EDF1005-Educational Philosophy

Many theorists have influenced my thoughts and more specifically helped me realize why things happen the way they do. There is a reason for every teachers “madness” or the way he/she composes the lesson in a peculiar way sometimes. It has made me realize the most effective methods of teaching, from my own experience and also observations. Beginning with Christian Wolff which coined the term mental discipline. Mental discipline is used among many teachers now days to teach the lesson so students may learn and memorize the material in an easier way. Another theorist that’s method has helped me a lot has been Jean-Jacques Rousseau which has expressed that your feelings and emotions are more important rather than learning straight from a book. Finally, Johann Friedrich Herbart introduced the way in which we associate new things with old things. Every time we learn something new it is linked to an old experience we had which also helps to learn it quicker.
First, an important theorist was Johann H. Pestalozzi. He made schooling for the poor possible and gave lessons that were relevant in value. “He made popular the idea of teaching by getting students actively involved in learning through using all of their senses. His particular method for doing this was called the object lesson” ("Rousseau and pestalozzi," ) . He believed that in a classroom it should all be about love and care.
Someone else who has influenced educational philosophy has been Christian Wolff which influenced mental discipline. Mental discipline is when let’s say for example gives you a list of words you need to know, each and every day you recite them, read them, and then get tested on it. It is exercising our minds. This is another important way in which students learn. In the classroom I am getting my service learning hours in the teacher uses this method and it seems to work effectively. The teacher recites the words with her student’s everyday and the students grasp and begin to learn the words and how to pronounce and spell them. It is all about habit; forming good one and behaviors. Throughout all my years in grade school this is how I learned.
Another theorist I will always have in account is Jean-Jacques Rousseau. “His theory has a big impact on today’s modern education. Rousseau's ideas about education have profoundly influenced modern educational theory. He minimizes the importance of book learning, and recommends that a child's emotions should be educated before his reason. He placed a special emphasis on learning by experience” (Chew, 1996). In my perspective this is important in a classroom and is something I will always take with me. Most of the time teachers like to make the students just read from the book and the students begin to concentrate more on finishing the reading than rather comprehending it. It also bores the students because they need a more “hands on” explanation. I am more of a visual learner so I learned best this way when my teachers taught like this. It is also important to have a little bit of both, since every student is a different learner.
A philosopher that has a great point to his theory is Johann Friedrich Herbart. He came up with the idea that when we are presented with something new, that new thing is linked together with something that already existed in our mind. This is what some teacher’s do, which is why it works so well and some things just stick. “Herbart saw the teacher's essential task as identifying the existing interests of the student and relating them to the great store of human experience and culture in order to help the student become part of civilized life”(McNair). Many teachers have done this to me, and make the new subject pertinent to the old stuff we already knew and caught my attention, therefore the new subject was easier to understand and will be easily remember because of the somewhat “analogy” that was given.