were first conceived
3. Teachers must not force their students to learn the subject matter if it does not
interest them.
4. Schools must develop students’ capacity to reason by stressing on the humanities.
5. In the classroom, students must be encouraged to interact with one another to
develop social virtues such as cooperation and respect.
6. Students should read and analyze the Great Books, the creative works of history’s
finest thinkers and writers.
7. Teachers must help student expand their knowledge by helping them apply their
previous experience in solving new problems.
8. Our course of study should be general, not specialized; liberal, not vocational;
humanistic, not technical.
9. There is no universal, inborn human nature. We are born in exist and then we
ourselves freely determine are essence.
10. Human beings are shape by their environment.
11. Schools should stress on the teaching of basic skills.
12. Change of environment can change a person.
13. Curriculum should emphasize on the traditional disciplines such as math,
natural science, history, grammar, literature.
14. Teacher cannot impose meaning; students make meaning of what they are taught.
15. Schools should help individuals accept themselves as unique individuals and accept
responsibility for their thoughts, feeling and actions.
16. Learners produce knowledge based their experiences.
17. For the learner to acquire the basic skills, s/he must go through the rigor and
discipline of serious study.
18. The teacher and the school head must prescribe what is most important for the
students to learn.
19. The truth shines in an atmosphere genuine dialogue.
20. A learner must be allowed to learn at his/her own pace.
21. The learner is not a blank slate but brings past experiences and cultural factors to
the learning situation.
22. The classroom is not a place where teacher pour knowledge into empty minds of
students.
23. The learner must taught how to communicate his ideas and feelings.
24. To understand the message from his students, the teacher must listen not only to
what his/her students are saying but also to what they are not saying.
25. An individual is what s/he chooses to become not dictated by her/his environment.

Interpreting your scores: If you have answers of 2/4 in numbers:

1, 3, 5, 7 you are more of progressivist
2, 4, 6, 8 you are more of perennialist
9, 15, 20, 25 you are more of existentialist
10, 12 you are more of a behaviorist
11, 13, 17, 18 you are more of an essentialist
14, 16, 21, 22 you are more of a constructivist
19, 23, 24 you are more of a linguistic philosopher

ACTIVITY 1.2 Test your Understanding of philosophies

Answer each with a YES or NO. If your answer is NO, explain your answer in a sentence.

ESSENTIALISM

1. Do essentialists aim to teach students to reconstruct society?

2. Is the model citizen of the essentialist the citizen who contributes to the re-building of society?
3. Do the essentialist teachers give up teaching the basics if the students are not interested?
4. Do the essentialist teachers frown on long academic calendar and core requirements?

PROGRESSIVISM

1. Do the progressivist teachers look at education as a preparation for adult life?

2. Are the student’s interests and need considered in a progressivist curriculum?
3. Does the progressivist curriculum focus mainly on facts and concepts?
4. Do the progressivist teachers strive to simulate in the classroom life in the outside world?

PERENNIALISM

1. Are the perennialist teachers concerned with the student’s mastery of the fundamental skills?
2. Do the perennialist teachers see the wisdom of ancient, medieval and modern times?
3. Is the perennialist curriculum geared towards specialization?
4. Do the perennialist teachers sacrifice subject matter for the sake of the student’s interest?

EXISTENTIALISM

1. Is the existentialist teacher after student becoming specialist in order to contribute to the society?
2. Is the existentialist concerned with the education of the whole person?
3. Is the course of study imposed on the students in the existentialist classroom?
4. Does the existentialist teacher make heavy use of the individual approach?

BEHAVIORISM

1. Are behaviorists concerned with the modification of student’s behavior?

2. Do behaviorist teachers spend their time teaching their students on how to respond favorably to
various environmental stimuli?
3. Do behaviorist teachers believe they have control over some variables that affect learning?
4. Do behaviorist teachers believe that students are the product of their environment?

LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY

1. Do linguistic philosophers promote the study of language?

2. Is the communication that linguistic philosophers encourage limited verbal language only?
 3. Do linguistic philosophers prefer the teacher who dominates discussion to save time to the teacher
who encourages dialogue?
4. Is the curriculum of the linguistic philosopher open to the learning of as my languages, like Mother
Tongue, as possible?
CONSTRUCTIVISM

1. Does the constructivist agree to the teaching methodology of “telling”?

2. Do constructivists believe that students construct knowledge?
3. Do constructivists approve of teaching learners the skill to learn?
4. Do constructive believe that meaning can be imposed?

ACTIVITY 1.3 Test Your Mastery

To which philosophy does each theory of man belong? A person:

1. is a product of his environment.

