Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chapter 1: You, The Teacher, As A Person in Society
Chapter 1: You, The Teacher, As A Person in Society
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The Teaching Profession
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//LUJung// // the _teaching_profession//
THE TEACHING PROFESSION COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, UPHSD-LP
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The Essentialist curriculum includes the traditional disciplines such as
“math, natural science, history, foreign language and literature.
The teachers and administrators decide what is most important for
students to learn and place little emphasis on student interests,
particularly when they divert time and attention from the academic
curriculum.
How to teach?
Essentialist teachers emphasize mastery of subject matter.
They are expected to be intellectual and moral models of their students.
Essentialist teachers are seen as “fountain” of information and as “paragon
of virtue”.
To gain mastery of basic skills, teachers have to observe “core
requirements, longer school day, and longer academic year.”
With mastery of academic content as primary focus, teachers rely heavily
on the use of prescribed textbook, the drill method and other methods
that will enable them to cover as much academic content as possible.
With Essentialist’s way of teaching, there is a heavy stress on
memorization and discipline.
2. PROGRESSIVISM
Progressivists accept the impermanence of life and the inevitability of
change.
They believe that everything else changes.
Progressivists believe that Change is the only thing that does not change.
It is constant.
Why teach?
Progressivist teachers teach to develop learners into becoming enlightened
and intelligent citizens of a democratic society.
Progressivist teachers teach learners so they may live life FULLY NOW not
to prepare them for adult life.
What to teach?
Progressivists are known for a need-based and relevant curriculum. This is
a curriculum that responds to students’ needs and relates to students’
personal lives and experiences.
Progressivist teachers are more concerned with teaching the learners he
skills to cope with change.
Instead of occupying themselves with teaching facts or bits of information
that are true today but become obsolete tomorrow, they would rather
focus on the skills or processes in gathering and evaluating information
and in solving problems.
Emphasis is given much on “natural and social sciences.”
Teachers expose students to many new scientific, technological, and social
developments reflecting the notion that change is fundamental.
Students solve problems in the classroom similar to those they will
encounter outside the school.
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//LUJung// // the _teaching_profession//
THE TEACHING PROFESSION COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, UPHSD-LP
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How to teach?
Progressivist teachers employ experiential methods, especially the
problem-solving method.
They believe that one learns by doing.
Field trips, where students interact with nature or society, are considered a
“hands-on-minds-on-hearts-on” teaching methodology.
Teachers also stimulate students through thought-provoking games and
puzzles.
3. PERENNIALISM
It offers a universal type of curriculum where the heavy emphasis is on
the humanities or general education.
It believes that all human beings possess the same essential nature.
It is not a specialist curriculum but rather a general one.
There is less emphasis on vocational and technical education.
Why teach?
We are all rational animals, therefore, schools should develop the
students’ rational and moral powers.
According to Aristotle,” If we neglect students’ reasoning skills, we
deprive them of the ability to use their higher faculties to control their
passions and appetites.”
What to teach?
The perennialist curriculum is a universal one because it views human
beings as possessing the same essential nature.
Therefore, it is heavy on the humanities, on general education.
It is not a specialist curriculum but rather a general one.
There is less emphasis on vocational and technical education and what
the perennialist teachers teach are lifted from the Great Books or the
Classics.
How to teach?
The perennialist classrooms are “centered around teachers”
The teachers do not allow students’ interests or experiences to
substantially dictate what they teach.
Teachers apply whatever creative techniques and other tried and true
methods which are believed to be most conducive to disciplining the
students’ minds.
Students engaged in “Socratic dialogues,” or mutual inquiry sessions to
develop an understanding of history’s most timeless concepts.
4. EXISTENTIALISM
_____________________________________________________________________________________
//LUJung// // the _teaching_profession//
THE TEACHING PROFESSION COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, UPHSD-LP
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Its main concern is to help students understand and appreciate
themselves as unique individuals who accept complete responsibility for
their thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Why teach?
Since it believes that “existence precedes essence”, the existentialist
teachers role is to help students define their own essence by exposing
them to various paths they take in life and by creating an environment
where they can be freely on their own.
Why teach?
It believes that feelings are not divorced from reason in decision-
making, the existentialist demands the education of the whole person,
not just the mind.”
What to Teach?
In an existentialist curriculum, students are given a wide variety of
options from which to choose.
