Juliana Reents

Professor Suk
EDUC 230-01 Education Field Experience
Spring 2016
Artifact/Standard 1 - Personal Philosophy

I have an affinity for learning. I started displaying this to my parents and educators at a young
age when I constantly asked questions. The basic; why is the sky blue? And the more complicated; how
does a clock work? That steaming curiosity never went away. As a college student, I continue to ask
questions: about the workings of a political campaign, why certain events in history have happened,
even about the economy which is my worst subject. Easy or hard, I have learned to take my curiosity
and run with it.
I love going to school for the sake of learning from textbooks and my teachers. I have no
problem raising my hand numerous times during a class to get more information out of my educators.
I have grown up in the environment that has yielded itself to me. I realize how comfortable I was and
still am in my various classroom settings. More so, I realize how lucky this makes me. Not every student
feels comfortable enough to ask questions of their educator and not every educator goes out of their way
to make that student feel comfortable and answer questions. Growing up with parents and educators that
went out of their way to answer complicated questions from me has definitely impacted my goals as a
future educator.
As a pre-service teacher who loves to learn from anyone and anything I cannot express enough
how excited I am to give back and teach students. I want to answer the numerous questions they have,
teach them topics they otherwise would never come across, frame their level of comfort, and learn from
them.
With that being said I would like to combine two of the five Educational Philosophies found in
my Foundations of Education textbook, TEACH2 by Janice Koch; Essentialism and Perennialism to
create my personal teaching philosophy.

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Essentialism focuses on presenting students with the core knowledge they need to have in order
to be proficient in an area of study. It is the educators role to present this information in a clear and
concise way, possibly through lecture. I feel that as a future history teacher this style of teaching is
imperative. The Five Ws students learn in grade school; the who, what, where, when, why and how
are all very important in history. Using my knowledge of the subject and relaying it to my students is
important.
After I present the core knowledge to the students, I want to be able to have open discussions
with them. Ill admit, history can be boring and dry so I plan to engage my students in active
conversation as much as possible. This is where Perennialism comes in. This philosophy utilizes
enduring ideas found in great works of literature and art (Koch, 2014, 58). One thing that helps me
appreciate and understand history is looking at physical artifacts, literature, videos and even art. This
shows me that although a time period may have been years away, the ideas of it are not as remote. I want
my students to listen to me teach them about The Declaration of Independence and then give them the
chance to physically look at a printed copy of it. After teaching them and showing them the artifact I
plan to engage in extended dialogue with students (Koch, 2014, 58). This is where I will be able to
ask them critical thinking questions, answer their questions and learn about what my students know and
still dont know.
My dream is to have an actively engaged classroom with students who are excited to ask
questions and learn, just like I am. I recognize this does not come easy and it will not be the same
atmosphere in every class I teach. It is my job to try my hardest to make it so. By combining
Essentialism and Perennialism I hope to create a safe environment with an educated, engaged and
inquisitive group of students. I hope to help my students grow and learn, and at the same time, I hope to
grow and learn. As the Latin proverb says, By learning you will teach and by teaching you will learn.

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Becoming an educator does not mean the end of my learning career. I will never stop asking questions in
order to learn, and I plan on inspiring my students to do the same.

References

Koch, Janice (2014). Teach. California: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

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Professional Development in New Jersey. (2014, August 4). Retrieved from New Jersey State
Department of Education: http://www.state.nj.us/education/code/current/title6a/chap9c.pdf