How does someone create an Educational Philosophy?

              When sitting down to think about how someone goes about create an educational philosophy, I kept going back to the idea that it is ever changing.  The more you learn and actual teach, the more your beliefs behind education change, for the better.  Once I took the Educational Philosophies Self-Assessment and went back to score it....my answers were already changing.  Mostly, because so many things in teaching are not black and white.  Teachers live in the grey.  Every part of a situation comes into play when dealing with students; every piece of the student's background comes into play when teaching that student and responding to that student.  While my self-assessment lead me to be on the side of progressivism and reconstructionism/critical theory, the following is my philosophy of education...as it stand today....however I hope as I learn and teach it will develop further.....  

          My overall philosophy of education is to inspire all students to become lifelong learners.  To do this, students need to have an understanding of how they are going to use what they are learning in their lives and in the future.  If students have an understanding of how and why they are going to math, language arts and other subjects in their future they will be more interest, motivated and empowered to truly learn and know these various subject matters.

            In addition, students need to discover their own learning styles.  If he/she know how they learn best and work most efficiently then he/she will be more likely to enjoy their educational journey.  This will help students to become engaged within their own learning.   Students should know that they have a say in their learning process.  That they own it and that their teachers are guiding them from start to finish.  That how they learn and grow is important to their educators.   One of the most important aspects to teaching is for students to know that they, the student, are the most important thing in the eyes of their teachers. 

            Finally, students should be held to their own personal excellent.  Every grade a student begins; he/she should have the chance to grow from wherever he/she stands academically to the highest academic step the they personally can achieve.  He/She should have the opportunity to be challenged and explore a wide range of the education.    

Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.
                                                                                                                -- Josef Albers

Why Special Education??

Special education in public schools is a fairly new thing. Sounds strange huh? However, it is both a very true and scary facts.  It wasn't that long ago that special education students were turned away from public schools and sent away to "special schools that could better serve their needs". Many people forget that the horror stories of Danvers State Hospital were not that far in the past of our states history. 

So why special education now? Why is special education become part of the general educators life? It is a true and unavoidable fact that even if you are not studying to become a special education teacher, you need to have some background knowledge about how to work with these students. No matter where you teach or what grade you end up in, public school teacher's realities are that they will find students in their classrooms that will be on IEPs and 504s.  These teachers will be required to modify for these student and make accommodations for them.  It is important that as country, state, city, and school community we can support and guide these students to success. Better supporting ours students helps not only the individual students but our society as a whole move forward. 

As important as special education is, it is also a challenge. It is an ever changing and ever difficult challenge to meet the needs of all of our learners and future learners. To be frank it is a scary idea standing in front of new teachers in the field. How does one teacher challenger his or her gifted and talented students and met all the needs of all the special needs students from across the spectrum of learning abilities? Hopefully with continued education, training, understanding, and flexibility this a challenge all teachers will be able to meet!

How do the experiences of immigrants shape how they are in the classroom?

It is easy for people to believe that the only differences for immigrant students is language.  Mostly because it is the normally the most noticeable and heavily impacting for students.  How could it not?  Families coming to this country, who speak a different language struggle from the moment education is mentioned.  How do they register their children in school when they are unable to speak or read the language?  How do they go to parents nights or sign permission slips without being able to speak and read English?  Since this is such a stumbling block, people forget all the other experiences that immigrates have, that truly shape the students sitting in the desks in front of us.   

The community I currently live in has a high population of people from the "DR" or Dominican Republic.  Not so different from here right?  The DR has some cities and based structure, come on its not like it is Africa or the Rainforest, right?  Once they learn a little English, these children should have nothing standing in their way....wrong.  In 2010 the DR's educational system was ranked lowest in Central America.  These students are living mainly in villages with one room school houses.  Many of which are taught by Peace Cor volunteers or other volunteers aids from all over the world.  Children living in villiages are attending schools in one room, dirt floor buildings.  No only that, but many leave school at an early age to help support their families.  Something that a large population of Americans have no ideas about or will ever have to experiences.  It is is not the law in every country that children must stay in school until they are 16.  Take a second....picture that.  Now picture a child moving here to Massachusetts where we have one of the best educational systems in the country.....and we expect them to live up to our standards right away with nothing standing in their way.  With parents whom many of which only have a middle school education, to the standards of the Dominican Republic.

In the United States, when election years come around education is always one of the hot topics.  It is something people talk about often and government supports fully (in one manner or another).  People forget that this is not the case for much of the world.  Many immigrants moving into this country do not hold the value to education that we do and for no fault of their own.  We are lucky and blessed to live in a country and society that values and puts great importance into our children and educational system.  This is not the case in every other country in the world.  And with that said, you can't change people over night.  You can not force immigrant to adopt our language and culture over night.  You can not make immigrants forget about how they were raised and spent much of their life....and change their values just because "we say so" or rather because "we think so".