Teaching From A Design Perspective Essay -- Philosophy Education

Teaching From A Design Perspective Developing a philosophy of education is more than asserting a love of wisdom in the theory and practice of teaching. It may be heartening to feel, but it lacks backbone. For a philosophy to have weight and merit, it needs truth, logical strength, and soundness. (Hughes 19) My philosophy of education asserts the following premises that if we teach: learning as relational; creativity as skill; and knowledge as design; then, we create an instructional approach that is cross curriculum. The logical strength of my argument is delivered after each premise has been explained, and the proof statements of each are proposed as truth claims. In doing so, my philosophy of education is a sound argument challenging the existing education paradigm that makes a distinction between required and elective courses. Currently, the Ministry of Education’s requirements for graduation weakens elective courses as having less academic credit, strengthens required courses as having more educational disc ipline, and subsequently, unequally distributes creativity into the curriculum. However, as Perkins points out in his article â€Å"Creativity by Design†: If all knowledge were presented and discussed from the perspective of design, education would yield a much more creative view of knowledge. (23) In my philosophy of education, I argue that teaching creativity is the most significant skill a student can learn, and is a cross curriculum attribute that has equal weight in every type of discipline. Thus, my philosophy of education supports an interdisciplinary curriculum where predominately elective subjects, such as technology education and fine arts, stand on equal footing with required subjects typically regarded as... ...pose cross-curriculum equality begins by removing the academic and social prejudices that exist between required and elective courses. Works Consulted Conference Board of Canada. Solving the Skilled Trades Shortage. 28 March 2002. Fischer, Gerhard. â€Å"Social Creativity: Turning Barriers into Opportunities for Collaborative Design†. 8th Conference on Participatory design (Toronto). 2004.152-162. Hughes, William. Critical Thinking. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1996. Perkins, David. â€Å"Creativity by Design†. Educational Leadership. 14.1 (1984): 18-25. Petrina, Stephen. Advanced Teaching Methods for the Technology Classroom. Hershey: Information Science Publishing, 2007. Pollack, Sidney. Sketches of Frank Gehry. 2004. Reid, Anna, Peter Petocz. â€Å"Learning Domains and the Process of Creativity†. The Australian Educational Researcher. 31.2 (2004): 45-62.