Welcome to My Classroom

In the next few  weeks I want to invite you into my classroom – just the way I taught elementary, junior high school, and college students. There were some differences in the learning patterns but no differences in the psychological bases, e.g.

Learning by doing

Individualized learning

Social responsibility 

Personal perception of reality

In addition it is absolutely necessary that I have a set of philosophical beliefs that my actions are based on. I believe also that I must share these   beliefs, my philosophy of education, with my students.

My Philosophy of Education

My philosophy of education is a direct and congruent manifestation of my philosophy of life. I believe that it cannot be any other way. One cannot change who he is according to the conditions or circumstances presently operant. If one were to put labels on the belief system stated below, the most descriptive is Positive Progressivism.

I have been influenced by and am in agreement with:

Historical: Socrates, Plato, Jesus of Nazareth, Marcus Aurelius, Johann Pestalozzi, Friedrich Froebel, Carl Jung, Mahatma Gandhi,  and John Wesley. 

Contemporary: Arthur Combs, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, William James, John Dewey, and Kahlil Gibran.

My basic beliefs about teaching and learning are:

The 'Teacher' is a caring guide and resource person who is involved in the student's growth as a learner and as a unique person. 

Each of us matures at our own unique rate and pattern.

Questions are as important as Answers. The Learner is seeking knowledge rather than absorbing facts.

The Process of Learning is more important than the Product of Teaching.

Students are seekers of knowledge about themselves and the world in which they live. They learn by doing; by being involved in the process of learning.

Learning consists of both Thinking and Feeling.

Each of us has great potential - a marvelous, bicameral brain is the basis for mental growth. We are emotional, physical, aesthetic, social, psychological, and spiritual beings.

The classroom is a social/psychological system. The integrity of each person must be respected.

The adversarial, us against them relationship, is counterproductive and rejected. 

Since each student is a unique person and learner, comparison of students to one another is not allowed.

The learning environment is a safe place, physically, psychologically, and mentally, allowing for risk and creativity.

Gestalt concepts are totally accepted, e.g., “The whole is more than the sum of the parts,” and “Each part is identified in terms of the whole.”

There is infinitely more wisdom and intelligence in the total group of learners than there is in any “Teacher”.                       

There you are - those are the rules and regulations of the “game” in this classroom. In future blogs you will learn how the game is played - that is, how you the student and I the professor learn how to play on the same team. 

If the Teacher is indeed wise, he does not bid you enter the        house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.                                                                                                                        Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet