Voices

I absolutely loved this article!! I found that reading all of the different educational views not only opened my eyes to the many varieties of educational philosophies but also validated some of my own personal beliefs and strategies that I use in the classroom. As incredible as it may seem, I never knew what the term 'Socratic Method of Questioning" was before reading this article. Although I had heard the term many times, even in reference to my own lesson plans, I never knew what it actually was. After reading about it I realized that this method is one of my favorite go-to teaching tools, and a part of my teaching that I am very, very passionate about. By asking a student leading questions, the student follows their own train of thoughts to discoveries and questions that I want them to have and ask. In this way, I feel that students are very engaged in their learning, because instead of regurgitating information for students I am answering their questions and validating their ideas and thoughts.

Very similar to Socrates is Confucius, who felt that education should be practical AND moral. I feel that students should always be learning lessons not only about content and facts but also about the human condition, and I feel that my job as an educator is to build my students not only as masters of English language and literature, but also as human beings and citizens of the world. I also enjoyed that even though Confucius' instruction 'consisted of conversation and dialogue', he still felt that the true role of the teacher was to be a 'transmitter of knowledge'. I feel that old-school as this idea is, it is something that I feel is very much a part of my own philosophy and need not follow the teacher-at-front-of-rows-of-students stereotype.

I was also very surprised to see Jesus in this article, but once I read the description of his teachings I found that I connected a lot with his teaching style as well. I feel that by using stories, parallels, and forums in conjunction with Socratic questioning and classroom dialogue students are less likely to fall behind, as these methods help to differentiate instruction and make lessons more accessible to students who might otherwise fall behind on larger concepts.

One thing that I truly enjoyed about this article is that it did not simply present the type of teachers that the current educational theorists would call correct or on-par with current research; it gave a taste of many, many different types of teachers from ones that I completely disagreed with on every count to ones that I can only aspire to be like.