My Philosophy of Education The motto of Adelphi University, which appears on the university seal is, The Truth Shall

Make Us Free. This motto expresses the ultimate purpose of education: to teach students how to discover truth. Only when an individual understands truth is his mind enlightened, and he is free to act as an intelligent and fully actualized being. This is my goal in teaching: to have students constantly question established modes of thinking, always search for better answers, and strive to discover truth. The truth, however, can be a great inconvenience. Often times the truth is concealed from us, or it is manipulated in ways that do not allow us to act freely. Politicians, authority figures, and power-hungry people all manipulate the truth in order to get others to comply with them and their beliefs. People are rarely urged to question such peoples reasoning, and are instead encouraged to conform. Some of the most powerful dictators in history have risen to power because they have taken advantage of this herd mentality. Other times, the truth may not fit in with what we already know and have built our understanding on, so it is ignored or discarded. Thomas Kuhn writes in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions: The success of the paradigm... is at the start largely a promise of success ... Normal science consists in the actualization of that promise... Mopping up operations are what engage most scientists throughout their careers. They constitute what I am here calling normal science... That enterprise seems an attempt to force nature into the preformed and relatively inexible box that the paradigm supplies. No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those that will not t the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others. (Kuhn 23-4)

Scientists, those who shape our understanding of scientic realities, are reluctant to accept new theories and new ways of thinking because it is simply inconvenient to do so; it would change what we have always thought to be true. Their purpose is not necessarily to make new discoveries, but to afrm existing theories and laws by nding explanations for phenomena in the body of knowledge and understanding that we already possess. We can see examples of this reluctance throughout scientic history, from the Copernican Revolution to evolution.
In order to disrupt these modes of thinking that suppress truth, we must teach students to

question everything. To accept an idea without knowing why you are accepting it is to submit oneself to a form of slavery; one is allowing himself to be told what to think. Paulo Freire states that authentic liberation--- the process of humanization... is a praxis: the action an reection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it (Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed). However, our schools are not doing enough to free students from this oppression; they are not encouraging Freires idea of reection. Nel Noddings writes, ...the suppression of discussion and critical thinking in our educational system is widespread. Usually it is accomplished by dening the curriculum so narrowly and specically that genuinely controversial issues simply do not arise (Noddings, What Our Schools Should Teach pg. 1). Discussion and debate are not encouraged in classrooms because they would take away time needed to cover the material in the curriculum. The curriculum is developed with the goal of to teaching students what they will have to know in order to pass standardized tests so that they can move on to the next level of their education. This would be ne if these exams tested a students critical understanding of a subject, and their reection and evaluation of the information. However, these standardized exams only test shallow knowledge based in facts and procedures. They fail to evaluate the skills and understandings which really matter because they are difcult to quantify.

Consequently, teachers who want students to do well and progress in their education teach their students how to perform well on these tests. They focus on teaching the shallow knowledge students need to know in order to be a high achiever on these exams. This unfortunate system is not the fault of the teacher. Nevertheless, teachers must nd ways to teach students to think critically about what they are being taught and why they accept it.
It is my belief that the teaching of critical thinking can be aided by the encouragement of

artistic expression. The goal of art is to convey a truth or a feeling. Artists are constantly looking for new ways to view an idea or object, and ways to express their interpretation. This creativity and search for novel ways of viewing the world goes hand in hand with the goal of critical thinking. Critical thinking is thinking about thinking; it is the questioning of why we accept something as true. Art provokes the same thoughts. It requires the conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reection, reasoning, or communication (Scriven). This is the same way that the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking denes critical thinking. As a teacher, I plan to teach critical thinking by encouraging creativity in art, and by pushing students to consider and express their different ways of thinking about the world and how they relate to it.
To be able to cultivate creativity in my students, it is rst necessary to establish a

relationship with them so that they feel comfortable expressing their true thoughts and ideas in the classroom. In my schooling experience, I rarely challenged my teachers or the topics we discussed because I wanted them to like me, so I said only what I thought they wanted to hear. As a teacher, it is important for me that I have a relationship with my students; one in which they feel that their unique opinions are valued. However, I know from Eliot Wiggintons experience which Frank Margonis writes about in the article From Student Resistance to Educative

