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Philosophy of Special Education

By becoming a special education teacher I hope to encourage children to reach their fullest potential in all areas of academics and life through encouragement and positive reinforcement.   I believe every child deserves an education that is individualized to fit their needs; an environment that is enriching and stimulates learning; and a teacher that is loving, compassionate, understanding, and patient.

Individualized Education:

A student’s educational plan should be individualized and customized to fit the student’s personal and educational needs.  I believe students should be taught through differentiated instruction.  Students should be given hands-on activities, adequate time and space to use materials in the classroom, and positive feedback on their achievements.

Enriching and Stimulating Environment:

            A student’s environment should be stimulating and enriching.  Every student deserves to learn in a clean, healthy, friendly, and inviting environment.  Students should feel at home in the classroom as much as possible.  When a student feels comfortable and welcomed in their classroom, they are more likely to learn and grow. 

Understanding and Compassionate Teacher:

            As for me, I believe I, and every special education teacher, should be understanding of all students and their needs, compassionate about what and who I teach, and patient with students, families, and other professionals.   Also, teachers should advocate for their students and encourage students to advocate for themselves.  By doing all these things a student’s self-esteem should rise and when a student has self-esteem, anything is possible.

Comparing to other Philosophies:

            I believe my educational philosophy does not fit perfectly into any philosophy discussed in class. I do believe students need to learn common subjects such as reading, writing, and arithmetic.  However, I also believe there is a way to teach students these subjects while still focusing on what the individual student is interested in.   Although I believe I lean toward the progressivism theory more than the essentialism theory, I still believe teachers should set high standards and goals for each individual child.

My Educational Experience:

            As for my educational experience, I believe I have seen both approaches (progressivism and essentialism) from my past teachers.  Since I was a military child, I attended kindergarten through third grade in Germany and moved to the Illinois in December of third grade. I believe most of my teachers in Germany leaned more toward the progressive’s philosophy.  I remember one teacher in particular who would let the class vote on the next theme in the classroom.  Then all the lessons for the next month would follow that theme. Also, the school seemed to focus a lot of attention on art, physical education, music, gifted and talented programs, and extracurricular activities. Once I moved to Illinois I believe everything was a bit more structured and followed more of the essentialism philosophy.  No longer did I attend art class or my talented and gifted program.  Instead everything focused on math, science, history, and language arts.  Once I arrived in seventh grade we had the opportunity to choose what order we took certain classes in but we did not choose what those classes were until high school.  Finally in high school I was able to once again choose some of the classes I attended.  My high school offered classes from band to agriculture to child care.  Overall I came to enjoy my experiences with having the freedom to pick and choose what I learned about.  Sure we still had to learn the 4 main subjects (math, history, science, and language arts) but having the freedom to choose other classes made attending to school that much more enjoyable.  As a future teacher, I hope to give my students some freedom with what they learn.  Unfortunately with all the state testing and regulations the choices they have will probably be very limited.