2. has no universal nature
3. has rational and moral powers.
4. has no choice; he is determined by his environment.
5. can choose what he can become.
6. is a complex combination of matter that responds to physical stimuli
7. has no free will.
8. has the same essential nature with others.
9.is a rational animals
10. first exists then defines him/herself
11. Is a social animal who learns well through an active interplay with others
12. is a communicating being.
13. Is a maker of meaning
14. A constructor of knowledge
15. Independent learners

ACTIVITY 1.4 Venn diagram of Philosophies

1. Similarities between essentialism and perennialism

2. Difference between behaviorism and existentialism
3. Difference between perennialism and essentialism combined and progressivism
4. Similarities between linguistic philosophy and constructivism

ADDITIONAL TASK: Research on the following.

1. John Dewey and progressivism

2. John Watson and behaviorism
3. William Bagley and essentialism
4. Jean Paul Sartre and existentialism
5. Robert Hutchins and perennialism
6. Jurgen Habermas, Hans Georg Gadamer and linguistic philosophy

II. FORMULATING YOUR PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

ACTIVITY 2.1 Analyze and answer the following questions.

1. Which of the philosophies studied in Lesson 1 are reflected in the given philosophy?
2. What are the teacher’s concept/s of the learner?
3. Who according to the Grade school teacher’s philosophy is the good and educated person?
4. What is the teacher’s concept on values?
5. What does the teacher believe to be her primary task?
 6. Do his/her concepts of the learner and the educated person match with how he/she will go about
his/her task of facilitating every child’s full development?
7. You notice that teacher’s thought on the learner, values and method of teaching begin with the
phrase “I believe”. Will it make a difference if the Grade school teacher writes his/her philosophy of
education in paragraph form using the third person pronoun?
8. Why is one’s philosophy of education said to be one’s “window” to the world or “compass” in life?

ACTIVITY 2.2 Formulate your personal philosophy of education.

ACTIVITY 2.3 Reflect on your philosophy using the following questions as guide:
1. With what educational philosophy:
 How will you treat your student?
 What will you teach?
 How will you teach?
2. From which philosophies that you have studied and researched did you draw inspiration asyou
formulated your own philosophy of education?
3. Does this education philosophy of yours make a difference in your life?
4. What if you do not have a formulated philosophy of education at all?
5. Is your educational philosophy more of an abstract theory than a blueprint to daily living?
6. Do you think your philosophy will change as you grow in knowledge?

III. THE FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY AND YOU

ACTIVITY 3.1 Answer the following with a YES or NO. If your answer is NO, explain your answer in a
sentence.
1. Is morality for persons and animals?
2. Is the natural law known only by learned?
3. Did the primitive people have a sense of natural law?
4. Is an animalistic act of man moral?
5. Is it right to judge the dog to be immoral if it defecates right on your garden?
6. Is the foundational moral principle sensed only by believers?
7. Is the foundational moral principle very specific?
8. Is the foundational moral principle the basis of moral specific principle?
9. Is the foundational moral principle so called because it is the basis of all moral principles?
10. Are the Ten Commandments for Christians more specific moral principles of the foundational moral
principle?
11. Is the natural law literally engraved in every human heart?
12. Are The Five Pillars of Islam reflective of the natural law?
13. Is the Buddhist’s Eightfold Path in accordance with the natural law?
14. Are the Golden rules for Christians basically the same with Kung-fu-tsu’s Reciprocity rule?

IV. VALUES FORMATION AND YOU

ACTIVITY 4.1 Reflect and answer the following

1. Do we have such a thing as unchanging values in these changing times?
2. What do we mean when we say transcendent values are independent of time, space, and people?
3. Should values be taught? Why?
4. What are the three dimensions of value and value formation? Explain each.
5. Value formation training of the intellect and the will. What does this training consist of?
6. What is the effect of good habit (virtue) and bad habit (vice) on the will?
7. Which is the lowest value in Scheler’s value hierarchy? highest?
8. Based on Scheler’s hierarchy of values, what is a life well lived?
9. According to advocates of value clarification, how can you test if a value is really your value?

ACTIVITY 4.2 Accomplish the following:

 1. Present Scheler’s hierarchy of values by means of an appropriate graphic organizer. Each level of
values must be explained and must be given an example.
2. Watch a documentary interview of a former alcoholic who was rehabilitated and answer how his
alcoholism affected himself, his job, and his relationship with his family and community. Take down
notes of his advices.
3. In the modern parable “The Little Prince” written by Antoine Exupery, the Little Prince in his visit to
one planet, met an alcoholic. The following was their conversation:
Little Prince: “What are you doing?”
The alcoholic: “I am drinking”
Little Prince: “Why are you drinking?”
Alcoholic: “To forget!”
Little Prince: “To forget what?”
Alcoholic: “ That I am a drunkard!”

Based on the above conversation, is the alcoholic (or any alcoholic for that matter) happy for being
one? What lessons can you learn from the life of an alcoholic or of a gambler?

