My Educational Philosophy at the end of Fall 2014

I narrowed my Educational Philosophy

Three events have shaped my teaching philosophy since I started NYU some 6 months

ago: NYU classes, Summer Science Camp at Brooklyn Science & Medicine School and

East Side Community School.

Over the past 5/6 months, Professors Wallace, Milne, Abder, Blonstein, Fraser and Leou

helped me understand the prophecy of Piaget, “education--and only education is capable

of saving our societies from possible collapse, whether violent or gradual because it

enhances the human capital”. I have also learned a great deal about it from Old CRISPees

Nick, Cesar and Leila as well as from Danielle Williams and Chris Griffith, my two co-

operative teachers at East Side Community College. Hence, this paper is divided in three

parts: (1) My current educational philosophy; (2) the change I have noticed; (3) What

causes such change.

My current educational philosophy:My educational philosophy is like the universe—expanding—especially since I started

my journey with NYU. That is, I have added many things into my educational philosophy

and the size of it, whatever it is, is double than before. The most important thing I added

is creating a community inside the classroom. My theoretical understanding about the

importance of building a community inside classroom came directly from my professors

—especially Dr. Jim Fraser, “It is true that--so often it seems that "community" and

"Individual" are posed as oppositional--especially in a super capitalist society like

America but it all make sense when you look at the sky and try to understand why birds

fly as a flock? What is the physics behind it? Every time I was in the Danielle or Chris

class, I thought about the physics behind my teacher Dr. Fraser’s example: his simple

parable suggested that the relationship between community and Individual is dialectical

—that is, the individual benefits the community and the community benefits the

individual. So Dr. Fraser taught me the importance of “Creating a Community Inside the

Classroom” and Danielle and Chris taught me how to put it in practice. I have identified

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many steps to create a community inside a classroom but five are the main:

1. Building bonds between students 2. By creating safe environment 3. By building good democracies 4. By removing bullies from the classroom 5. By creating environment that produces empathy

We live in a capitalist society and our school—including East Side—is nothing but a

product of it. If the main novelty of capitalism is Smith's nurturist theory (I applied it to

my both sons, Refath Albert and Soborno Isaac), its main pitfall is greed. In fact, the

latter is so forceful that the former no longer appeals to many traditional teachers. In

addition, a traditional teacher is driven by at least three more negative attitudes: self-

reliance, selfishness, and a one-dimensional approach--which eventually lead them to

insult their students. Unfortunately, some of the teachers are just like that. Driven by

dogma, these teachers usually abuse the spirit of Smith's nurturist theory. It seems like

these teachers know the price of everything but the value of nothing. Fortunately, my

cooperating teachers—Danielle and Chris were different. They were like the agent of

Smith's nurturist theory. In fact, they taught me how to create a community inside the

classroom. One way to create a community inside the classroom by helping the kids

understand the aerodynamic advantage behind birds in the sky fly as a group. The

second component that is necessary to build community inside classroom is safety

because students learn best when they fell bonds among each other. In fact, anytime we

try to teach without creating such bonds between students, we increase the risk of

creating hostile environment inside the classroom. Nobody can learn in a hostile

environment.

According to Lev Vygotsky, no student understands everything because they usually

need other assistance to see the entire picture. That is, students need support from outside

to succeed which he called Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Some students, such

as Ashley, for example, need 50% external support, and some student such as Franklyn,

for example, need only 10% external support. The beauty of grouping them together in a

bonded environment is that Franklyn and Ashley can help each other to see the entire

picture of the problem. That exactly what I have observed: Since the interactions in this

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class tend to be primarily between peers, such bonding would provide opportunities for

Franklyn and Ashley to work together toward a common purpose. I saw ultimately this

approach helped promote a more inclusive learning environment because students often

learn views of peers from backgrounds different from their own.

