Personal Philosophy
My personal philosophy behind my desire to teach alternative historical narratives in the social studies classroom developed through the synthesis of John Dewey’s educational precepts, my search for content relevant to my students’ identities, and my understanding of social studies education as a moral and civic undertaking. Entering the fall semester of Penn’s Secondary Teacher Education Program, in my mind I had conceptualized the ideal social studies education: social studies education should engage students with material and with each other in order to bridge the intellectual, psychological, and emotion gap between the self and the world. In turn, I understood the role of a social studies teacher as helping students analyze thought-provoking primary and secondary sources, and facilitating the navigation of historical contexts to make connections along practical, thematic, and ideological lines through discussion and dynamic activities. In examining and interacting with primary sources, and discussing conflicts, dilemmas, and innovations, the distant past or most foreign of cultures are brought to life by their universally human questions and concerns. Social studies education can help bridge the gap between the self and the world, which is simultaneously infinitely large and impossibly small. Through social studies education, students grow to understand the human factors that unite all people, as well as the historical factors that set each group and each individual apart. By enabling students to better understand themselves and their situation in the world across time and place, social studies prepares students to be socially and politically engaged citizens of both the world and their local community.
From my reading of John Dewey’s educational treaties during my undergraduate years, I learned and came to believe his fundamental principle that education in schools should stem from the child. Students learn experientially every minute of everyday, and therefore the majority of their learning takes place outside of an academic setting. Additionally, Dewey espouses that a student’s informal learning occurs on an intimate personal level, where information and ideas are understood in the narrow context of the student’s own life. In this case, the child’s mind and body act as the sole educational mediators, without interference from the constructed and categorized world of adults. The role of teachers is to utilize students’ experiences and knowledge of the world accumulated independently of formal schooling, as a pivotal reference point to scaffold students into unfamiliar intellectual territory. Dewey states his position on this issue most clearly in his 1900 essay “The Child and the Curriculum,” maintaining that “the present standpoint of the child and the facts and truths of study define instruction” (Dewey, 1902, p. 189). This understanding of teaching calls to mind the oft repeated tenet that “education should be relevant,” however not for the sake of narrowing, but rather broadening what is learned.
While Dewey addresses relevant teaching from a cognitive development standpoint, the teaching of alternative historical narratives extends this pedagogical approach to marry school learning and student identities. The teaching and exploration of alternative historical narratives, such as those of women, children, ethnic minorities, and the socioeconomically disadvantaged, helps found classroom learning in students’ lived experiences – all students are children (or were children), approximately half are female, and many are ethnic minorities or socioeconomically disadvantaged. Students arrive to school with the experiential knowledge of what it means to embody those identities in their own society, and are more readily able and eager to make connections along those lines. Additionally, I believe that consistently introducing alternative historical narratives into social studies lessons, thereby regularly incorporating students’ identities into school learning, raises students’ level of engagement in class. This in turn leads to richer, longer lasting, and rewarding learning experiences.
Finally, teaching alternative historical narratives complements my belief in social studies education as a gateway to active, democratic civic participation. This approach subverts the dominant curriculum that disproportionately emphasizes and praises “great white men,” and exposes students to a diversity of perspectives that more accurately represent the scope of human history. As students graduate into the adult world, this more just and balanced social studies education will prepare them for civic engagement from an informed standpoint and with a grounded moral compass.
From my reading of John Dewey’s educational treaties during my undergraduate years, I learned and came to believe his fundamental principle that education in schools should stem from the child. Students learn experientially every minute of everyday, and therefore the majority of their learning takes place outside of an academic setting. Additionally, Dewey espouses that a student’s informal learning occurs on an intimate personal level, where information and ideas are understood in the narrow context of the student’s own life. In this case, the child’s mind and body act as the sole educational mediators, without interference from the constructed and categorized world of adults. The role of teachers is to utilize students’ experiences and knowledge of the world accumulated independently of formal schooling, as a pivotal reference point to scaffold students into unfamiliar intellectual territory. Dewey states his position on this issue most clearly in his 1900 essay “The Child and the Curriculum,” maintaining that “the present standpoint of the child and the facts and truths of study define instruction” (Dewey, 1902, p. 189). This understanding of teaching calls to mind the oft repeated tenet that “education should be relevant,” however not for the sake of narrowing, but rather broadening what is learned.
While Dewey addresses relevant teaching from a cognitive development standpoint, the teaching of alternative historical narratives extends this pedagogical approach to marry school learning and student identities. The teaching and exploration of alternative historical narratives, such as those of women, children, ethnic minorities, and the socioeconomically disadvantaged, helps found classroom learning in students’ lived experiences – all students are children (or were children), approximately half are female, and many are ethnic minorities or socioeconomically disadvantaged. Students arrive to school with the experiential knowledge of what it means to embody those identities in their own society, and are more readily able and eager to make connections along those lines. Additionally, I believe that consistently introducing alternative historical narratives into social studies lessons, thereby regularly incorporating students’ identities into school learning, raises students’ level of engagement in class. This in turn leads to richer, longer lasting, and rewarding learning experiences.
Finally, teaching alternative historical narratives complements my belief in social studies education as a gateway to active, democratic civic participation. This approach subverts the dominant curriculum that disproportionately emphasizes and praises “great white men,” and exposes students to a diversity of perspectives that more accurately represent the scope of human history. As students graduate into the adult world, this more just and balanced social studies education will prepare them for civic engagement from an informed standpoint and with a grounded moral compass.