EDU100: Final Blog

EDU100: Final Blog


I have learned a great deal throughout our Education: Premise of School class this semester.  Since this is an online class, I think that the use of blogs were very helpful and aided our learning about education.  I enjoyed writing them because although there was a topic of direction, we had the freedom to research and reflect upon a topic of our interest, and got to share this information with our classmates.  I'm glad I learned how to make a blog, and more about the Blogger website, because it is a great way to share your ideas, and blogs have become increasingly common in todays society.  Through writing these blogs I learned about various types of education systems, various educational philosophers, and different ways for teachers to make their classrooms culturally responsive.  I also learned about many current issues and debates going on in terms of education that I formerly had no knowledge of.

This is the first education class that I have taken, and after taking it I feel as though I have a good basis of the premise of schools.  I chose this course because although I am not going to be a teacher, I am going to be a councilor at schools, so I figured that having some basis in education could be helpful.  I learned a lot of things that I was unaware of such as the responsibilities that teachers have to try and help their students succeed in culturally diverse classrooms.  I learned about different teachers techniques as well as different learning styles of teaching.  It was also interesting to find out how much of a role the government plays in establishing set curriculum, and how making the teacher teach to the test can stifle the creativity of both the teacher and the student.  I was very interested in the topics of students with disabilities and learning disorders because these are the types of children I want to help when I go into my line of work in the future.  Another thing that I thought was interesting was the comparison we saw between public education systems in the United States, as compared with other countries teaching methods.  I think this class was very informative and I learned a lot about the education system as a whole!

Rudolf Steiner: Waldorf Educational Philosophy

Rudolf Steiner

The person that I chose to research is Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the Waldorf educational philosophy.  He was an Austrian philosopher who lived from 1861 until 1925.  He was the founder of Anthroposophy, which is the belief that a person can attain experience of the spiritual world.  Steiner was also known to be a skilled architect, scientist, lecturer, writer, designer, and painter.   


The Waldorf education is based on the thought that learning should integrate practical, artistic, and conceptual elements to be successful.  Strong emphasis is placed on the role of imagination, and children are encouraged to use a combination of a creative and analytical approach to learning.  This type of learning allows for each individual student to pick their own unique path of moral learning.  Teaching in the Waldorf education systems allows for a great deal of freedom for teachers in the curriculum that is more based on children's academic, emotional, and physical development as opposed to high standardized test scores.  The Waldorf education system also emphasizes the importance of kindergarten and how it should be an imaginative experience for students with use of outdoor time, nature lessons, songs, story time, and fun games.  As students get older they will continue with visual arts, drama, and music, and when they reach high school, they will have specialized teachers for each subject.  At all times the school aims for socially responsible, cultural, compassionate, and respectful individuals. These types of schools are more commonly found in areas of Europe and the amounts have been increasing rapidly.  


I chose to write about Rudolf Steiner because from reading about him it seems like he was very smart and talented, so I want to know more about his educational views.  Also I had previously heard about the Waldorf educational philosophy.  What I heard seemed interesting, so I wanted to research it for this blog to learn more about this particular system.  It's interesting how we put children into schools, all controlled by a single standardized curriculum.  These types of systems do take certain aspects of uniqueness from children, because they are expected to all perform the same.  It also give strict curriculum for teachers to go by, so they cannot express their true creativity in their teaching methods either.  This is why I think the Steiner's Waldorf system is an interesting perspective that could be more successful today.  

Educational Metaphor: Teachers are Like Gardeners Planting Knowledge

I believe that teachers are like gardeners, and the seeds represent the knowledge they give.  At a young age children are like the seed, young and beginning to grow.  They need the attention and care from their teachers, as a seed needs to be watered and nurtured by the gardener.  Children begin to learn and grow from this new knowledge they learn in schools, just as the plants begin to grow.  This continues until the children or the plant are old enough and strong enough to be on their own.  Eventually the children will grow up and spread their own knowledge to others, just as the grown plant will spread its seeds.  This can apply to diversity because just like teachers need to become more culturally responsive to students in their classroom, gardeners also have to be aware in the differences of his seeds, so he can nurture them to grow correctly.

So far I have learned a lot in this course that has really interested me.  I want to work in school systems, so I feel like much of what I learned will help me in the future.  I have learned about what to expect as a new teacher, and how to adjust to culturally diverse classrooms so both the teachers and the students have good experiences.  Another thing I learned from this course was different teaching methods which I observed in two different classrooms.  I think it is interesting the way kids react to the different teaching methods used by the teachers.  I also have learned about the many laws surrounding the education system which I was previously unaware of, so I think this course has been great!

Should Teachers Become More Culturally Sensitive?

Should Teachers Become More Culturally Sensitive?

Teachers advocating for social justice aim to have classrooms and schools that are anti-racist, multicultural, and grounded in the experiences of their students. The goal is for all children to obtain an academically rigorous education that is caring and critical, and will help students pose their own critical questions about society in which they "talk back" to the world.  Educators teaching for social justice aim not for high standardized test scores, but instead for the success of students in the real world.  One aspect of this teaching method of social justice is for teachers to become more culturally sensitive.  This is because many White teachers are going to enter the work force, and it is highly likely that they will be educating children of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds that are different from their own.  This requires teachers to realize that they do not know everything, and they need to open themselves up to learn information about the students, their backgrounds, and the area where the students live.  Teachers need to take into account not only culture and race, but social class of the students as well.  Talking to the students' parents is a great method for teachers to connect with the family and learn about the student.  Teachers can also get out and be involved in the students community, as well as talk to colleagues that have worked in the school system and dealt with various aspect of diversity successfully.  

Personally since we live in a country with so much diversity, I feel that social justice should be involved and incorporated into all classrooms.  Through my research I found many teachers, organizations, and entire schools that practice teaching social justice, and hopefully this continues to catch on.  I can relate to this because many of the children that I work with daily come from various racial background and social classes.  Through my conversations with parents, we have worked together to stop certain problems the child was having, and many situations were attributed to different factors regarding diversity.  One child would always show up without a lunch so of course we would buy him food, but clearly there was a bigger problem at hand because this happened on multiple occasions.  We set up a meeting with the boys mother, who we found out was a single parent, suffering with a life threatening illness, and lacking sufficient money for caring for herself or her child.  It was definitely eye opening to see what this child had been going through, and the knowledge of that let us help both the mother and the child.  The YMCA has since provided them with lower cost housing and free child care.  Also, the grandmother has since moved in with them, and the household environment is a lot more stable.  Without taking the initiative to find out more about the students background, these poor living conditions would have continued for the child. Through talking to parents and being involved in the children's community I feel we have been more culturally sensitive to these students and these changes are something that I would like to see in all education systems on a large scale.