Review the philosophies of education that your classmates chose and write a minimum 150-word response to at least two of them.  Comment on whether you agree or disagree with their philosophies of education and their rational for them.  Suggest additional ways in which the theories they have chosen could be applied to educational environments.

I have based my teaching philosophy around the idea that all children learn at a different rate and in different ways. I have always been a proponent of the idea that children “learn on their feet, not in their seat.”  My beliefs are centered around my past experiences with two students in my class.  The stories of these two students depict the theory of multiple intelligences by Howard Gardner and the theory of operant conditioning developed by B. F. Skinner.

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences states that people learn and are gifted in different ways. Gardner theorized that there were seven types of intelligence including linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal (Hall, Quinn, & Gollnick, 2014, 7.3). Some of these intelligences are praised in our schools, such as linguistic and logical-mathematical, while the others, are not. A prime example of this theory would be a child in my classroom who has been diagnosed with a developmental delay. Although non-verbal, this child has begun spelling out words from his environment with foam letters. These are not words that he is looking at to copy, but words that he has seen either in the classroom in the past or at home. He has spelled words such as Donald Duck, Blue, Black, and Mickey Mouse. Just today, he began counting verbally from one to four. He is also able to correctly sequence numbers from one to thirteen. In standard terms, he is developmentally delayed, but he is showing progress in the areas of math and language while using his gross motor and fine motor skills, rather than traditional teaching methods.

Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning is a theory that I have always believed in without knowing it, even as a child. Skinner states in this theory that we should look at the outcome of behavior and thus learn from it (Hall, Quinn, & Gollnick, 2014, 7.4). This is the same idea, I feel, as my father taught me through discipline. There are consequences for all of our actions. Good behaviors and actions yield rewards and negative behaviors yield consequences. Although sometimes frowned upon in education, it is my belief that there must be some natural negative consequences for a child to learn from their mistakes. Not necessarily what some would call punishment, but consequences nevertheless.

Reference

Hall, G. E., Quinn, L. F., & Gollnick, D. M. (2014). Introduction to Teaching: Making a Difference in Student Learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.