Monday, June 30, 2008
Building your Educational Philosophy
Definitions:
Philosophia—denotes the love and pursuit of wisdom, the investigation of truth and nature
Philosophy—a system of fundamental or motivating principles, a basis of action of belief. The overall values by which one lives
Your philosophy of education is a statement of what you believe with regard to education. It flows out of your beliefs and values and determines what your actions and behavior, with regard to education will be. It becomes the basis for why and how you will do what you do.
Actions/Behaviors—leadership deals with actions and behaviors of individuals (what motivates them?)
Your beliefs—world view—God-centered and man-centered view of life. Everything fits into one of these two views of life.
Your world view gives rise to what your values. Your beliefs form your values. Your values drive your actions and behaviors. What you believe (frame of reference) determines what you values and drives actions and behaviors.
Start your philosophy at what you believe about education. What that effects of your values and what motivates your actions and behaviors.
Are you here for deeper reasons and not realize it?
Philosophy—finding out who I really am, how that motivates me
Components of personal philosophy of education
Your personal philosophy of education should be the driving force behind how you give leadership in an educational setting
A word of caution: Be careful of educational jargon
“to enable all students to be successful in life”
Who or what defines success? Individual’s definition of success is the motivation.
“to develop a generation of students who are ethical, productive members of their culture”
Who or what defines ethical in our culture? Post-modernism is the prevailing belief—rebellion against ideals of modern period. Humanists would say there is a god s/he has left the world alone. Post-modern states that man is supreme. My post-modern may be quite different than standard of ethics.
Who or what determines if an individual is or is not “productive”? What do we do with or to those who do not meet or definition of productive?
There is no neutrality. Integrity demands that our philosophy clearly reflect who we are.
Not intended to impress others by use of educational jargon
Should include a clear statement of what you believe. Must include a clear statement what you believe.
Should include a statement of how what you believe will affect what you are trying to accomplish in educational leadership.
Remember, who you are (what you believe) should drive your actions and behaviors in life.
Who you are, world belief, should drive actions and behaviors in life. If you say “I am born again” should that have any bearing on your actions and behaviors? Yes, it should. How could what you do not be driven by who you are? Can you and what you believe fit in any setting you are in? Yes, of course it does. Are you doing that?
Philosophy is written going to force you to rethink why you do what you do. It may not change what you do but it should make you think about why you do what you do. Are we going to be the leader God wants you to be vs. the system. God’s leader is a star in the system. Do things with a different heart attitude and transformational and make a difference.
PHILOSOPHICAL STATEMENT TEMPLATE:
Assuming a personal relationship with Jesus, there is no neutrality.
We are created in the image of God with the capacity to:
- Know Him and develop an intimate relationship with Him
- Serve Him
- Learn, think, reason, and communicate
We are created as unique individuals with great potential.
The effective/exemplary leader looks at students this way—with potential. What do I do in the school setting to make it a level playing field? Without this, they are frustrations. Refocus on God’s leader to understand motivation. What do you really want to do? Our goal is to bring about change.
My educational philosophy and my leadership style are based on my desire to help each individual in my range of responsibility realize his/her potential to:
- Know and serve God (realizing academic potential, working with all our might, academics)
- To learn to think, to reason (communicate)
To accomplish this I must be an individual who:
- Knows God
- Knows the truth and daily applies the truth to my life
- Has set God’s Word as the standard for my life
- Lives a biblically integrated life (verbally and nonverbally)
Standard is truth found in God’s Word. Public sector finds ways to make this work. How you raise children will change based on this standard will also change and be adapted as part of this process.
Schneider’s Example:
God created mankind in His image. He created us as unique individuals who possess great potential. We were created to worship Him and for fellowship. He built into us the ability to think, reason, learn, and communicate. Because of the entrance of sin (sin nature) into the world’s man’s relationship with God was broken and he lost the knowledge of who God is and what He expects of His creation.
It is God’s express plan and purpose to see the relationship restored and to that end I believe that education is the process God has designed to reinvest mankind with the knowledge of who He is and what He expects for those who know Him. Therefore, I will work to create the optimum learning environment that will insure that each student has the opportunity to realize their full potential to know God, develop an intimate relationship with Him, and be fully equipped to serve Him now and in the future.