Engagement: A Case Study in Building Powerful Student-Teacher Relationships, attempting to from a friendship with the students will confuse the structure of authority in the classroom. His solution to this, the project pedagogy approach to organizing the class, is one that I want to implement in my high school math classroom as well. Math lends itself easily to many projects that can work with in a project pedagogy construct. I want to show my students that math can be used as a powerful tool to disrupt inequality and ght for issues of social justice that are relevant in their lives. This project pedagogy will allow me to give a certain amount of authority to the students, which will in turn give them the motivation to cooperate and learn.
Fenstermacher and Soltis write about three different methods of teaching in their article,

Approaches to Teaching. Ideally, I would like to take the positive aspects of each approach and incorporate it into my ideal method of teaching, but I dont believe that you can possess all these qualities without sacricing others. Although I appreciate many of the aspects of the facilitator approach, the liberationist approach ts best with my philosophy of education. I want to give my students to ability to think critically about the world about them, how they t into it, and how they can contribute to it. The learning of knowledge is important, but the skills required to question it and to discuss its uses and implications are much more so. Fenstermacher and Soltis write, ...The liberationist does not pursue K(nowledge) as an end in itself, but rather seeks to initiate the student into the collected wisdom and understanding of the species (pg. 45). They go on to say, The liberationist does not seek persons who are only knowledgeable... but persons who are also just and loving, who are imaginative in thought and discerning in conduct, and who are committed to the advancement of humankind (pg. 46) I believe that these are the skills my students will need to seek truth and navigate through life, aware of their place in the world and history of human thought.

In order for students to be inspired and motivated to learn, they must have a rich and

aesthetically pleasing environment to work and learn in. Reggio Emilia calls the environment the third educator because students learn a lot from their surroundings. They process messages and attitudes towards learning, and they understand how the school and community views them as students. Therefore, the environment should make them feel connected to something bigger than just the class or the classroom. It should make them recognize that they are part of the world, that they are learning about it and contributing to it. Teachers need to ght against the commonly held belief that ...the child is one who must be protected from the outside world in order to learn (Tarr, Aesthetic Codes in Early Childhood Classrooms). To accomplish this, I want my classroom to be decorated with thought-provoking images and artwork that show different perspectives. It shouldnt be cluttered, crowded, or overwhelming. I would love to collaborate with the art teacher and have students make work in art class to be hung up around the room. In this way, the students will be contributing to the aesthetic and intellectual atmosphere of the community, and taking responsibility for their home of learning. Their environment will become an authentic extension of a real person (Noddings, House and Home pg. 69). I hope to give my students an education that forces them to grow and inspires them to seek knowledge. Only the truth can bring this authentic growth. My philosophy is that the search for truth is a lifelong pursuit, and my goal is to give my students the tools necessary to pursue truth throughout the course of their life. Works Cited

Fenstermacher, G.D., Soltis, J.F. (2004). Approaches to Teaching, Approaches to Teaching.

pp. 1-56

Freire, Paulo. 2000., Pedagogy of the Oppressed (30th anniversary edition), Translated by Myra
Bergman-Ramos, 71-86. New York: Continuum. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientic Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago, 1970.
Print. Margonis, F. (2004). From student resistance to educative engagement: A case study in building powerful student-teacher relationships, No Education Without Relation, Charles Bingham & Alexander M. Sidorkin, Eds., New York: Peter Lang. Noddings, Nel. "Introduction." Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. Print. Noddings, Nel. "House and Home." Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. Print. Scriven, M., and Paul, R.W., "Dening Critical Thinking." Critical Thinking as Dened by the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking (1987) Web. 1 May 2012. <http:// www.criticalthinking.org/pages/dening-critical-thinking/766>. Tarr, Patricia. "Aesthetic Codes in Early Childhood Classrooms: What Art Educators Can Learn from Reggio Emilia." Aesthetic Codes in Early Childhood Classrooms: What Art Educators Can Learn from Reggio Emilia. Web. 1 May 2012. <http:// www.designshare.com/Research/Tarr/Aesthetic_Codes_1.htm>.