The Challenge :: Progressivism Education Teaching Essays

The Challenge â€Å"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theatre.† (Gail Godwin) This statement can be proven time and time again in the classroom. Students can only learn so much sitting in their seats. Making the lesson into an adventure, letting students discover things on their own, hands-on, lets students feel that they have a part in what they get to learn and can grasp concepts better. Having this perception is almost essential in today’s classroom. Students are made to be in school for almost eight hours a day. To make the classroom fun lets students get the extra boost of energy they need. Running a classroom like this way a great example of how a Progressivist would do so. I want my classroom to be full of progressivism. Children should be given the chance to explore, develop opinions, and have extraordinarily unique personalities without one test determining the student’s knowledge. My philosophy is that education should be offered to students in the way that they learn best, whether it be through bookwork, group work, or presentations that not only will help them learn now, but also with everything they do. Education is a right and a gift that should be handled with care. Being a teacher is one of my main goals because if you cannot have fun within the learning process, and create an appetite for further knowledge, then students will never retain what they learn, nor want to. I want to have brightly painted walls that will create open-mindedness with educational murals, relating to the content area of the grade level I teach, to decorate the room. I want to have students arranged in groups to help each other learn. Students will be able to take part in the rule making process and the technique of learning in my classroom. If a student cannot learn under certain conditions, they should not be made to do so. The role of the teacher isn’t to stand in front of the room and dictate material. I feel that I should influence the growth of my students by controlling the environment in which the growth takes place, rather than pounding bits of information into their heads (Sadker and Sadker pp96-97).