David Bollish

EDCI 633
Personal Philosophy
Dr. King

The learner is responsible for working toward personal goals,

accepting failure as part of the process and growth and for actively
participating in the developmental progress. The learner is solely
responsible for retaining and applying the new set of skills. The instructor
and educational system will apply the content and relevance, but learner
must be open to new perspectives and to both challenges and
accomplishments throughout their education as both serve as essential
components in long-term growth.
It is the role of the instructor to play an active part in the learning
process, respecting that this may vary drastically from student to student
and instructor to instructor. The responsibility of each instructor is to
contribute to the students learning through any means necessary and
possible. This translates into a conscious effort and awareness of the
educator to foresee and keep the learning objectives for the individual in
mind, setting short, middle, and long tern goals for students. These goals
may vary diversely from social and emotional, to academic. In addition,
when setting goals, it is in all parties best interest to incorporate and invite,
other instructors, family, and the learner themselves to actively participate

and invest in the students developmental process. Also, the teacher must
possess at least one of two key components. The first, is supplying the
subject and content knowledge to engage and answer questions as well as
provide information. The second is supplying a motivating force, that
encourages the ability to socratically question and or facilitate a means by
which the student accepts the responsibility themselves to become the
source of information, and solutions. Learning in the 21st century has
created an avenue of instruction that is shifting teachers from content
experts to facilitating and motivating experts.
Items and areas of notable instruction include any and all activities that
fully engage the student, as it is likely this is where the student will
succeed and seek out a future. Traditional curriculums of math, science,
social studies and language serve their purpose on providing a broad and
general base of knowledge. However, the primary focus of curriculum
should be upon applicable skills taught through any content area.
Specifically, the skills of up most importance are critical thinking, problem
solving, investigating and collecting data, computing answers and making
decisions post discovery. Finally, the ability to effectively communicate
these findings and understandings, in an emotionally literate and
appropriate manner, to a diverse audience is of high value and relevance
to students and instructors alike. The driving factor of all instruction shall

be an applicable skill relevant to diverse circumstances, content areas, and

social situations.
The methods preferred are vague but focus around two key
philosophies of education, pragmatic and existentialist. The first,
pragmatic, stating the students must evaluate things for themselves and
find solutions, suggesting that world does not function in absolutes. The
second, existentialist, suggesting that the student is an individual and their
development is unique, and important on their way to self-discovery and
eventually self-actualization. While methods based in research and
teachings best strategies are commonly used they do not guarantee
success to each student, in all situations. Preferred methods are those
which drive results, while maintaining educational values of human
decency, academic rigor and integrity, personal development and growth.
These markers serve as the parameters for instructional methods. The
end goal of any method is to develop lifelong learners, whom critically
think, observe and answer questions with the ability to adapt to new
situations and gain new knowledge but, also function using previously
learned information. In all, in a very Machiavellian since, the methods
themselves are open to interpretation per student and instructor, the
objective of the methods is the common dominator in our educational
formula.

Finally, the primary focus of education is to open our students to a

world of possibilities, opportunities, information, and wonder they had
previously to our educational effort not imagined. These realms of long
lasting educational success may be academic, finical, experiential, social,
and most optimistically; a life of contribution to society in multiple realms.
Public education in the United States serves the role of developing the
entirety of the upcoming populous. Therefore the goals and objectives of
education must also include growth and nurturing in areas other than
purely academic prowess.