Module 8

Video:
After watching the video I still have my pros and cons about it. I liked and agreed with some of the things he said. I liked that he said we should know our commitments. he stated, " your number one commitment should be the unity of humanity; we should respect everyone." Commitment number 2 to admit that you don't know everything. Teachers who question are great, and they should be on a journey with the students of learning. Commitment number 3 tell the truth. Admit that everything you see is not right." I think that these are great commitments but I feel that everyone will have their own of which they feel strongly about. No matter what, we are teaching morals in the classroom if we mean to or not. I think that morals are good to have and especially if there are not any at home. However, I agreed and disagreed with this statement and I will tell you why. When he said, "we need to teach moral behavior by not treating them like objects, authoritarian, beat them down and we should bend their wills to ours." I agreed with it because I think we should not treat them like objects because simply their not, their human beings. I also liked that we do not need to beat them down. As a teacher we need to give respectful criticism at the same time not be harsh about it. I did not agree with this statement in a sense because not being authoritarian is almost like giving them the privilege of not respecting us as a teacher. I feel that we need to be authoritative because some just do not give respect. I feel in order to give respect they need to respect me.

Philosophy of Education:
When I took the inventory for this chapter I had a few that were close to each other. I feel that I do not have one exact philosophy. I am a little of a few. I scored a 21 on essentialism, a 22 for perennialism, a 19 for progressivism, a 22 for social reconstructionism and a 7 for existentialism. I think my favorite would be the great essentialism. I love having a curriculum because I love having an idea of "a list" to follow. I love guidelines to follow. If it were any other way I would feel lost. I think perennialism is my next favorite because they are big on reading and I feel that is the key to life. You need to know how to read. A lot of people do not know how to read in high school but yet they made it that far. It is a shame that they let those students go to the next grade to fall further behind in their poor language skills. The video really did not back up anything I felt in the inventory. I have a total different outlook on the video than I do the inventory. To me I feel that man in the video taught or felt that existentialism was the best route for students and for me that is not good at all. Some may disagree but that is really what I felt he was aiming towards. As a future teacher I think that the two inventories will develop me over time to see what teacher I will EXACTLY be. Right now, I am still developing. I have lots of things in front of me to sculpt and mold me and influence me. I think the first inventory did nothing for me because I felt that everyone of those were of importance. I feel that the first inventory and the second are similar in the way that it included students and facilitators to what was right for both of them. The only contradiction I see is that the first one is concerned about racism, and sexism and the other does not even mention it. I feel that the classroom that I will have will be a mixture of a few philosophies: essentialism, perennialism, and social reconstructionism. The only thing that Dr. Ayers said that would be included in my vision would be that we do not need to shape them for today's world but to unleash them for a world they will experience and shape. I feel that statement was very relevant and very true. Like I said above, I feel that the video was almost hinting around the fact that he wanted the classroom to be existentialism. I totally disagree with it so that is my only contradiction that I feel strongly about.