Students are afforded great latitude in their choice of subject matter.
The humanities are given tremendous emphasis to provide students with
vicarious experiences that will help unleash their own creativity and self-
expression.
Vocational education is regarded more as a means of teaching students
about themselves and their potential than of earning a livelihood..
In teaching art, it encourages individual creativity and imagination more
than copying and imitating established models.
How to teach?
Existentialist’s methods focus on the individual. Learning is self-paced,
self-directed.
The existentialist teacher relates to each student openly and honestly.
Teachers employ values clarification strategy and remain non-judgmental
and do not impose their values.
Since ‘existence precedes essence’, the existentialist teacher’s role is to
help students define their own essence by exposing them to various
paths they take in life and by creating an environment in which they
freely choose their own preferred way.
5. BEHAVIORISM
Why teach?
Behaviorist schools are concerned with the modification and shaping of
students’ behavior by providing a favorable environment since they
believe they are a product of their environment.
Behaviorists are after students who exhibit desirable behavior in society.
What to teach?
Since behaviorists look at people and other animals as complex
combinations of matter that act only in response to stimuli, behaviorist
teachers teach students to respond favorably to various stimuli in the
environment.
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//LUJung// // the _teaching_profession//
THE TEACHING PROFESSION COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, UPHSD-LP
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Teachers arrange environmental conditions so that students can make the
responses to stimuli.
They ought to provide appropriate incentives to reinforce positive
responses.
How to teach?
Behaviorists teachers ought to arrange environmental conditions so that
students can make the responses to stimuli. Physical variables like light,
temperature, arrangement of furniture, size and quantity of visual aids
have to controlled to get the desired responses from the learners.
Teachers ought to make the stimuli clear and interesting to capture and
hold the attention of the learners. They ought to provide appropriate
incentives to reinforce positive responses and weaken or eliminate
negative ones (Trespeces, 2005).
6. CONSTRUCTIVISM
Why Teach?
Constructivists believe in developing intrinsically motivated and
independent learners re adequately equipped with learning skills for them
to be able to construct knowledge and make meaning of them.
What to teach?
Learners are taught the different processes of how to learn such as
searching, critiquing and evaluating information, relating and reflecting,
drawing insights, posing questions, researching and constructing new
knowledge.
How to teach?
The teacher provides students with data or activities that allow them to
hypothesize, predict, manipulate objects, pose questions, research,
investigate, imagine and invent. The classroom is interactive.
The teacher’s role is to facilitate the learning process.
Knowledge is constructed by the learner through an active mental process
of development; they are builders and creators of meaning and
knowledge. Their minds are not empty; instead, their minds are full of
ideas waiting to be “midwifed” by the teacher with his/her skillful
facilitating skills.
7. LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY
Why teach?
To develop the communication skills of the learner because this is the very
essence of man.
What to teach?
Learners are to be taught how to send clear, concise messages, and how
to correctly understand messages.
There are 3 forms of communication: verbal, non-verbal, and paraverbal.
Verbal pertains to the content, arrangement and choice of words in oral or
written form.
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//LUJung// // the _teaching_profession//
THE TEACHING PROFESSION COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, UPHSD-LP
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Nonverbal pertains to the message we send through our body language.
Paraverbal refers to how we say the word— tone, pacing, volume of our
voice.
There is a need to teach learners to use language that is correct, precise,
grammatical, coherent, accurate so that they are able to communicate
clearly and precisely their thoughts and feelings. There is a need to help
students expand their vocabularies to enhance their communication skills.
There is a need to teach the learners how to communicate clearly through
both non-verbal and para-verbal means consistently . There is also a need
to caution the learners of the verbal and non-verbal barriers to
communication.
There is a need to teach the learners to speak as many languages as they
can. The more languages one speaks, the better he/she can communicate
with the world. A multilingual has an edge over the monolingual or
bilingual.
How to teach?
The most effective way to teach language and communication is the
experiential way. Make them experience sending and receiving messages
through verbal, non-verbal, and para-verbal means.
Teachers should make the classroom a place for the interplay of minds and
hearts. The teachers should facilitate dialogues among learners and
between themselves and the students because in the exchange of words
there is also an exchange of ideas.
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//LUJung// // the _teaching_profession//
THE TEACHING PROFESSION COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, UPHSD-LP
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//LUJung// // the _teaching_profession//