Problems Associated with Writing a Philosophy Statement
- Prior Training—secular setting teaches us to fear revealing Christian perspective, minority world view, people become like the teachers who teach them, buy into what they say without examination, may eliminate God from setting, see God as irrelevant to that setting/subject matter, see the material as man-focused/manmade,
- Lack of understanding of the real purpose of education
- We do not have a thoroughly biblical worldview of life—we’re not appropriating it to who we are and what we do
Why is Education Necessary?
To teach children how to think/reason
To help people to live a fulfilling life (post-modernism)
To think critically (questioning everything)
To make students successful (prestige, stuff)
To contribute to society (functioning in society—what does functioning mean what happens to those who do not function or contribute?)
Knowledge/Skills increase impact on society
Way society works—kids need care during the day so the parents can work (4-day school week)
Only thing people cannot take away from you/not have to do manual labor/get ahead
Accept and fit into the culture (why would we want them to fit into broken culture?)
Provides students with choices
Platform for indoctrination (example Cuba)
- High priority for most adults
- Billions of dollars are spent on schooling of children every year--education is a business, segments of economy don’t suffer b/c they interact with education
- Education is a major focus on all levels of government—all levels, government needs to step back and allow parents to take over;
- Average student spends 1,260 hours in school plus time on assignments, activities outside of school each year for 13 years (total of 16,380 hours)—compare to the time that the church and home together is far less significant than education. What do parents want? College of choice, life that is better than parents’, quality education that prepares them for the future (make money, get car, nice stuff)
As educators we are supposed to be interested in the needs of children, we know they need to get education/knowledge. What do you believe beyond doubt is the most basic need a person has?
Salvation/God—most basic need is to have creation with Creator restored; supersedes any need
All can know God
Eternal consequence
Go back and think of their real needs
Has more potential to meet their needs
Ask the right questions
Defining Education
Most adults would define education as the formal process by which students learn facts, acquire knowledge and develop skills in order to be “successful in life.”
Problems:
Who determines the” important” facts and the skills necessary?
Most Asian and European allow people to jump into area that you are good at instead of a well-rounded education. Keeps options open for young people to jump track and have necessary skills to move into a different area or to go on later.
Who defines success?
We define success for ourselves.
Success
Joshua 1:8 “This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to recite it day and night, so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do.”
It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s what is motivating you. When you live your life according to God’s Word, you pour yourself into it to be the best. Follow the standard and do not deviate from the standard. It controls what you do what you do. It will make you a better teacher and administrator. Our commitment and desire to be as close to that standard, we get closer to be exemplary leader from God’s perspective.
Problem
Most people, Christian parents included, believe that education should be values free and religiously neutral.
What we’ve got is that Christian parents will say, “Wait a minute, we don’t want anyone to talk to them about religion or values.” Just teach them to read, write, and do arithmetic. Our culture states it’s not wrong to talk about other faiths but only wrong to talk about Christianity. Teach other religions ok, but then you can allow students to compare. There is nothing wrong about learning about counterfeit as long as they know about the real model (Christianity). Joke is that there is no neutrality except when Christians take off their religion and put on the world view. Not fair to bring in any philosophy except Christians. Most Christians stay religiously neutral. Be vocal about everything and equal rights. Be free to say, “This is what Christianity says.” Our job is to communicate the truth all the time—a truth basis. 50% of the kids who go to college as Christians do not go out of college as Christians.
Postmodernism—basis for understanding is prevailing philosophy of culture; moral relativism fits comfortably into this philosophy, not one step up from modernism but is a total rebellion from modernism.
Biblical Response
Genesis 3:1-24 Fall of Man; very significant chapter b/c we need to have a good handle on it
Satan’s deception led to the introduction of a sinful “nature” in man
Man lost his knowledge of who God is
Man lost the knowledge of right and wrong
God’s Word is an ongoing dialogue in response to these issues. From cover to cover, this is what the Bible was all about. The problem we are faced with everyday is based on the sin nature.
The Greatest Terrorist Attack of All Time
It was the day that life in God’s creation changed for all time.
Satan’s attack on the crown jewel of God’s creation—man
Sin entered the world and man has been at war with God and His creation ever since
The Results of this Terrorist Attack
Every society and every generation has had to engage in an intense war—a culture war
Culture wars have been always will be wars of ideas and ideals, battles over truth and reality
Who determines what is truth/real?
