Philosophy of Education - Personal Statement Example

Personal Philosophy of Education A personal philosophy of education expresses one’s beliefs about the purposes, nature, process, and the ideals of education. This is particularly important for educators and education administrators because it affects the way one makes decisions and implements various programs in education. There are many different approaches in education; hence, there is no single generally accepted education philosophy. The field of education philosophy has seen contributions from many renowned educationists and theorists such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and John Dewey, whose ideas have helped to shape the education sector globally. Nevertheless, one of the most common factors that characterize most philosophies in education is the issue of social pedagogy. Social pedagogy refers to an education approach that focuses on providing holistic education and care to students (Lingard, Nixon, & Ranson, 2008 p. 23). Social pedagogues are guided by four main principles. These are holistic education, holistic wellbeing, promoting human welfare, and molding students to become responsible members of the society. Holistic education pays greater emphasis on issues such as cognitive development, emotional and spiritual development, as well as physical and practical skills development. My personal education philosophy is based on the belief that all educators should be social pedagogues. I believe that education should be seen as process of empowering learners to make the best out of their lives regardless of their age. Therefore, education should not be seen as a way of discriminating or categorizing individual on the basis of their age or backgrounds. As such, the main approach should be regarding all learners as human beings who need to be taught how to make the best out of their lives (Tisdall, 2006 p. 34). In this regard, an education system should focus on empowering students to deal with contemporary challenges and issues affecting humans. For instance, contemporary education should focus on empowering learners to deal with issues such as climate change, terrorism, economic challenges, and the issues of globalization and cultural integration. I also believe that this kind of education can only be achieved in a specific learning environment that is characterized by a high sense of equality, sameness, and heightened interactions between educators and the learners. In lieu of this, educators have to consider learners, irrespective of their age, as fellow humans; hence the need to treat them equally. The educators must also be highly qualified individuals (Eichsteller, 2009 p. 27). They must bring to the fore their best communication skills when interacting with learners. In particular, listening skills are very crucial for the attainment of key educational objectives. Education is a lifelong process that begins from childhood into adulthood. Therefore, a learning process should be capable of enabling individuals to make crucial decisions to exert influence in their social and cultural environments (Stephens, 2013 p. 87). Based on this set of beliefs, it becomes clear that the best approach to education is social pedagogy, which will help actualize and implement most of these personal beliefs on education. These beliefs can only be achieved through a holistic learning process that not only focuses on cognitive development, but also on other aspects of human growth (Stephens, 2013 p. 93). The field of social pedagogy has developed over the years into an influential approach to providing education. Nevertheless, there are several principles of social pedagogy, which I consider to be very essential in an educational context. Therefore, I believe that these principles should be the building blocks or the foundation upon which an education process needs to be built. According to Peter Moss and Pierre Pat (2011), there are nine key principles of social pedagogy. The first principle is focusing on the child’s development as a whole. Educators must play a critical role in supporting the overall development of a child. The second principle states that educators must view themselves as being in a professional relationship with the learners (Lingard, Nixon, & Ranson, 2008 p. 33). This helps to create a cordial environment for the development of the child. Thirdly, social pedagogues must view themselves as equals to the learners in terms of their role on earth. As such, there ought not to be any hierarchies separating the teachers from the learners. The fourth principle requires social pedagogues to keep constantly reflecting on their practice, updating their knowledge by understanding emerging theories and improve on their professional, practice. Another important principle in social pedagogy is that the educators must be practical (Eichsteller, 2009 p. 53). They must be able to impart practical knowledge to the learners. The relationship between the teacher and the students is based on their ability to communicate effectively. Communication skills such as the ability of the teacher to listen to the needs of the students are considered every critical for the success of the learning process. Essentially, these are the core principles that guide social pedagogues in playing their role as educators. I believe these are the