Vicente's Educational Philosophy

Learning in my opinion is acquiring a piece of information and applying it in real life regardless of how significant the information is or not. For example, I watched a video where the purpose of the small hole of a bottle of condiments is to balance the air inside the bottle so the condiment will pour smoothly when used. I started checking if there are small holes in our bottle of condiments and if there are none then I punched a hole into it, You see it’s a simple piece of information yet I apply it for practical knowledge. Learning is a process of acquiring a piece of information that can be used in the future or if not an information that is reliable to be used for everyday life because to my part, an idea or information must be used, regardless of the degree this idea is usable; as long as there is an execution or application of this idea in real life or if not will help you shape your perspective on how you see things or to shape your intellectual interests- an individual is learning. Because, frankly if what you have learned absolutely brings no benefit to you at all, whether it is observed in a tangible manner or not, then you are not learning, at least on my part, you just acquired a piece of information that you will soon forget, maybe months or years after completing school. If you observed students who had reminisced in their school year and rants out with their teachers with statements like “wala naman akong natutunan don eh” or “hindi naman sya magaling magturo” they do not mean to say that their teacher lacks of skills in teaching but the content of what the teacher is lecturing brings no benefit to them. They for sure remembered entering in that class, taking notes and exams but they do not remember the substance of the lecture because of the strategies of the teacher in teaching that may look like her lectures aren’t worth learning for. But I do not mean to say learning in a situation must be exciting or joyous, it is not, it defeats the reality of learning. Because for me there is no specific mood or set up for learning, everyone learns whether it is safe or calm and even in a conducive environment. Learning can be exciting and adventurous but sometimes learning can be hard and depressing as well. Learning is multifaceted and even so, learning in many ways aims for one thing: to have a purpose. We learn not because we just learn, we learn because we must, because we aim to achieve something like what I mentioned earlier. I study the fundamentals of education because I plan on teaching education to my younger generation, likewise to the people who learn engineering, nursing or architecture or even for angkas drivers who learn routes to effectively bring their customers at home. An individual is learning only if what they learn has a purpose and that purpose is not for vested interest but for the common good of the people. I have always believed that teaching requires expertise in your field at least, to be knowledgeable enough to educate people but to be an expert requires years of experience. So I always keep a question to myself: what is the extent of my teaching if I do not gain enough experience to have an expertise in social studies as my major? Turns out I do not have to be a Phd holder to teach or to be known as an expert. It is my willingness to teach effectively by learning continuously with the people around me such as my students and my continuing studies to be a better teacher. As an education student, teaching is not just applying the fundamentals I have learned in graduate school but to maximizing what I learned when I execute it in the actual environment. There are real life factors to consider when teaching for example the condition of the environment and the various backgrounds of the student and all of it will be dealt with by one person which is you. It is a complex task that needs a huge compromisation of yourself to your environment and in my part, that is teaching. Being able to sacrifice half of you for the consideration of your students but in a sense of not being workaholic or just providing everything your student and school needs. It is the selflessness of an individual in a sense of taking much of your time for learning how to teach to be able to produce a perfectly curated lecture or lesson plan to your students, it is when even the teacher loss it’s passion in teaching they are holding with the idea that they came to this learning institution to teach and the will not provide the bare minimum of work. Although I am a critical pedagogy-ist by idea and constructivist in execution the problem of how do I instill these ideas without tagging as manipulating the students’ minds given the current affairs of our State that pluralism is seen as an opponent of the administration, imploring these ideas and expectations in the classroom will be hard not because of the execution or strategies but the condition of the education considering that the head of Department of Education undergoes with a stern revision of curriculum and evidently has a conservative ideologies in learning. As I mentioned earlier, Learning is a process that has a purpose, once I start my service in the teaching field I expect my students to be able to ignite their purpose in life or at least find my lectures worth applying to real life scenarios or influence their ideals. I hope we will flourish their critical thinking and literacy so it will equip them in the future to be conscious of their surroundings and to openly express their opinions, particularly those relative to the civil affairs of the country. Moreover, as a Social Studies student, I expect my students to flourish their civil consciousness in a manner of learning it in school by applying in real life scenarios the lecture they’ve learned from inside the classroom. To add, it is obvious that experienced-based learning is needed to fulfill these roles. For example, through roleplay and simulation activities, even case studies and games. To further explain, just imagine a class of that needs to memorize the cultural and technological achievements of empires built in Sumer, instead of asking them to make a table of those cultural and technological achievements mentioned you will perform a group task where you will asked the to encircle their chairs and divide the groups to how many empires arose in sumerian civilization, after that you will assign empires mentioned to every group and they will debate to each other why this empire is better than the other empire. Though it is unintentional to make friendly fight with the class they understand it more and remember the lecture well because they are so eager to get back with different groups to a point that they read and do extensive quick search with their empire, this is just one of the examples to impose experience based-learning. To formally exercise this in the classroom of course I need to be realistic that what is written in my lesson plan is not always going well. I always need to consider the condition of the classroom if it affects the welfare of the student and their learning and the various attitudes of the student that some will not acknowledge your authority as a teacher and of course your intrapersonal issues but all of these should be part on how you handle your class, as a teacher how I will operationalize such school activities is based on my willingness to deliver my part well as a teacher. These physical and intrapersonal barriers must be a determinant how I will do my part to implement my philosophy and not just to be a barrier alone. As a teacher, I am accountable for flourishing my students’ learning. For them to be better, I laid out goals to myself to foster my teaching strategies that will help my teaching career for the long term. First, to be a 21st century literate, as a teacher that is under the “digital native” people it is important to be equipped with 21st century skills to go with the flow of the trends of technology. Second, in terms of intellect I aspire my knowledge to be multi-faceted. I want to improve areas of teaching that is not of my expertise with these, along with experience it will produce a quality of teaching and learning to students in manner of continuous learning by taking master and doctorate and going to seminars to increase my knowledge.