Educational Philosophy - Existentialism

This is 'The Thinker'

(Le Penseur in French)

by Auguste Rodin. We can see it as a person trying to discover him or herself. We want our students to think deeply about themselves and to discover what they did not know about themselves, what is important for their life, and what they want to learn to find their own meaning of life.

Discover yourself with everyone

In this painting, 'Who Am I' by Sladjana Endt, a person basically needs to fill oneself up, by asking who he or she is. We want our students to be an artist of their own life, who can draw themselves by looking back on what they have done, who they are, and what is important to them.

It seems obvious that, both in South Korea and Japan, teachers do not help students discover their own identities. Furthermore, those teachers do not even try to find out more about themselves or their potential abilities, but simply give lectures to students. There will not be any educational improvement for both students and teachers in these cases. As future teachers, we concluded that we would do our best to work with our students to discover ourselves, as well as to help students find their own identities. Like Ayers (2010) in To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher, we would have two-way communication with our students. We would sometimes sit down and listen to our students, and we also would talk to our students about what we would discover (Ayers, 2010).

In this painting, 'Questions For Art' by Jonathan Schnapp, he basically tries to say that people need to question everything, if they want to know about art. We want our students to question everything, because without questioning, it is impossible for them to understand the meaning of life.

Discover yourself

Teachers should not only help their students make sense of their lives, but also struggle with finding the meaning of their lives as their students do. In order to go beyond definitive answers to the questions about life, both students and teachers have to keep learning. There is no end to learning because the situations students and teachers stand on affect their ways of thinking, and the situations change every day. As artists have to discover themselves in drawing self-portraits on canvas, students need to discover themselves, when they want to find their meaning of life.

Students and a teacher are holding one another`s hands, trying to discover who they are, before the teacher actually starts the ballet class. At first, the teacher listens to her students, and the students tell her what they have discovered before the class. Then, the teacher will give each of them feedback and tell them what she has discovered.

Everyone says 'Who am I?'

keep questioning everything

In order to make our education better, teachers and educators have argued about our education system over and over again. To keep thinking is necessary to improve education. There is no definite answer. In the 1980s, the criticism of education was heated and many reform reports made in the 1980s influenced future education significantly, which resulted in creating small group activities and eliminating tracks (Parkay, 2013). Nowadays, people have a biased view to prepare all students for college. Education needs to be thought about based on the demands of the times.

Non-white students were not free to go to schools with white students. They tried hard to gain the right to be equal and the right to attend the same school and class. After many debates and fights, it seemed that they actually achieved their goal, which was equity for everyone. However, Parkay (2013) argues in his book, Becoming a Teacher, that one of the biggest three tendencies in education of U.S. is Americanization, which tells us that the equity in U.S. education is not fully accomplished yet. After thinking about the questions students ask themselves to find their true self, we realized that non-white students after school desegregation have been asking the same question, which is 'who am I?', so as not to lose their identities.

Native American were not allowed to speak their own languages at their boarding schools. One of the reasons was because there was a prejudice about native Americans among white people. The same can be said about today's education. Discrimination still remains. Without solving this problem, we can't give every children equal opportunities in education.

Non-white students are in the same classroom with white students. They feel like they have to learn how to behave, how to use English, and how to live like a white person, because it is normal for the society (Parkay, 2013). Thus, it is important for students who are not white to identify themselves, or their existence, by asking who they really are.

Artists, who draw self-portraits, use canvas to reflect what they discover about themselves. Students, who want to find or create their own meaning of life, use diaries or meditation to think deeply about themselves to discover themselves.

Question everything

Who am I?

Really important questions in life are beyond definitive answers. However, some people purport to have the answers, and they sometimes lead people around them to have the answers. As human beings, people face the central task of finding our own answers to the questions. It is important for students and teachers to keep pursuing the meaning of life that actually does not have any meaning by reacting critically and skeptically to what people say. Especially these days, people are exposed to various types of media, such as television, internet, and radio. It is very crucial for students and teachers who want to take the advantage of information from those media, in order to find the answers of their questions, to be careful not to take the information wrongly as it is presented.

To find the meaning of one`s existence, students need to make questions about who they are, what is really important to them, and what situations they are facing each day. In addition to asking their own questions, students also have to try to find answers to the questions they have. Students may sometimes have a hard time answering the questions. In this case, teachers help students to get to the answers, not by directing, or leading them, but by asking them more specific and easier questions or by giving them a hint. For example, teachers can have their students write diaries and read those out in the classroom. In this way, students can notice what they think is important in their lives. Self-introduction is the most prevailed method of existentialism, in a sense that students need to answer questions about who they are, what they like, and what is important to them. In addition to the questions made by teachers, students also ask themselves several other questions they make, in order to discover their meaning of existence. Teachers usually do not get involved while students are talking about themselves.

In the existentialism classroom, it is important for teachers to let students know that teachers' answers can't be their answers. Teachers' roles are to teach students to think critically and become aware of various choices that open to them (Parkay, 2013). Teachers respect students' voices and also teach them to be respectful toward others' opinions. It leads to extracting students' interests and a good classroom atmosphere.

In this picture, a student is introducing himself to his classmates. The other students are focusing on what he is saying, how he thinks about himself, and how he delivers it to his classmates. A small picture in this picture is Cody`s self-introduction paper. He wrote down what he likes and drew pictures of activities he likes to do. Every student has their own ruler and they compare their own idea with others by using it.

Existentialism

Tom, Gotoda

Karam, Moon

Sources Cited

Art criticism book is a metaphor for discussions about their life. Artists carry art criticism books not to evaluate others, but to understand what is important for their own work. When students are discussing, they constantly raise questions. By asking questions and answering, students can learn about themselves more deeply.