4. In his book “ Morality and You”, James Finley wrote:…”look at modern advertisement, commercials
for deodorants, mouthwashes, skin blemish removers and other cosmetics have a basic assumption that
man is a creature who must be physically attractive to have much worth in the eyes of his fellowman.
They try to sell the following concept of a person: to have a good breath and white teeth is to be a good
person; to have bad breath is to be socially undesirable.” Reflect if this thought on man as sold by the
media in a very subtle manner has in a way influenced your value orientation

V. TEACHING AS YOUR VOCATION, MISSION AND PROFESSION

ACTIVITY 5.1 Answer the following

1. Does it make a difference if teaching is simply regarded as a profession, not a vocation and a
mission?
2. Within the 5 qualities of a professional in mind, cite other Filipino traits that work against the
making of a true Filipino professional. Propose some remedial measures.
3. Of the 5 qualities of a professional, which to you is the most important? Why?

CHAPTER 2: THE TEACHER IN THE CLASSROOM AND COMMUNITY

I. THE NATIONAL COMPETENCY-BASED TEACHER STANDARDS (NCBTS)

ACTIVITY 1.1 Accomplish the table below. Show that the Articles in the Code of Professional Teachers
also state the same things that are found in the NCBTS Framework.
NCBTSDomain 1/Strand Code of Ethics for Professional Teachers
(Which article and sections in the Code of
Ethics for Professional Teachers are the same
as stated in the NCBTS?)
Example:

Domain 1 – Social Regard for Learning Article XI – The Teacher as a Person

Strand 1 – Act as a positive role model for students Section 1 – A Teacher shall live with dignity in all
places at all times

Section 3 – A Teacher shall maintain at all times a

dignified personality which could serve as model
worthy of emulation by learners, peers, and
others.

Continue and follow the format.

ACTIVITY 1.2 Read the Poem and answer the questions.

YOU ARE A TEACHER

If I speak interestingly, effectively, and well,

But do not understand my students
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I know all of the methods and techniques of teaching,
If I have complete faith that they will work,
So that I use them completely,
But think only of materials of techniques
Instead of how they can help my students,
I count for nothing.
If I go the second mile in my teaching,
Give up many activities,
But do it without understanding,
It does no good; Love is very patient, very kind;
Love is not jealous; it does not put on airs;
It is never tyrannic, never;
Yet does insist on truth;
It does not become angry;
It is not resentful,
Love always expects the best of others;
It is gladdened when they live up to these expectations,
Slow to lose faith when they do not.
It will bear anything,
Hope anything,
Endure anything.
This kind of love will never fail
If there are teaching methods, they will change;
If there are curricula, they will be revised.
For our knowledge is imperfect
And our teaching is imperfect,
And we are always looking for the better ways
Which an infinite God has placed ahead of us,
When I began to teach, I fumbled and failed;
Now I have put away some of my childish ways,
At present I am learning bit by bit;
But if I keep on seeking,
I shall at last understand
As all along I myself have been understood.
So faith, hope and love endure.
These are the great three
But the greatest of them is love.

1. Which line of the poem do you like most? Why?

2. What mental portrait of the teacher in the classroom and the teacher in the community is painted
by the poem, “ You are a Teacher”?

II. THE 21ST CENTURY TEACHER

ACTIVITY 2.1 By means of graphic organizer, describe the 21st century teacher by presenting the 21st
century skills.
III. SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY RELATIONS

ACTIVITY 3.1
1. Name some problems originating from the community that are experienced by teachers in the
school, regarding:
 Traffic and transportation
 Availability of water and lighting system
 security measures for children

In what way can the community help?

2. Describe how school and community officials work together in each of the following events:
 socio-cultural activities
 peace and order situation-in peace-outside the school
 Projects
3. What are some learning resources existing in the community that school children and personnel can
visit for mutual assistance and enjoyment? Please check.
parks________________ factories ______________
museums____________ industries_____________
library_______________ shopping mall__________
concert halls__________ conference mall________
movie house sport and recreational hall__________
art gallery others, specify____________
4. How is the community assisted by the school in return? Please check
 as resources person in town assemblies
 participants in town celebrations
 modeling desirable values
 helping in community projects
 others, specify ______________

IV. LINKAGES AND NETWORKING WITH ORGANIZATIONS

ACTIVITY 4.1

Research on:
 How ABS-CBN, GMA and other Foundations assist schools and school children nationwide
 A foundation that is known for its educational activities
 How a school networks with the following:
- A neighbor school
- Women’s club
- Religious group
- Health organizations
- Security organizations
 An agency/organization with which the school can network regarding
- Sports
- Cultural affairs
- Current events
- National shrines
- Tourist attraction
- Classical music
 Some foundations/organizations that donate of any of the following for the schools:
- Books, journals and other reading materials
- Scholarships for students
 - Study tour for school personnel
- Films, tapes and documentaries
 Some news agencies and their publications which could serve as learning resources for school
children.

Prepared by:

JONNA B. ESTORNINOSS