Philosophy of Education

One of the philosophies of education that I liked was existentialism. Existentialism calls for a personal examination of one’s own life. Existentialism in education has to do with encouraging deep personal reflection on one’s identity, commitments, and choices. According to existentialism we possess the personal power, the will, to make choices and to create our purpose for existence. I think this is important in education because students need to understand that they have the choice to be anything they choose and that it’s up to them to decide their future. It’s important for them to understand that the choices we make in life are trivial and lead to personal self-definition. Education is lacking in the aspect of teaching students how to deal with the real world and life decisions. Existentialism teaches that each person must make meaningful choices about freedom or subordination, love and hate, peace and war, and justice or injustice.

Communication

                Today there is a lack of communication when it comes to student’s families, the school, and teachers. I think more should be done to fix this problem. Some schools have policies that don’t allow for direct communication between the students and teachers. It’s both the job of the teacher and the parents to work together to help improve the students education. Many parents leave it all up to the teacher and then are surprised when their child isn’t doing well in school. There should be a direct communication between parents and teachers at all times. Whether it’s posting grades or the progress of the student online for the parents to see or mailing something home. Parents should be aware at all times of the progress in their child’s education.  Schools should make it mandatory that teachers have contact with the parents. Research shows that students do better in school when there is communication between the parents and the teacher.

State of the Union-Education

   In Obama's state of the Union the part about education consisted of the challenges that still remain in America’s educational system today.  He speaks about how tight budgets have forced many states to lay off thousands of teachers. He also explained what the value was of having a good teacher. “A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance.” This statement was so powerful because many children have the ability to achieve success but just need a good teacher to guide and motivate them. Having good teachers are vital to our education system.  He goes onto to explain how hard teachers work for their students. Obama goes onto say that schools should reward teachers who do the best jobs. Rewarding teachers who do the best job is important because many teachers who don’t do a good job might be getting payed more than teachers who actually do a good job. He also talks about granting teachers flexibility instead of just having them teach to the test. Also replacing the teachers that don’t help kids learn is important because those teachers are harming the education of students.

                Obama also talked about not allowing students to drop out of school unless they are eighteen. This is important because it will stop many students from dropping out or giving up on school. He also talks about the rising cost of college. He says that congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling. This is so important to education because so many students want to have the chance to go to college but with the rising tuition that is not realistic for them without putting themselves into thousands of dollars in debt. He talks about doubling work study jobs for student which is good because many students need some source of income while attending college. He says that colleges need to work on keeping the cost of tuition down and if they don’t then their funding they receive from the government will go down. “Higher education can’t be a luxury it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.” Every child should be given the chance at higher education and being successful.