My personal philosophy of education is that education and learning is the willful study of someone else’s experience. This point of view for learning makes me a Pragmatist. The pragmatists believe that the knowledge comes from a considering experience in the real world. I believe a child knows about matter only through experience and that a person reflects on that experience with her or his mind. The students have to know how to use that experience and their intelligence in order to resolve problematic situations. I, as a pragmatist, believe that the process in which the experience becomes knowledge is divided into five steps. Step one is when an individual comes to a problem or a situation that temporarily restrains his or her progress. Step two is when the individual takes measures to diagnose the situation and to come to grips with the precise nature of the problem. The third step involves listing the possible solutions. Step four is reasoning the possible solution and evaluating the consequences if accomplished. The fifth step is testing the most reasonable hypothesis. If the hypothesis works then it is true.
As a future educator of the twenty- first century I believe technology can play a great role in the education of young children. In order to provoke student’s critical thinking we can use technology to accomplish any of the five steps. We can create a problematic situation and present it to the students with the help of the computer. The technology can make available endless sources of information to the students so they can evaluate the problem and come up with possible solutions. Different software programs can provide students with opportunities to test their hypothesis. I think technology is a great tool to enrich student’s learning experience and their education.
