Personal Philosophy of Learning

Updated on 01/31/05

I do have a conscious set of beliefs that drives’ every practical issue in my classroom. As I examine my own teaching, it is clear to me that I do have assumptions about how children learn. After having read Linda K. Crafton’s book, Whole language: Getting Started...Moving Forward (1991) back in March of 1995, I began to believe that this set of principles are at the core of my teaching:

1. oral and written language develop whole-to-part
2. language and literacy are socially constructed
3. literate behavior is learned through real, functional use
4. demonstrations are critical to learning
5. all learning involves risk-taking and approximation
6. learners must take responsibility for their own learning

It should be noted that after being introduced to High/Scope on The Professional Educator by Myers & Myers (1995), some points attracted me to that type of cognitive-oriented curriculum, based on Piagetian ideas. First, I liked the idea of students evaluating their activities and behavior. Second, a high parent involvement would be most beneficial to children’s learning. However, after pondering about it, I have decided that I could still have both of these advantages using the whole language approach. Furthermore, our classroom routine could still remain very flexible and not as "structured" as that of the High/Scope model.

Another method that interested me was the Bank Street Approach. Everything that Essa (1992) presented on the Introduction to Early Childhood Education , was synonymous with my already-familiar whole language idea. It only strengthen my self-confidence on the open education concept. I was surprised that the name Lucy S. Mitchell was not even mentioned by Essa, as the founder of the Bank Street College of Education, and that Pratt’s Play School was not given any importance. Now I understand, after reading Greenberg (1987), that it was Lucy S. Mitchell who used the term "whole child." This gave me some assurance that "Bank Street" and "Whole Language" were not so divergent from each other, after all.

While I was taught using the traditional, product-oriented, teacher-controlled pedagogy, my personal philosophy does not endorse this kind of education. Whole language, the philosophical opposite, endorses principles’ with which I am in agreement: student-centered, process-driven, and language-based learning. Whole language has many strategies that I find useful. In addition, it provides alternative forms of assessment. On-going observations or evaluation that does not interfere with learning, give me an opportunity to overcome the limited picture presented by the standardized tests that I use to administer as a Kindergarten teacher. I also tend to prefer qualitative measures of evaluation.

My personal philosophy of whole language, therefore, rejects behaviorist views of learning and aims to implement sociopsycholinguistic, cognitive, and sociocultural theories of learning.

Theorists influencing my philosophy

After analyzing the principles of whole language that I subscribe to, I became aware that there are five major figures whose ideas are included behind this approach. The sequence that I use here does not correspond to that of Crafton’s, but to the order in which these theorists became known to me.

Jean Piaget advised teachers to spend a lot less time lecturing and to allow children to learn by doing. He stressed the teacher’s job to be the provider of materials that will enable curious children to experience satisfaction from within. He, as Freire later on, made it clear that teachers must not be so concerned with the transmission of facts and concepts, or to actively reinforce correct answers. Although Piaget’s theory of cognitive development was not a theory of education per se, many educators have incorporated his ideas into their curricula. Principle #6, learners must take responsibility for their own learning, is based on Piaget’s intrinsic learning satisfaction. However, his assumption that children’s learning must be constructed completely by themselves, is an absolute statement.

Challenging Piaget, the developmentalist Lev Vygotsky puts less emphasis on self-initiated discovery. Even though I believe in active learning, and disagree with children as passive recipients of information, children can learn as part of social contexts. The teacher must not just stand back and let the children frustrate themselves. Peer-collaboration groups can serve as the interaction students need to "discover" how to master certain tasks.

In his cognitive social-learning theory, Albert Bandura emphasized that children can learn by observing the behavior of others. He called them social models. Vygoytsky’s guided learning, along with Bandura and other cognitive learning theorists that view human development as continuous reciprocal interaction, provide the foundation for principle #2, language and learning are socially constructed. It seems to me that since the summits described by Udall and Rugen on "From the Inside Out" (1997) rely on the social dimensions of learning, these summits also use a whole language approach.

Along with Vygotsky’s theory of social learning, Paulo Freire (1988) emphasized the importance of a dialogical approach to education. Ongoing dialogue- with oneself, with other students, with the teacher, with an author, with other readers, is essential for learning. The whole language strategies of shared reading and shared writing, for instance, are based on the underlying assumptions that children will gain from the interpretations of other students and from sharing their perspectives with a group. The teacher acts as a moderator for the group’s discussion and does not control the conversation.

