Philosophy of Education Revised

A Dance Between  Learners and Facilitators

My philosophy of education still revolves around the interaction of the learner and an experience that result in a change of knowledge, skills, and or character of the learner.  However, the methods or vehicles that are used to make that interaction happen has  certainly  changed.  The change has happened because, I now have a different set of skills and knowledge to draw from when I am designing and guiding the experiences. 

When Arthur Ashe said “Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.” I now have a different starting point.  Now I know about Picasa, Flickr, Jing, Ning, Wikis, podcasting, Youtube video production and posting, blogging.  And I have found a ton of fantastic websites in a variety of forms that show how these applications are being used with real kids in real classrooms.  I can do more things with technology. I  know how to use these applications and I certainly can do more with those skills than I ever thought was possible.

When I combine this with the general knowledge and experience I have about how children learn I am now better equipped to meet their needs in a more contemporary way.  The learner will still need to show up mentally and physically but the way a student in my class will be able to interact with information will change.  Their cycle of experience, reflect, publish, generalize and apply will remain the same.  After experiencing the frustrations of a steep personal learning curve, I can see the value of giving learners time to experiment and to experience the lessons of do and repeat as often as necessary to grasp a new concept.  So my interaction with the learner will change more than my core belief about education and personal growth.

I also understand more about the concept of empowering learners to work in isolation as well as cooperative learning, the sharing of information, and asking for and accepting assistance or feedback  from others.  This feeds back into the idea that the learner needs to “show up” for the experience and become the engaged director of his/her personal learning outcomes.  This is accomplished by being a risk taker.  By stepping out of one’s comfort zone and into new territory the learner is able to discover, explore, and gather new information and experiences that will cause change in attitudes, skills and knowledge and thus facilitate individual growth.  The result in essence is to become more educated.