Progressivism
is the educational philosophy that I believe to be the most effective way in
enabling a successful life for our students. With progressivism I would be able
to build on each student’s strengths and talents because we will learn by
doing. Progressivism wants children to be active learners and by having group
work we can accomplish this. With students working in groups I will be able to
teach the children how to live and cooperate with others and they will learn
how to solve problems that they will encounter in real life. I will be able to
have active experimentation and they will gain a respect for diversity. My
students will be actively engaged and I want to be able to use my philosophy of
learning to give the students an ongoing growth to their education. A way that
I can make group work effective in my future elementary classroom would be to
give each group the same math problem to work on. The students will
individually solve the math problem, and then discuss as a group a final answer
and how they solved the problem. They will then put their final answer showing
their work on a small whiteboard and every group will then hold it up for
everyone to see. If they did not arrive at the correct answer we will discuss
the problem and I will do the correct math problem on the board for the groups
to see. This activity allows the students to be active learners because they
are able to work together to solve a problem. If mistakes were made, they would
be able to learn from their mistake by seeing me show them step by step how to
solve the problem.
I
strongly believe that progressivism is important because teachers are not
limited by rules that do not benefit our children. My philosophy is focused on
the students rather than the teacher or content. Standardized testing limits a
teacher into embedding memorization into their lessons which ultimately also
limits our student’s knowledge. We have forced our students into thinking that
only select subjects are important and destroy them of their learning
capacities by just requiring memorization. How do we expect our students to be
successful in the future if we do not give them all the tools of learning and
allow them to expand their knowledge as much as possible? Progressivism’s
curriculum is based on the interests, experiences, abilities, and needs of the
students. This is important because our students will learn better by what is
actually relevant to their lives and it gives them an ongoing growth. When I
use progressivism in my classroom it will be my responsibility to try to make
school interesting by planning lessons that will be relevant to the children
while meeting the standards. I will incorporate an artistic and creative way of
learning where memorization is not taken place so they will be able to remember
it for the rest of their lives. An example of a lesson that I will teach is on
how to plant. I would turn it into an activity by providing them each a cup and
seeds. Next, I would teach them the process of mixing fertilizer with dirt and
the important role that sun and water plays into helping their plant grow. We
will then hypothesize and make up a chart to record the plant each day on how
it looks, smells, and feels. Each day the children come to class they will be
responsible to water their own plant and they will be able to see the progress
that it makes each week.
Progressivism
stresses the importance of social skills throughout a child’s education.
Because some classrooms do not like their students to be actively engaged with
each other, they are not allowing our students to have a voice. Social skills
are crucial in our society and with progressivism children are able to grow up
feeling comfortable being social because they were allowed to have a voice. I
will teach my students some of the basic social skills such as making eye
contact with whomever, saying hello and good-bye to the people they know,
listening and understanding what they have been told, and being able to
participate in groups by talking. People that have good social skills usually
have a better self esteem because people will be more naturally drawn to them
and you gain an overall happiness. Most careers are involved with interacting
with other colleagues and employees at work and with progressivism I would be
able to teach my students social skills so that they can excel in any career of
their choice. I will incorporate class discussions in to my lessons so that the
children will be able to express themselves starting at a young age. An
activity that I would use to help my students expand their social skills would
be for them to create a presentation. The presentation that the students will
be creating will be on a brief biography of one of their grandparents. I will
give them a couple options as to how they can present it such as a PowerPoint,
story book, or make a timeline. My students will then get to individually
present it to their classmates and at the end of the presentation we will have
an open discussion with each presentation. This activity will help with their
social skills because they individually will be speaking to an audience and
they also will get to socialize with one another during the open discussion.
While
The American Alliance Promise Foundation is celebrating the increase of
graduates each year, we know that the number should be far less. It is our
responsibility to make sure that every student making the next step is well
prepared. By using progressivism in the classrooms starting in elementary
schools, we can help our children be prepared. Whether we make the change or
continue to let it happen, it not only affects us but ultimately will affect
our future generations.
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