My Results For The Educational Philosophy Self-Assessment And What They Mean To Me

When I took the Educational Philosophy Self-Assessment, the results indicated that I would likely be a humanistic and progressive educator within my classroom, as these were the two categories that I had the highest results in. I highly agree with this analysis of my pedagogical beliefs, as I feel that education should be primarily focused on the progress of my students rather than on standardized examinations and meeting academic standards. For example, the humanistic viewpoint states that children should be in academic settings that recognize their various academic, cognitive and biological characteristics as important, as this will allow them to feel valued as people rather than as students. I completely agree with this belief because students will feel unmotivated to attend classes if they do not feel that their teachers care about them as individuals. Also, the progressive viewpoint consists of the idea that students should learn about what will help them in their pursuits and what they care about rather than what is required of them by academic standards. I agree with this opinion because, ultimately, students who attend college will receive degrees in topics that appeal to them, and not in the subjects that they dislike and have difficulty with. For these reasons, the results of my  survey perfectly explain my beliefs regarding pedagogical practices, as both these beliefs and the Progressive and Humanistic viewpoints revolve around the accomplishments of the students rather than those of the teachers, schools, and school districts.

The Survey That I Took (Only Accessible Through Canvas)

Descriptions Of Each Pedagogical Viewpoint (Only Accessible Through Canvas)

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Is Mainstreaming Gifted Children Appropriate?

There are various issues, as well as positive outcomes, of allowing gifted children to be educated in the same classroom as their peers of average intelligence. For example, children who are members of the latter group can learn from their more advanced peers both intellectually and emotionally, as they can both receive assistance from them with their schoolwork and discover how to relate and befriend to children of various abilities, strengths and weaknesses through their interacting with them within the classroom. However, a common issue with the mainstreaming of gifted children is that they will not be exposed to the same academic rigor as the other children due to their previous knowledge of their material that is provided to them. Because of this, various modifications need to be made to the work that these children receive in order to receive the benefits of the mainstream classroom while still receiving schoolwork that will allow them to further develop their knowledge.

I hold this opinion because there was a gifted student in my middle school who was in my classes. While in seventh grade, she was taking high school Algebra courses and studying high school vocabulary. She would also assist us with our schoolwork and provide us with interesting ideas within classroom discussions, which we greatly appreciated due to our thinking in a more typical perspective. Despite this, some students were resentful of her due to the high grades that she regularly received, and which these students were often unable to have. However, I do not feel that this would have justified removing her from the classroom and placing her in a program that is exclusively for gifted teenagers, as this would have caused her to feel different from her peers and excluded from a typical school experience.

Challenging Gifted Students

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The Role That Gender Bias Plays In The American Classroom

In the third chapter of the Education: The Practice and Profession Of Teaching textbook, McNergney & McNergney discuss the topic of gender bias in elementary school classes. I was intrigued by this topic because I wanted to know about how to treat each of my students with equality and fairness, and also about the mistakes that teachers make about the matter so that I do not repeat them in my classroom. When I searched for resources online about gender bias, I found the essay Gender Bias In Teaching which Kathryn Scantlebury wrote. Through this essay, I was exposed to an elaboration of the points discussed by McNergney & McNergney, such as how the reason why female children are less likely to perform well in mathematics classes is due to the belief of many educators that females are not mentally inclined towards this subject, which results in their having less expectations for this population. This helped me to understand why male children perform well in this subject. This phenomenon is mostly due to many teachers encouraging them to pursue mathematics classes in formative education and to pursue vocations that require large amounts of mathematics, which is often not the case with female children. Therefore, it is likely a self-fulfilling prophecy that results in female children struggling with mathematics, as they are not given as much encouragement in this subject as their male counterparts.

Now that I have discovered this information, I want to try my hardest to not judge my students as a result of their gender. I feel that this act is inappropriate for educators to partake in due to it resulting in them not considering each student as an individual, but instead as a member of a specific category. For example, in an elementary school classroom, I may have a certain percentage of male children in my class who are fluent readers, but another percentage of students who are not. These percentages do not indicate in any way a particular superiority or inferiority that male children have in contrast to female children, as the female children will be represented through similar percentages. Because of this, I do not plan on holding male children to a particular standard in any subject due to stereotypes about their gender, as one male child may have similar strengths and weaknesses to another female child.

Works Cited:

Gender Bias In Teaching

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McNergney, Joanne M. & Robert F. McNergney. Education: The Practice and Profession of Teaching. 6th      Ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2009. Print.