II. My Philosophy of Teaching

Dear classmates,

Technology had its beginnings in a cave with the first drawing ever made by a caveman. It was his desire to create a mean of visual, tangible form of communication that lead to writing and reading and in its turn to the development of technology. I believe it is time to make technology a tool to conquer information in an easier, faster and more productive way. Well, this is what I hope I was able to convey with my essay.
Yours truly,

Mark.

Technology in the Classroom 36560/01
Personal Perspective on Teaching
Professor: Parsons
Marlon Marmolejo


Learning used to depend upon being able to read and write while mastering new information to acquire and manipulate knowledge. However, these tasks have become more challenging due to the increasing amounts of information that is available nowadays. One could say that “with more available information come great challenges and responsibilities.” Fortunately, technology seems to offer a viable solution to this problem. It is also important to remember that technology must be the mean and not the end per se, to help students achieve their goals. Technology must be meant to improve and boost the learning experience for both the teacher and the learner. However, it all starts with being able to dominate information through reading and writing, either by hand or with a keyboard from a screen.

The perfect recipe for successful education must take into account the needs and characteristics of the individual; it must not discriminate or be suited to specific social classes; and it must be generous to share new technology. Consequently, I do favor a type of instruction called “the literature-based reading instruction” for the following reasons. First, I read recently Literacy with an Attitude by Patrick J. Finn, a book in which he discusses differences in the type of instruction that is being offered to working class and the upper class (the elite) in America. Through various situations and examples, he illustrates how the upper class is being instructed toward empowerment through a liberating or powerful literacy, while the working class is being instructed with a domesticating literacy. Mr. Finn also classifies teachers into two groups: those who domesticate (the gatekeepers), and those who liberate (the liberators). The danger of the skills-based instruction (the counterpart) is that it trains the students to follow rules and be obedient learners who never learn to be independent; as a result, seeing the teacher as the owner of the knowledge.

The skills-based instruction is teaching a domesticated version of literacy, whereas the literature-based reading instruction is not only teaching the learners to read and write, but also to see the connection of the knowledge from different content areas. These students learn to see the power of the print in meaningful contexts. Needles to say, I want to become a instructor who teaches his students through an empowering literacy regardless of social strata, gender, religion, ethnicity, origin or parents’ political affiliation.

The second reason why I favor literature-based instruction is that it allows the teacher to create a rich cognitive environment through thematic planning and instruction while the student continues exploring the world and acquiring knowledge from many areas. It is here where access to the World Wide Web can bring the world of knowledge to the students without leaving the classroom or affecting their financial stability.

The third reason why I considered the whole language approach as the one that has the most to offer is based on the point of view of language researchers who claim that “A child's writing development parallels their development as a reader. Print awareness develops in young children as a result of being read to by adults and having other literacy experiences.” (www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading101/writing). There is no doubt that reading and writing is a social activity. By social, I mean it starts at home and in highly influence by the literacy environment of the parents’ practices. We came in contact with our first words in print at home. We were probably read our favorite books before going to bed. Moreover, invented spelling came as a way to recreate the stories we were read and to show our desire to be able to write our thoughts and experiences.

Sylvia Ashton-Warner must have been quite aware of this fact when she developed her theory of the key words, which were the basis of her organic reading and organic writing approach toward learning. She also knew that her theory would work well with the whole language approach to reading and writing because it would provide her students with a limitless body of knowledge in a infinite learning environment. Finally, the literature-based reading approach builds on the students’ confidence by acknowledging the learner’s own experiences and background from which knowledge would be generated. Another factor that Mrs. Ashton-Warner took into account, she realized that the students, contrary to common belief, were not blank slates and that they came into the classroom with all the elements they would ever need to learn.

I truly hope to be able to bring all this knowledge into my classroom and transform it into concrete practices that would not only foment learning, but also increase the kind of interest that calls for the use of higher thinking skills necessary for an empowering education. I think that reading must provide the ability to decode the way other people see the world (their vision of knowledge) and writing must provide the ability to code the way we perceive the world (my own vision of knowledge and how I create it). Technological advances are changing the world at a faster pace never imagined, and it is our responsibility as educators to prepare the new generations to evolve along with it and to keep up with it. Will technology really change the world for the better? I can’t help but wonder.

M&M