What do I think?

Education is like a garden.

A garden is an area that needs to be nurtured and cared for in order to be successful. The same goes for a student's education. Students need to be cared for and nurtured the same way a garden does. You need certain tools and resources to maintain a garden. The same goes for teachers. As a teacher you need to have give your students the tools and resources to learn at their full potential. A garden is filled with many different plants, each one extremely different from the other. In a classroom you will never find a student who is exactly like another, they will not learn the same, act the same nor come from the same place. Since each plant is different in the garden they need to be cared for differently. Every student has individual needs that need to be focused on along with the group as a whole. In order for your garden to be successful you need spend time with it, figure out which plant needs more water or less sunlight to grow to its full potential. In the classroom you need to interact with your students and get to know them so you can really help set them up for success. In a garden you need to plan for the unexpected just like in the classroom. In the classroom you can never plan for everything 100% accurately. You can never account for the constant rain for weeks during the spring that leads to flooding the roots of the garden. In the classroom you need to learn to be flexible and try to plan for the unexpected as much as possible. Things are always changing and you must be prepared for lessons not to go as planned, for children to be bored and for terrible behavior problems. Education relates to a garden in so many ways, and represents an accurate representation of the caring each individual student needs along with the group as a whole.

The class has taught me many aspects of education and inspired me in many ways. I learned that I was a Humanist. I believe that success comes from within and every child has potential. This gives me a better idea of where I stand in the education world and where my pedagogy comes from. I learned that I need to focus on the whole child. There is so much potential in children, they just need the right teachers for them to get everything out of their education. Another thing I learned is that blogging can be very beneficial to the educators in the world. I have now looked at blogs at least once a week relating to curriculum ideas, teaching methods and different pedagogy's. I enjoy broadening my view on education and reading different teachers ideas and methods in the classroom. I am always looking to change up the way I teach and improve. Teaching is a never ending learning experience and is why I love my profession. I am constantly learning and increasing my own skills.

Why expose children to the real world?

Teaching children at a young age about social justice can make the future generations much more aware of their surroundings and with hopes lead them to become more involved. Are things really equal in life to everyone? No. That is just life and something children need to understand it does not matter of the value of the material things but instead the connections and relationships you have with the world. Teachers need to help children understand the real world and venture out of the four walls of the classroom. Exposing children to real world opportunities and relating standards to their lives. What better way to teach children than what they may be interested in.
Instead of teaching the children the children to value money and materialistic things we should be teaching them to want to help others and make the world more fair. We need to ask the children what they can do to help other people who are less fortunate than we are. This could very easily be put into the curriculum, it can relate to geography, environmental science, social development and math. The children could collect cans to raise money for a third world country, they could collect goods for the troops and send them out or visit a local park and clean up all the trash. It is the little things that can make children want to be involved more.
The website discusses how some people in this world have it much  better than others. Unfortunately this has to be the truth because of the way the nation has always been. It is our jobs as teachers to make sure despite their social status each child gets the education they deserve. My setting an example of there is always something you can do, perhaps the next generation will make the world more fair and equal and lower the families in poverty percentage.

http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/feb/17/how-to-teach-social-justice-resources-lesson-plans

What does placed based education look like?

What is placed base education and what does it look like? Well.. Place based education is when the classrooms curriculum connects to the environment around them. Connecting education and the community of your students.

 

The PDF I found on the Internet regarding placed based education gave plenty of examples of teachers getting the students engaged in their communities and giving them a hands on approach to real life scenarios. A few of the things that Sobel spoke of described what place based education looks like. "...Engaging students in the design of a river museum at the end of the river walk. Different grades will be responsible for changing exhibit of the museum." As Sobel stated every grade was responsible for some aspect of creating this museum. It got the children involved in a creative way that connected it to their surroundings. "Knowledge of the nearst things should be acquires first, then that of those farther and father off." (Woodhouse, Thresholds, 2001) Children should have textbooks that relate to where they live. Their education should revolve around their communities and what they can do to help them, not standardized tests. By giving the children real world scenarios it helps engage them to things that are relevant to them.

 

Sobel, David. "Place-based education: Connecting classroom and community." Nature and Listening 4 (2004).

