My Philosophy of Education

“There are one-story intellects, two-story intellects, and three-story intellects with skylights. All fact collectors, who have no aim beyond their facts, are one-story minds. Two-story minds compare, reason, generalize, using the labors of the fact collectors, as well as their own. Three story-minds idealize, imagine, predict —their best illumination comes from above, through the skylight.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes

     My philosophy of education could best be explained by two metaphors. The first is the process of magnetization. The learner, at any stage, is a shaft of metal. In initial stages, the ideas and concepts of the learner, like random atoms, are misaligned and do not function to construct further knowledge. The educational process is a discipline, a force that consistently and with direction, applies duress to the student, just as a magnet applies change to the molecules of a nail. Friction is generated both through the process and by the resistance of the learner. An old proverb says, “Learning is swimming upstream.” Without effort, without dealing with resistance, real learning cannot take place. And so, the nail—in time—becomes a series of aligned molecules, all directed toward the poles that the original magnet sought. New knowledge is attracted and held, just as metal is to the magnetized nail. But, only meaningful instruction will “stick.”

    The second metaphor is the old adage, “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.” The learning process also requires active involvement, not passive reception. Paulo Freire said that it is only through the learner that change occurs. It cannot be imposed or forced by the instructor. Learning liberates and allows choices. Content and meaning must be constructed through the experiences of the student, according to John Dewey. From such theories, we distill the current catchword in education, constructivism. This idea focuses on the learner more than on the subject taught, on the meaning attributed to experience more than on the knowledge. Constructivism stands on the premises that: Learning is not only acquisition of information, but also is the construction of learning systems; the crucial action of learning is in the mind; learning and language are infrangibly entwined (Vigotsky’s assertion); learning is social; learning is contextual, not isolated; learning is not instantaneous, but takes time; and motivation is the key to real learning.

    A student begins the process of acquiring new knowledge by examining and testing what he already knows as truth. He must catenate the accepted to the novel in some lucid way. If new knowledge is foreign to anything familiar, it will be meaningless. The use of metaphor, analogy, and comparison is crucial to linking to prior knowledge. The process involves assiduity, motivated by desire to know, curiosity, or questioning. The learner must examine and test that to which he is exposed.
 
    The virtual smorgasbord of scientific, historical, and technical knowledge available to schools today would seem to insure learning. But, students do not “absorb” fact and concept by exposure to them; students must exert effort—methodically, consistently, and with commitment. They must build new knowledge upon what is already assimilated, through experience and reflection. To motivate students to assume responsibility and participate in creating blueprints of their own educations is the most worthy goal of any educational system.

    Learning is esoteric, taking place in private and individual ways. The internalizing of knowledge is only demonstrated by the ways in which a learner allows the knowledge to influence his opinions, speech, or outlook. Educators often assess and draw conclusions about what has been learned by superficial attributes (such as memorization), never actually seeing the by-products of true learning. Learning, of necessity, involves expansion and rearrangement. Dialogue about issues surrounding the assimilated knowledge is often a better assessment.

    Learning is also a social process, one that requires collaboration, interaction, and reflection in the context of other perspectives. Information acquired in the vacuum of a single mind will rarely become integral to thought or practice. Practice that involves modeling, discussion, and collegiality “roots” knowledge in experience. The traditional structure of the classroom—rows of desks, teacher as lecturer and student as listener—does little to support the learner as a social being. We realize that adults learn in social ways, through conversation, trial and error, and concertation. We do not translate that experience to the way children learn, which is unfortunate.

     I believe that every student, regardless of age, race, culture, or socioeconomic factors, can and does learn. Learning is done sequentially, like the construction of a building. The roof cannot be added until the supporting walls are sound. The walls will not stand without a secure foundation. In the system of education to which we adhere in the United States, the greatest disservice we do to the learning process is to demand that every structure is built with a standard blueprint, following a certain timetable, with the same materials.

    Every student comes to the educational process with differences in make-up, subtleties in development, disparity from the norm. Every student brings differing backgrounds and experiences. Each must begin at what he knows of building and add to that. Yet, our system often plans out the process without consideration of the builder. We allow for no modification. Our standards are important, but give education an “assembly line” format, with the product—not the process—given the most weight. Assessment allows for no deviation from the expected product.

    We have sanctioned, through our practices to “standardize” education, the most traumatizing experience possible—the systematic destruction of self-worth, of dignity inherent in every student’s right—by allowing the compilation of failure. For those students who fail consistently, we offer no options. They must continue in a regimen that does not train them for post-education decisions, teaches them few life skills, and instills a sense of degradation and insecurity. The underlying girder of our system is the belief that all students can learn the same information, in the same ways, with the same results, which jeopardizes any structure we build upon it.

    The future of public education in the United States depends on our ability and willingness to put into practice what we know is true, proven by research and our own experiences. We know what we want to achieve. Are we willing to cut away the flotsam of tradition and expediency to meet the needs of diverse students? Are we able to “relearn” how to teach to better equip our charges? Can we employ all three levels of intellect to build a better, multi-storied house, on a true foundation?

I hope we are. I am ready to begin.