The following is a philosophy of education I wrote as part of my two-week fellowship at the Klingenstein Center at Teacher’s College Columbia University. The fellowship provided me an opportunity to be a student again, reading a broad range of educational articles and books, writing several different papers, and preparing presentations. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to meet and spend time with a dynamic cohort of 18 other school heads from around the world.
At its heart, I believe that education is about inspiring students to reach their highest individual potential in school and in life. At the core of that concept is a belief that an individual’s potential can only be achieved by reaching beyond oneself to make a difference in the world. As John Dewey wrote:
“The aim of education is development of individuals to the utmost of their potentialities. But this statement as such leaves unanswered the question of the measure of the development to be desired and worked for. A society of free individuals in which all, in doing each his own work, contribute to the liberation and enrichment of the lives of others is the only environment for the normal growth to full stature.”
Dewey’s words echo Hillbrook’s mission and vision. It is reaffirming to me to know that our school, founded in 1935, has independently identified the same core values as Dewey spoke of back in 1934. Our progressive roots remain strong.
Knowing the aim in mind, it is critical to understand the process that is needed to reach that end, the steps that a school needs to take each day to reach its vision. I believe there are several key components to how a school should educate children. First and foremost, a school must ensure that each child is known and valued as an individual. Knowing a child goes far beyond each person on campus simply knowing each child’s name or the Head of School greeting each child as they arrive on campus. Educators at a school must strive to understand the child as a learner and as a person, recognizing that we need to meet each child where they are and help guide them along their unique educational pathway.
Schools should have an environment that is both joyful and challenging, flexible and disciplined. I think there has developed a false dichotomy in education, a tendency to believe that children can only be learning if they are stressed and miserable. Joy, to some people, suggests frivolity, lack of seriousness and intentionality. As an adult, I find great joy in the work I do, a joy that is derived from a job that is challenging, unpredictable and rewarding. Children’s experience at school should be no different. Joy does not imply that every moment is happy or carefree. Joy suggests a sense of purpose and engagement that comes from doing something that is meaningful and that stretches a child to grow and develop, without pushing them so hard that they break. This is the tension at the heart of education – the ongoing need to engage children in “just right” challenges.
So what should a school teach? A school should provide an educational experience that is broad and deep. Children should be taught core skills across a range of disciplines, including literacy, mathematics, written and oral communication, critical thinking, and proficiency in at least one world language. Children should also be exposed to a robust arts program, an intentional social emotional program, and a physical education program that introduces concepts of lifelong health and well-being. School’s must aspire to nurture curiosity, develop creative thinking, celebrate risk-taking. Even more, school’s must engage students in meaningful conversation about important and complex issues and nurture the development of cultural competency and ethical decision-making. Graduates of our schools must, returning to Dewey, be pushed to reach their highest individual potential with an understanding of the obligation they have to be contributing citizens of the world.
Given the school’s need to help each child reach their highest individual potential, the program must be, as much as possible, individualized to ensure that children are being met where they are and then brought along at their own pace. Curriculum cannot be a one-size fits all approach. No longer can a teacher stand in front of a room and dispense a core set of knowledge to be spit back on a test.
Teachers must look for opportunities to create open-ended problem-based activities. In some cases, a class of students might collaborate in small groups on a similar problem – creating a prosthetic hand that will lift an object placed a certain distance away, for example. In this situation, students are challenged to use an iterative design process to engineer original products and test them out, in the hopes of creating a device that works. The children benefit from seeing other groups tackling a similar issue and devising novel solutions, and also from the intellectual exchange that occurs between people engaged in a meaningful and challenging problem. In another case, a teacher might decide to give students even more voice and choice in a problem-based activity. Each child might be asked to design a product that solves a problem of the student’s choosing, for example, offering complete freedom to the child to explore something that is meaningful to them. Twenty unique projects will emerge both in design and topic.
A tension should also exist, between providing students with opportunities to be problem-solvers and creative thinkers, and with teaching the core skills needed to genuinely engage in those tasks. The arts offer helpful examples of where the tension between rote skills-based learning and creative problem solving emerges naturally. Students, for example, need to be taught the discipline of working with different artistic media (clay, for example), a process that can be repetitive and requires extensive, intentional practice. At the same time, students also need to be be allowed to have opportunities for play, experimentation and creativity. A skillful arts department looks to find a balance between these two different – and equally important – processes.
So how do we measure success either as an individual educator or a school? A philosophy of education must be aspirational, a living and vibrant ideal that we are always striving to attain. My philosophy of education – my personal vision and mission, so to speak – serves as a guide for decision-making, ensuring that I remain intentional and flexible, open to innovation and opportunity, while remaining grounded in a clear sense of what is the ultimate aim of my daily work as an educator. In the end, it is the perpetual process of moving toward and reflecting upon the ideal that has the most value, for there ultimately is no final destination. The measurement is made each day as I see children on campus learning, struggling, laughing, taking risks, and striving to be their best. These little moments – from the Junior Kindergartener who stands in front of the entire school community at the end of Flag telling a joke to the 8th grader who shares with me a thought-provoking critical essay on social justice – inspire me and reaffirm for me the vitally important role we play as a school in helping to make a difference in the world.