 

I would like to incorporate some aspects of public education in my classroom. I think that there is a ton of potential learning experiences in nature if you let them happen. I love taking my kids outdoors for walks in the town, by the firestation, police station and the town common. We also try and take them out to local fields to expereince the outside other than the playground. I like the idea of the incorporating many subjects into one theme. I do that know with my two and three year olds. We choose one theme a week and base every angle of the classroom off of it. We would include math, literacy, art, history, science, sensory,auditory and gross and fine motor skills into these themes. Since it is spring we are learning about pond animals, farm animals, eggs &bunnies, Boston Sports Week (because all my boys are interested in the teams) and gardening and flowers. These themes will all have different activities based off the different skills and will work on each area of development for my students but in a fun creative way. I like my children to learn through play and believe a hands on envrionment is the most important way to learning in the earlychildhood level.

 

 

 This activity is a cute puzzle made of popsicle sticks that is used for intellectual and fine motor development.

 

 

 

 

 

This picture demonstates place based learning by having the childrens plant flowers and show them the process of gardening rather than read it in a textbook. Place based education goes beyond the textbook. This is an activity I also do with my children (this photograph is from Google not mine) during our gardening and flower week. We usually plant seeds in a cup and leave them in the window sill and observe what happens.

 

 

 

Would Maria Montessori approve?

Maria Montessori focused more on the individual child than the group itself.  Montessori believes that the classroom should be child sized.  She believes that everything in that classroom should child accessible. We commonly take her work for granted as teachers sit in child size chairs daily. “She believed caring for the environment and keeping it bright and orderly should be viewed as a teaching skill.” (Mooney, 27) She believes that teachers need to be aware of what they are providing for the environment. Montessori “believed that adults spend too much time ‘serving’ children.” (Mooney, 28) She thinks that the more we do for children the harder it will be for us. The most important, “Montessori believed that children should be able to do everything they are capable of.” (Mooney, 29-30) Montessori wanted everything hands on and the children to have the real tools to encourage a better learning experience.
-Mooney, C.G. (2000). Theories of Childhood: An Introduction to Dewey, Montessori, Erickson, Piaget, and Vygotsky.

The banking concept put children down and did not see their full potential by having the teacher be so aggressive and on top of the students. The banking concept was the complete opposite from the Montessori philosophy and I do not believe she would have approved of it what so ever. Since the banking concept was about the teacher being the dominant and the student being the submissive with the teacher doing everything in the classroom, this goes against the entire hands on approach of Montessori. She wants the children engaged in their learning not sitting in chairs having information forced down their throats.

As a teacher I include Montessori in my everyday lessons. Children need to have a hands on learning approach at an early education level. They do not have the attention span to have information thrown at them all day. Instead they need a teacher who is going to give them the materials they need and let them work. A teacher needs to be the one to guide the children not do everything for them. It will not help the children in your class if you solve everything for them, they need to figure it out for themselves and grow from it.

What will my philosophy be?

After taking the survey I tallied my scores. I scored a 22 in Humanism and this was much higher than the rest. I overall think this was pretty accurate survey since I tend to want my students to be the best they can be. That is my overall goal as a preschool teacher is to inspire my children to be the best they physically can be. I want them to achieve all that they can at a young age and never stop. I am the foundation to the rest of their education career and they need to know from a young age they are going places and will make it.
I knew I would have a lot of traits in Humanism but I was not expected my score in this category to blow this rest out of the water. I am glad that I have a lot of this philosophy in my pedagogy because people believing in their own destiny is very important to me. I believe every student has the potential in them to succeed regardless the age and grade level.
I believe that this survey  is great tool when touching on your teaching philosophies but I believe there are many more aspects to this than 40 questions. Your philosophy is always changing and you are always incorporating new things so this is an accurate tool for the moment.
I believe that getting Humanism as a result is definitely down my alley and says a lot about how I am going to teach in the future. I want my children to be the best they can be and will do anything to support them. Being able to make sure my children succeed is a very important goal of mine and showing the children not to give up and push for they want will carry a life long lesson with them. I believe there is unlimited amount of potential for growth and it will never stop happening.