basic tenets of an education process, upon which my education philosophy is based. I find these principles very critical in ensuring a holistic education to learners (Kornbeck & Jensen, 2011 p. 42). These principles are very useful in creating a good learning environment by stipulating that is expected of both the educators and the learners. I am more inclined towards adopting these principles in my education philosophy because they help to create a perfect environment for learning as well as fostering a harmonious relationship between the teachers and the students. Several educationists have over the years made significant contributions to the field of social pedagogy. From a personal point of view, I find some of the contributions of major philosophers and educationists in social pedagogy very compelling in an educational context. For instance, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a prominent Swiss social philosopher was pf the view that the best way to bring up children was to raise them and educate them in harmony with the laws of nature. This is because the society corrupts people and drives them away from the social good, which requires humans to be closer to nature (Kornbeck, 2009 p. 37). This perspective is particularly important because it ensures that an education process helps students to become aware of their environment. This is also important in the contemporary society, which is grappling with issues of climate change and global warming all of which are as a direct result of human activity on the planet (Lingard, Nixon, & Ranson, 2008 p. 47). Social pedagogy can go a long way in empowering learners to be cautious about their activities on the planet and focus more on environmental conservation. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi is also a major contributor to the development of social pedagogy as a major approach to education. He is renowned for designing the appropriate model that social pedagogues ought to use in educating learners. His method of proving holistic education is commonly known as the head-heart-hands method (Tisdall, 2006 p. 52). Holistic education should focus on developing all the three aspects of a human being (Kornbeck, 2009 p. 39). The dead refers to the cognitive development or developing one’s mind. The heart entails a process of developing one’s emotional and spiritual aspect. On the other hand, the hands refer to the physical development of giving a learner practical skills to gain hands-on experience (Kornbeck, 2009 p. 43). I personally find this to be the ideal model for offering education to learners. This is because it considers the most important aspects of human development. John Dewey’s ‘My Pedagogic Creed’ is also one of the main theoretical frameworks that influence the works of social pedagogues. In the creed, Dewey defines his personal understanding the school as an institution, the learning process, and educational goals. He defined a school as a social institution that forms a community life where all agencies work effectively in facilitating the development of children (Kornbeck & Jensen, 2011 p. 45). Conversely, he defined education as a social process of living, as opposed to a process of preparing for the future life. Therefore education should be seen as process of empowering children and other learners to make the best out of their lives as opposed to focusing on preparing them for the future. In practice, social pedagogy is a very easy learning approach to implement. It can be implemented in various settings and learning environments including kindergartens, and residential care, and various other informal settings that bring together many young people. The basic principle of practicing social pedagogy is that children are considered as equal human beings to their educators (Cameron & Moss, 2011 p.73). Contrary to other approaches and philosophies in education, social pedagogy recognizes that children do not grow to become human beings because they are already human beings even at that early age. Therefore, the learning process should aim at empowering their capacity as humans to grow and mature holistically with the right skills that will attend to all their developmental needs. In contemporary practice, social pedagogy is one of the main approached it to teaching. There are many qualified trainers who specialize in social pedagogy. In the US, social pedagogues possess similar qualifications as regular teachers. They have university degrees from reputable universities. For instance, Arizona State University's School of Social Transformation is well known for its ability masters in social and cultural pedagogy degree. Qualifies social pedagogues have the capacity to analyse the non-formal policies of education as well as common education practices and determine the best ways to influence developments in learning institutions around the country (MacNaughton, Hughes, & Smith, 2008 p. 17). The qualifies social pedagogues work in different settings including adult education, museum education, community organizing, youth and sports programs, literacy programs, civic education, disability programs, environmental education, and on-the-job training. Despite being so successful and influential, social pedagogy has its challenges and weaknesses. For example, social pedagogy undermines the spirit of competition