Josh

Philosophy of Education

My philosophy on education is currently a work in progress, and it always will be. My understanding of education is constantly growing and changing and my philosophy reflects that. A lot of what I want to do envolves sex ed and/ or adult education and a lot of what I'm learning applies to both, but some of it doesn't quite fit or needs to be tweaked. I do have some philosophy on teaching sex education, and part of it is promoting correct knowledge, communication, being professional and comfort. Misinformation about sex can be worse than no information about sex, and misinformation can spread like wildfire. That's why it's important to encourage people who do have the right information to talk about it. They need to be able to let their peers or family know about ways and encourage them to be safe. And how do you do that? By getting people comfortable enough to talk, ask, and answer questions about sex with one another. They don't need to be comfortable to the point of total openness, but they should be able to talk about sex at least in a general sense with others. In sex education many students have requested learning from doctors, nurses, HIV positive individuals, and a number of other sources other than teachers or parents. One of the reasons for this is that many students feel that teachers (especially untrained teachers) were not qualified. As a teacher it is important that your students believe that you are some one who is qualified to teach them. The other part of my philosophy is that everyone should learn about sex and sexual health, but when it comes to kids parents should play the largest role in teaching their kids about sex. I know of one study that found that 95% of parents believe it is their responsibility to teach their kids about sex, but less than 50% actually do. And of that 50% many of the parents only talked to their kids after they found out they were sexually active. Also a lot of parents themselves are fairly uneducated about sex. A parent can be there for their kid when their kid needs it, a teacher has a very limited time to teach their student. A parent who can comfortably talk with their kids about sex and give them good advice, will be much more helpful to a kid than their teacher.

Framework media type="custom" key="21706672" .//Prep work//: Don't just wing it, know what material you plan on covering and how you are going to teach it before you start the lesson. .//Backup plans//: Always have a backup plan in case something goes wrong and a little extra prepared to add to the end of a lesson just in case it ends early.
 * Planning and Preparation/over-preparation**: Be prepared for a class, know what you're planning on doing for class ahead of time and be prepare for unexpected changes.

.Accurate information: be sure what you are presenting is accurate .Accurate understanding: Make sure students have an accurate understanding of what you are teaching them. . //Cognitive load//: People can only process so much information at a time. Make sure when teaching not to overwhelm students with too much information. It is much better to teach less and have students learn more than the other way around. .//Brink up information from past lessons:// Try to incorporate information from old lessons into the new ones .//Reenforce new information with old information//: Whenever possible try to link new information students are learning with information they learned in past lessons.
 * Accuracy**: Make sure what you are teaching is accurate. Teaching a student misinformation is at best a waste of time and at worst harmful to them.
 * Simplicity**: Don't overcomplicate things. Try to make your lesson as simple as possible while still being effective.
 * Reenforcement/ repetition** : My old social studies teacher use to tell us "Repetition is the key to memory, repetition is they key to memory". It may not be "the key" to memory, but repetition is an important and can be a very useful tool when it comes to memory. As a teacher you want to make sure the students don't just forget everything they just learned after they take the first test. Bring up old information from time to time.

.//Get involved in your field//: Both learn new things that are going on and help innovate them. .//Grow as a teacher//: Keep yourself educated on new inovations in the field of learning. .//Needs as a learner//: Many students learn things in different ways, try to find a way that will help them learn best .//Needs as a person//: Most students are at different points in their lives and will need help with different things because of it. .//Choice:// Give students a choice whenever possible, especially when it comes to projects. Each students has different needs, skills, and abilities, some of which you may not be aware of. Instead of trying to figure out what would be best for a student, let them decide what fits them best.
 * Professional growth**: As a teacher continue to grow as a professional. Continue to educate yourself and get find ways to get involved in your field of expertise.
 * Differentiated instruction**: All students have different needs as learners, try to do the best you can at working with them in a way that suits their needs.

I went with the Avengers because I wanted to do something with comic books. I'm a fan fo comics and think it's a great medium with a lot of potential for education. Originally I wanted to stay away from the super hero stuff and try to use a comic that was a good example of comics being used as an edcational tool, but I had trouble finding a good image to work with so I went with the Avengers. I feel that it ended up working out better this way though. The Avengers are a group of characters that work alone but work best as a team. It shows how the parts of my framework can be looked at and used individually, but using them together will work best.