Statement of Educational Goals and Philosophy :: My Philosophy of Education

Statement of Educational Goals and Philosophy When I was in High school I decided that I wanted to be a secondary teacher. At first I didn’t want to be a teacher, but a few of my teachers changed my mind. In secondary school, I was thought of as an outcast by both my peers and my teachers. I had moved from Washington D.C. to the small country town of Galax, in Virginia, and the way I talked and dressed gained allot of negative attention. People thought that I was not capable of anything but starting trouble, when in fact I was very quite and shy. This negative stereotype made school a painful experience and I did not enjoy going to school. It wasn’t until my junior year that I had teachers who saw that I was in fact a intelligent person, capable of anything. They were the ones that showed me that, given the right direction, any student can accomplish anything. They also showed me that learning could be made fun. These teachers are what made me want to teach. They made me want to be the teacher that is there to help every student reach their full potential. In the following paragraphs I will state my philosophy on education and some goals that I will meet. It wasn’t until a project that my Education 210 teacher, Miss Smith, assigned my group a project on essentialism that I realized I was an essentialist, this approach to education was made popular by William Bagley. This approach was originally thought of as being to critical of students, but the launching of Sputnik in nineteen fifty seven and â€Å"A Nation at Risk† in nineteen eighty three brought essentialism back. In all things that are done in the classroom, such as classroom management, the curriculum, teaching methods, and the ways of evaluating my students, I plan to follow the essentialist approach. I wish to do this because it is my belief that schools should instill traditional moral values and the intellectual knowledge that students need in order to become model citizens. After all, I believe that the purpose of education is to mold students into model citizens because they are future leaders.