Reflections

Educators should be "lifelong learners."  There's absolutely no way around this one!  To work with students, we must be students ourselves.  We must constantly strive to learn and grow in our professional practice.  Being an educator is like being an artist.  We have to perfect our craft, and we can achieve this through many ways.  We can engage in meaningful dialogue with colleagues, participate in professional development, interact with other educators around the world through social media platforms, and reading literature on current trends in education.

Equally as important as being a lifelong learner is knowing your personal philosophy of education.
In my teacher preparation program, we read various works by some of the leading educational philosophers of our time.  At that time, I tended to lean more towards the philosophical orientation presented by John Dewey. Surprisingly, almost ten years later, after having had several types of experiences in education, my philosophy of education has remain somewhat unchanged.

After completing the "Educator Belief Inventory," the results showed that my educational beliefs are grounded in Progressivism (Dewey) and Reconstructionism (Brameld).  Educators with Progressive philosophies "believe that schooling should focus on a child's interests and needs rather than on a standardized agenda or a purported set of truths or knowledge."  The Reconstructionism belief "espouses the need to reconstruct the social order through schooling.  Reconstructionists believe that much of schooling is oppressive for students, particularly those of "subordinated status.""

While I have not conducted any type of formal research on the topic, I believe that educational philosophies and curriculum most likely share a strong correlation.  If you think about your learning experiences as a teacher and as a student, how were these experiences affected by the educational philosophy of the learning community and the teacher?

Reference:  Gajda (2001).  The NNER and Pre-Service Teachers' Philosophical Orientations. Unpublished doctoral dissertation.  Colorado State University:  Ft. Collins, CO.