Statement of Educational Philosophy

Job applications for teachers often asks for a Statement of Educational Philosophy. Here’s mine.

The metaphors of education systems speak volumes about what each system ultimately achieves. Ask any student to compare education or school to something completely different, and you’ll likely get a list that looks like this: “School is a prison,” “School is hell,” “School is a babysitter,” or “School is a machine.” Sadly, many schools are run quite like this last example—students enter the machine, are shuffled through a number of arbitrary gears, are forcefully bent to fit those gears, move according to bells, and leave the machine knowing they’ll be back the next day to repeat the process until they become the desired product of the machine.

I don’t want to be part of a system wherein the supposed mission of a school, “To create a learning community,” is a ruse to cover the actual goal, which is to fit each student to the same mold. Every student is different, and those differences should be respected. An education should not be applied to you as though you were the product of a machine; that’s disenfranchisement of your right to an education.

In a true community, the members of the group strive to work toward a greater goal, whatever that may be—to do together what is necessary for the betterment or sustainability of the community. Members of a community find success when they treat each other as equals; communities succeed because each member plays more than one role within the community, allowing for multiple modes of interaction and the sharing of knowledge and ability when needed. In this view, each member of the community is both a learner and teacher. Each member has an opportunity to share his/her strengths, as well as the opportunity to learn, whereas in the factory, the product, once produced, is likely to be unchangeable without being broken.

I believe that the most salient and rich learning experiences come from cooperative discovery and challenging subject matter. I see students as capable of much, much more than rote memorization and repetition. I see the role of the teacher as guide, not god. I believe that if we treat the school as a community (and follow through on that statement) we will create lifelong learners, cooperative workers, competent teachers, and critical thinkers willing to adapt to a changing world for the betterment of the larger community.

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