Today’s culture war is much like those of past generations.
Started in Garden of Eden—we are doing a poor job in winning this war. In the past 20 years, it has been a downward spiral. It has a direct bearing on our entire culture. The faster we lose the war the more quickly our culture will change.
Culture
The norms of behavior and shared values among a group of people (This will be on test, definitions are on tests.) Symbols: Fourth of July, apple pie, baseball, Chevrolet
A lesson from Hosea
The Lord had a charge against His people. He had an issue/upset with them. There is no faithfulness, no love, now acknowledgement of God in the land. Hosea 4:1
There is a consequence for actions. Do the right things—positive circumstances. Do the wrong things and there are problems.
Hosea’s Culture War
God’s people were being destroyed for lack of knowledge. There was no standard in the land. They did not have/know the truth.
The leaders (Israel’s spiritual leaders) were not teaching truth
The law of God was being ignored
Israel was following the ways of man and the world rather than obeying His Word. Scriptures say that when leaders do not teach truth and laws of God are ignored?
God ignored their children They made their own choices and God let them. Do we live in a similar setting? This is a very real warning. Consequences of not teaching truth affect the children. What is our responsibility?
God’s Warning
A people without understanding will come to ruin. Hosea 4:14 If you know the issue and cause of issue, what then becomes your responsibility? Can you ignore it? Responsibility as an educator is to deal with the problem from proper context. Our context is from what is true and real. Otherwise it has a profound effect on the kids. It puts a heavy burden on our shoulders. Consequences are dire.
Educational Leaders Today Must be Men and Women of
Understanding—That is our responsibility.
I Chronicles 12:32 “men of Issachar, who understood the times (the culture war) and knew what Israel should do (how to win the war).”
If we claim ignorance, we may think this sets us free. War is not going away but will get worse and worse. We get more de-sensitized. We do not realize it is raging all around us.
Today’s Culture War
It is a war of ideas and ideals
Two sides with totally opposing worldviews are fighting
The impact of postmodernism on Christians who are educational leaders
“Our mindset has been coerced by the mindset of our culture.”
How has it made such a profound impact on Christians in public sector? Our mindset has been coerced by the world around us. We think and act not far from where the world acts. This is hard for people who say they are committed to the truth. This may be how we respond to children.
“Failing to think christianly, evangelicals have been forced into the role of cultural imitators and adapters rather than originators.” Os Guinness
We spend more time as imitators than as those who do what is right. Who has forced us? We actually probably have done it by choice. We get desensitized to it by over-bombardment. In the mid-80s, postmodernism began to be the driving force in our culture (1983?). There are no absolutes. Reality is what you make it. No one can point a finger to tell you it is wrong.
Beliefs give rise to values gives rise to your actions and behaviors. Our worldview drives our behaviors. This should challenge you when you get back to work to see how you can change. Why would you keep the same? It is easier to go with the flow.
The War’s Target
Gay & Lesbian Education Network
“If we do our jobs right, we are going to raise a generation of kids who don’t believe the claims of the religious right. When we capture the kids, we will own the world and the future.”
Why are Christians always the last to realize that kids are the forefront of the battle?
MTV budgeted millions of dollars of marketing money targeted at capturing one age group—11-13 year olds.
Today’s Culture War
It is a war of ideas
Two sides with totally different worldviews are fighting
The target is our children
The major front will be on educational turf
The main place this war is taking place is in education. Must be proactive and looking out for opportunities. Start with one and move on to more and more opportunities. Have a plan to be proactive and have a vision.
Educational Turf
“Children are the prize to the winners [of the culture war]. Those who determine what young people are taught and what they experience—what they see, hear, think, and believe—will set the course for the future of this nation.” James Dobson and Gary Bauer A Nation at Risk (1991)
Sanctification—process to being transformed into the form of Christ
Children do become like their teachers (teachers, TV, internet, media, parents, VG, other things in the environment).
“The fact is inescapable—the world view of the teacher, insofar as he is effective, gradually conditions the worldview of the pupil. No man teaches out of a philosophical vacuum. In one way or another, every teacher expresses the convictions he lives by, whether they be spiritually positive or negative. Dr. Frank GaebeleinThe Pattern of God’s Truth