Instead of isolated explorers, Freire’s theory is based on the interaction among students, where they speak about a theme that they are interested in. Freire explained that it is o.k. if students’ notions are naive because children, as students, perceive reality differently. Central to this point is the idea that mistakes are tolerated, which brings me back to Principle #5: All learning involves risk-taking and approximation.

The interactionist theory of language development, analogous to Freire’s proposals, poses that "companions," as friends or classmates, play a critically important role by promoting conversations among children. Adults usually use whole sentences when speaking and expand on the child’s own language constructions. Based on these premises, therefore, I endorse principle #1: oral and written language develop whole-to-part.

Freire’s educational philosophy also proposed that teachers learn with students, avoiding the paternalistic approach of believing they know it all. Being able to exteriorize our own thinking as teachers is demonstrating to our children that we, in fact, are learners as well. As we construct meaning, we can let children "see" inside our heads by talking out loud. As part of these process demonstrations, whole language teachers have the opportunity to share our thinking interpretations at the same level with our children’s views. This is the basis for Principle #4: demonstrations (not to be confused by modeling) are critical to learning.

In addition to Freire’s definition of a teacher, information-processing theorists have also implied that the teacher should take a more active and "directive" role, as Vygotsky envisioned. One implication for instruction flowing directly from the information-processing research is that the teacher can make his/her meta cognitive knowledge more evident, by talking about her associations with the child. Still another model that has the same teacher’s role is the Technology-Based Anchored Instruction. I found that this model is analogous to the whole language approach. Maybe it is because both are based on constructivist theories, in which student are actively seeking knowledge and teachers are "guides on the side."

Finally, I am inspired by Freire’s idea of action and reflection through which students talk about what is meaningful to them. When deciding upon the content for discussion, he suggested one that involves students’ preoccupations and is not "divorced from reality." Prior to him, Dewey had also said that we learn from our present reality and do not prepare for a future one. A practical example of this is Brown’s (1994) description of the Community of Learners in "The Advancement of Learning," in which students are responsible for developing their own curriculum. This is the rationale for Principle #3: literate behavior is learned through real, functional use.

Praxis

I have thought about the application of my personal philosophy. Whole language is the approach that I use. The following are examples of the above-mentioned principles and how they are put into practice inside my classroom.

References

Brown, A.L. (1994). The advancement of learning. Educational Researcher, 23, 4-12.

Brown, R.G. (1991). A higher literacy in Toronto. In School of Thought: how the politics of literacy shape thinking in the classroom (pp. 202-212). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Crafton, L.K. (1991). Whole language: Getting started...moving forward. New York: Richard C. Owen Publishers.

Delpit, L.D. (1995). Other people’s children: cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: New Press.

Dweck, C.S. (1986, October). Motivational processes affecting learning. American Psychologist, 1040-1048.

Essa, E. (1992). Rationale supporting early childhood education. In Introduction to early childhood education (pp. 137-142). Nevada-Reno: Delmar Publishers.

Freire, P. (1988). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Greenberg, P. (1987, July). Lucy Sprague Mitchell: A major missing link between early childhood education in the 1980’s and progressive education in the 1890s-1930s. Young Children, 70-84.

Krogh, S. (1994). Educating young children: Infancy to grade three. New York: McGraw Hill.

Lay-Dopyera, M. & Dopyera, J. (1993). Becoming a teacher of young children. New York: McGraw Hill.

Manning, M. & Manning, G. (1995, May). Whole language: They say, you say. Teaching K-8, 50-54.

Myers, C. & Myers, L.K. (1995). Models of instruction. In The professional educator: A new introduction to teaching and schools (pp. 512-551). Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

Osborn, D.K. (1980). Early childhood education in historical perspective. Athens, GA: Education Associates.

Papalia, D.E. & Wendkos Olds, S. (1996). Perspectives on child development. In A child’s world: Infancy through adolescence (pp.16-32). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Udall, D., & Rugen, L. (1997, January). From the inside Out. The expeditionary learning process of teacher change. Phi Delta Kappan, 404-408.

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