in academics (MacNaughton, Hughes, & Smith, 2008 p. 29). The model of social pedagogy places greater significance on empowering students with relevant life skills to help them live good and comfortable lives. On the contrary, it disregards the importance of competitiveness through examinations. In addition, social pedagogy does not provide a good framework for assessing and evaluating students to determine whether they have understood what they have been taught (Cameron & Moss, 2011 p.118). The other weakness of social pedagogy is that it makes the learning process a teacher-cantered process contrary to contemporary practice which has shifted more towards student-centred learning. A student centered learning model benefits the students more than a teacher-focused learning process. This is because it allows learners to be active participants in the process of generating and sharing knowledge as opposed to just being recipients of knowledge from their teachers (Storo, 2013 p. 38). Besides the weaknesses that exist with the social pedagogy model, there are also many challenges or constraints that limit effective implementation of social pedagogy. For example, there are very few individuals who are currently qualified as social pedagogues. This is a major challenge to the implementation of social pedagogy because whereas there are many people in need of the learning process, there are very few qualified educators in this regard. Furthermore, there are not enough training facilities for social pedagogues. Very few universities and tertiary institutions have programs for training social pedagogues. The other challenge that makes it difficult to implement social pedagogy is the lack of support from the government and other relevant authorities. Most of the reforms in education tend to focus improving other educational models but social pedagogy (Kornbeck & Jensen, 2011 p. 61). In conclusion, social pedagogy is a very powerful approach to education. It helps teachers to use a variety of elements and organize them into a coherent framework for teaching students. Furthermore, teachers have the role of trying to balance between different kinds of tensions in schools in order to moderate the learning process. They can only achieve this role by using the social pedagogy model as this gives them the freedom to work with learners in different settings. Other models of education only focus on education's success which is seen through good grades of the students. This only piles a lot of pressure on the students, but does not have any meaningful impact on the development of learners. In addition, these other traditional models of education have structural problems such as obvious inequalities. Social pedagogy bridges the gap by focusing on narrowing down the inequalities with the recognition that all learners, regardless of their age, are human beings. It’s essential to do this in order to humanize the detrimental effects of standards or exams pressure, which create a tendency to value children for their scores rather than who they are and who they are becoming. Given this background on education and social pedagogy, I firmly believe that the contemporary education process should be based on the ideals of social pedagogy. Therefore, all educators ought to be social pedagogues. There are several arguments to that effect, which imply that teachers should be social pedagogues. For instance, social pedagogy provided the best framework for teachers to use their skills to empower learners to become better individuals in the community. The main objective of the teachers is to play a critical role in the formative process of developing children to become responsible members of the community. This can only be achieved through social pedagogy. In addition, social pedagogy enables teachers to overcome challenges such as inequalities in education. Furthermore, social pedagogy enables teachers to help students focus on resolving some of the major challenges in the world today in a bid to make the world a better place. References Cameron, C., & Moss, P. (2011). Social pedagogy and working with children and young people: Where care and education meet. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Eichsteller, G. (2009). A Journey through the History of Social Pedagogy. Keynote speech presented at the Youth & Policy Conference ‘History of Youth & Community Work’, University of Durham. Kornbeck, J. (2009). The diversity of social pedagogy in Europe. Bremen: Europ. Hochsch.-Verl. Kornbeck, J., & Jensen, N. R. (2011). Social pedagogy for the entire lifespan. Bremen: EHV. Lingard, B., Nixon, J., & Ranson, S. (2008). Transforming learning in schools and communities: The remaking of education for a cosmopolitan society. New York: Continuum. MacNaughton, G., Hughes, P., & Smith, K. (2008). Young children as active citizens: Principles, policies and pedagogies. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. Petrie, P. (2011). Communication Skills for Working with Children and Young People: Introducing Social Pedagogy. London: Jessica Kingsley. Stephens, P. (2013). Social pedagogy: Heart and head. Bremen: EHV. Storo, J. (2013). Practical Social Pedagogy: It's All About What You Do. Policy Pr. Tisdall, E. K. M. (2006). Children, young people and social inclusion: Participation for what?. Bristol: Policy. Read More