Paint is a metaphor for self-introduction. Artists try different colors of paints to find colors what they are going to use. Students, on the other hand, try different answers to a question, 'who am I?', to find out who they really are, what is important to them, what their meaning of life is.

Ayers, W. & Alexander-Tanner, R. (2010). To teach: the journey, in comics. New york: Teachers College Press.

Parkay, F. W. (2013). Becoming a teacher. 9th ed. Pearson: Washington State University.

Williams, N. & Keith, R. (2000). Democracy and Montessori education. Pear Review 12(2), 217-222.

Greene, P. K. (Summer 2005). Dear Maria Montessori. Kappa Delta Pi Record.

Noddings, N. (2011). Schooling for democracy. Democracy & education, 19(2). 1-6.

Noddings, N. (2008). All our students. Association for supervision and curriculum development, educational leadership. 3-13.

Preview

Students are artists, and a teacher is artist`s kit that contains all of the tools. An artist`s kit makes an opportunity, in which students can create their meaning of life. The tools in the kit are content materials, teaching methods, and curricula.

Experience the world

outside the classroom

John Dewey advocated the child-centered policy and made curriculum depending on the students’ interests in his laboratory school (Parkay, 2013). Traditional school curriculum put too much emphasis on the academic subjects that students were not interested in. Also, there is a limit on what students can learn in their classroom. School and society are connected. It is important for teachers to help students connect what they learn in the classroom to their everyday life (Noddings, 2008). And then they try to find their meaning of life.

Freedom of choice for everyone

Experience the world

Existentialists put emphasis on the subjectivity of human experiences. As they have experiences, they get chances to think about where they are in their lives and who they are, which helps students make sense of their world. It is up to students to decide who they are. Then teachers are important for their students to get good experiences because every experience is not effective for them. Teachers have to know what kind of experience is helpful for their students and how it is helpful. It is like artists go out of their studio and enrich their sense of art by exposing themselves to the society (by looking at other works at museums).

Williams and Keith (2000) say in their article, "Democracy and Montessori Education," that in the traditional educational system, students were educated by curricula designed by administrators and did not have many chances to participate in classes or classroom activities. Maria Montessori thought that this system was against the right of students to decide what they would learn. She established schools, based on her idea that students should be the leaders of their own learning (Williams & Keith, 2000). Greene (2005) states in "Dear Maria Montessori" that these schools gave students the freedom in choosing learning materials that were appealing, important, and significant to them. Montessori was convinced that learning would be more enjoyable to everyone with "freedom of choice" than to the students with designated "work" (Greene, 2005, p. 165). In this way, students become able to create their own learning and to understand what they like, what is important to them, and eventually who they are.

In her school, Maria Montessori had her students choose the learning materials they were going to use for their learning. Students were motivated to learn and interested in discovering more about what they learned. This idea of Montessori that students need to be allowed to appeal their preference helped students discipline themselves and grow confident in their own education (Parkay, 2013). Her artists could use clay and decide what they were going to create, which led them to understand themselves better.

Freedom of choice

Students are engaged in four different activities in which they can be involved. They are not forced to participate in a certain activity by teachers, but they make their own curricula and find out what they would like to do the most. In other words, our artists are given the freedom of choice for reflecting their own meaning of life. Some students may want to excavate the outside world by actually experiencing what is out in the nature. Others may have a need of learning more about themselves by remaining in the classroom and talking to classmates. Educators need to understand that students have different needs because students do not have the same backgrounds.

Museum ticket is a metaphor for field trips. Artists get to go to a museum and learn by looking at others` work that they cannot do in the studio. Like these artists, students get a chance to go on a field trip and learn what they cannot learn in the classroom, which is experiencing the world.

Teachers should give their students freedom of choice, in order to help the students find answers to their own questions. This freedom will also lead students to make creative choices, just like artists choosing what tools they are going to use, what they are going to create, and how they are going to create. One of the ideal curricula for existentialists is to provide students with extensive individual freedom. By giving them freedom of choice, students are able to finish the task of defining existence on their own, just like artists with clay finishing the meaningful work by deciding what to create. However, this freedom does not mean that students can do whatever they want. In other words, freedom of choice is not same as self-indulgence. Students should respect others` freedom and try not to misuse their own freedom. If they break these rules, it will be hard for them to regain the freedom.

In John Dewey's laboratory school, the curriculum was a natural outgrowth of the children's interests. If students expressed an interest in milk, students would go to a local dairy and develop their study of milk. ( Parkey, 2013). Students were motivated to study and developed their knowledge in their own ways.

A field trip is the best example of existentialism. Students go outside of their classrooms and learn what they cannot learn in their classrooms. It is good to maximize the knowledge that students get and to build their interests if the place where students go for a field trip is where students are interested in and if it is related to what they have learned in their classroom. They encounter new situations and try to clarify them. They accumulate this experience and can broaden their perspectives, which help students find the meaning of their existence.

Clay is a metaphor for hands-on materials and activities with the freedom of choice. As artists can freely choose a color of clay and create artworks with clay, students can choose a material or an activity and create their own learning. Moreover, students can learn differently, by using different materials or by engaging in different activities. This learning will lead students to find their meaning of life, because they get to know what they like, what they want to learn, what is important to them.

This picture is from the article, 'Youth, the world is yours', by student reporter. It implies that a person experiences the world, by painting the world on the person`s face. We want our students to experience the world like this person, so as to help them understand the world and their own world.

1. Who am I?

2. Experience the world

3. Freedom of choice

4. Question everything

5. Discover yourself

This is the symbol of The PEN International Writers Circle. It shows that readers have freedom of choice of reading in a language they want. Our goal, as English teachers, is not to teach students how to memorize vocabulary words, but to help them understand the language and culture, by having them choose and explore what they want to learn about English.