An education system with a feeble spine around teacher educational philosophy

With the multiple aspects of a balanced education system that may entail academic knowledge, and a repertoire of transferrable life skills including critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, collaboration, self-management, and self-control, where are we? These learning outcomes and many others create functional citizens who can, not only ably solve teething troubles in our community but also compete at a global platform. Those that go to class as I do would agree with me that our scope of instruction as teachers must touch these four facets of education: cognitive, affective, psychomotor, and socio-emotional. My school treads an extra stage to also give a grounding in Christian spiritual values. King Solomon in the book of Proverbs 9:9 says, Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning. Much cherished by many parents but important to note is that, it is done in view of the vision of the institution. All these are done to create well-rounded learners. However, the bone of contention remains one: How do you create well-rounded learners with instruction that is deficient in the critical ingredient of an educational philosophy? It is important to note that, the philosophy of education and educational philosophy are dissimilar. There was an intentional search to ask colleagues of mine from both national and international schools, sadly it was evident to me that, there is a flimsy mastery of the educational philosophy. By the way, what is it? How do you teach without a good masterly of educational philosophy? An online meaning of educational philosophy: Educational philosophy seeks to identify and elucidate broader, often implicit, principles and themes that are not necessarily exemplified in a school’s textbooks or syllabus, but are consistent with the beliefs and values that define and focus the vision and mission (The Scots College, 2017, July 10). This begs the question of appreciating the relevancy of philosophy in education with the consequences of apparent scars created when there is the superficial application of philosophy, and our students are painfully served on motionless content. The resultant effect has been longer hours in class, objectiveless holiday work, and daily parental requests for homework, copying notes, instead of students being engaged in auto-didacticism, that is: Teaching themselves, discovering new information, and enjoying learning. Students are systemically at a learning loss across various portions of the developing world. According to Aristotle, if we neglect the students’ reasoning skills, we deprive them of the ability to use their higher faculties to control their passions and appetites (Hnalovella Blogspot, 2012, March 12). Curriculum documents remain the superlative documents in such places and implementation remains at dismal standards. This would be compared to a good bunch of bananas harvested and offered to an average cook to prepare it. Here you reap pathetic results from the cook with no corresponding results from the farmer that has produced a high-quality harvest. Curriculums are great but the corresponding results from the implementation crew are near to the ground as a result of the absence of teacher educational philosophy, but also at the level of the education institution. Most schools, I bet, cannot provide parents with their educational philosophies except for the programmes schools offer. Socrates asserts that “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel”. Apparently, our education system has been plagued by acts of pumping content into the heads of our children without helping them to develop their brains into tools - but rather replenishable containers. I am still battling with a few questions: If educational philosophy has its vivid benefits, do all those that have a stake in the teaching-learning process have a contextual understanding of its benefits? Can our parents that have the primary responsibility to educate have full familiarity with the curriculum where they take their children for schooling? How do we move away from the deadening school routines that are slaying the joy of learning? It remains imperative for us as classroom architects to go back to the roots of philosophy, and also create support systems that would help our parents appreciate the benefits of our own educational philosophy. Otherwise, our children seem to be candidates for an educational system that will leave them with dismal skills and merely paper certificates. Theoretically, when you navigate the branches of philosophy of education and connect them with what educators and parents do with children, a lot remains amiss. Arithmetic scores and certificates have become the measurement of our educational standards! Whether these are bad enough to be uprooted out of the system is not the concern. Rather, educators need to cultivate their own philosophy deduced from the school philosophy of why they teach children. The solution to our classroom mess must be reoriented; providing students with data or experiences that permit them to imagine, predict, manipulate objects, ask questions, research, investigate and invent. This is the teaching philosophy of constructivism. We commend some international curricula building their instructional strategies around inquiry circles such as these. As teachers remain the key classroom success factor, our own philosophies as teachers remain irreplaceable. Geoffrey Mutabazi is the School Superintendent, Kigali Christian School- YFC/Rwanda

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An education system with a feeble spine around teacher educational philosophy