Personal Philosophy Of Early Childhood Education

For the past century, educators have embraced four unique ideologies about curriculum, each based on the vision and needs of society at the particular time. Each approach advocates for an exclusive purpose of schools and provides research, along with diverse methods, for achieving those respective purposes. Michael Stephen Schiro (2012) best explains this phenomenon in his textbook, Curriculum Theory: Conflicting Visions and Enduring Concerns, when he states that “each of the four visions of curriculum embodies distinct beliefs about the type of knowledge that should be taught in schools, the inherent nature of children, what school learning consists of, how teachers should instruct children, and how children should be assessed” (p.2). Therefore,

At that moment, I could not have foreseen how much this choice would challenge my original perspective of schools and education. As I progressed in my course of study, I was presented with the idea that, as a teacher, I could not simply prepare students academically to attend college, because college was not the end goal for all students. Instead, my focus needed to shift from the mere mastery of academic content to utilizing my instruction to ensure that my students acquired the “skills and procedures they [would] need in the workplace and at home to live productive lives and perpetuate the functioning of society” (Schiro, 2012, p.5)—a goal that best aligns with the Social Efficiency ideology. Initially, it was difficult to shift my focus; I was accustomed to the idea that teachers were responsible for imparting content. However, my professors guided my shift in ideology by providing enough support to influence me to gradually realize that if society was to improve, it needed contributing members to help effect the change. When I graduated, I was ready to help produce successful 21st century citizens, who were willing to use the skills acquired to make a

To help my students succeed, I needed to (1) focus on all aspects of the child, (2) incorporate their interests, and (3) provide numerous opportunities for them to take ownership of their learning process and to demonstrate mastery. This shift in my approach towards education has been influenced and supported by my current school and district, where recently, the primary focus of all professional development (beginning teachers seminars and even general workshops) has been on meeting the needs of individual students, so that they can each demonstrate appropriate growth. For students, the underlying message during the End-of-Grade exams was that the score itself was not significant; the only important result was the measure of growth exhibited on the tests. Further, as the county begins implementing Project-Based Learning, in an attempt to fulfill the vision of JoCo 2020, the perspective on curriculum is drastically changing, and as teachers, we are expected to alter our views and restructure our classrooms to provide students with choice in learning and demonstration of mastery. The county now views curriculum as the “contexts, environments, or units of work in which students can make meaning for themselves by interacting with other