(2) Brooklyn Science & Medicine School: The Engineering and Sports program was part of the NYU Summer Enrichment Program at the School for Science and Medicine in Brooklyn, New York. Over the course of 12 days, starting from July 08, 2015 through July 22, 2025, I worked with three NYU Masters Students, Nick, Cesar, Layla. We instructed 2 groups of students, each group instruction lasting approximately 6 days, both comprised of 6th through 8th graders.

The Engineering and Sports program was designed to engage students in basic mathematics and mechanics using the construction of a wooden catapult project to drive instruction. Students began by designing a prototype that they test and refine to better inform their larger catapults. Towards the end of the course, the students use their catapults to participate in an intense free-throw shooting competition as a means of testing and assessing the success of their design. With this in mind, it is our intention that students learn to collaborate with one another to build unique catapults, while grappling with the fundamentals of the engineering design process.

The overarching philosophy behind this summer course was to give students a perspective on what it truly means to be an engineer and the factors that need to be considered during the design process.

(3)

East Side Community School:

Danielle Williams, my cooperative teacher at East Side Community School, asked me to

teach block #2 on Tuesday (September 16). The topic was Foil Boat Challenge and my

role was to help students understand the difference between mass and weight. I choose

Mamado, one of our 7th grade students, to help me demonstrate the fundamental

difference between mass and weight. I measured Mamado's mass and it was 85 KG. We

taught the class that Mamado's mass will be the same even if I send him to the moon. We

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then calculate his weight, W = Mg and it turned out that his weight was 833 Newton in

room # 516 of East Side Community School. I then informed class, again using Mamado

as an example, that unlike mass, his weight is a function of location.

Even if I send him to the Mount Everest, his weight would be 15% less. So he would be

about 710 Newton on the summit of the Mount Everest. If we can send him to Moon, he

weight would be even less. It's all because weight is nothing but gravitational force that

acting on a mass. The lesson went very well. I left home with a great satisfaction that,

thanks to Mamado, everyone understood the concept really well. However, I was shocked

days later when I started grading their homework. Almost everyone did well, except

Mamado:

The Nurturing Side of Danielle Williams: I think I’m a better teacher now due to the

constant support of and underlying encouragement from Danielle who preserved in

showing her inexperienced and novice student teacher how to create community inside

the classroom. I spent about four months with her and she taught me many things

including the importance of diversity.

DIVERSITY:

She helped me identify issues in the lesson plan and asked me to find a strategy to resolve

such an issue. For example, I wanted to divide the class in four (homogeneous) groups to

teach them the relationship between “Volume and Buoyant Force” by developing some

code using the collected data. She helped me identify two flaws in my lesson plan:

1. Every student may not have the programming background

2. Homogeneous grouping doesn’t promote shared goals

Two important adaptations I made to the lesson plan were (1) “Foil Boat Challenge” to

teach them the linear relationship between “Buoyant Force and Volume” and (2) divide

the class in four (Heterogeneous) groups. The strategy was effective in facilitating

students’ learning because they had the necessary background knowledge on Foil Boat

Challenge. Therefore, they did not have to expend extra mental energy trying to learn

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programming. As a result the students were able to focus their attention on the primary

objective of understanding the linear relationship between “Buoyancy and Volume”.

Danielle also told me that she couldn’t teach me everything because part of teaching is

improvisation. I would not know what it actually meant until October 28, 2014. Right

before midnight, I’ve received an email from her informing that she was sick. To no

surprise, Tuesday class (October 28) was great despite the absence of Danielle because

after the end of the day I felt good about myself because I knew I had done a good job.  I

then started to reflect on the classroom. There was this one thought that kept coming to

mind and it was that teaching is like a movie being watched.

My Extraordinary Friendship with Chris Griffith:

The visionary physicists are those who are driven by a passion to help all students unlock

the secret of nature. The most influential teachers are those that deliver that passion with

a clear lesson accessible to all students.  Chris Griffith is that kind of teacher and David

Morris is those kinds of physicists. This is probably why; as soon as I had a chance, I

started spending as much time as I possibly could with these two amazing people. I think

I’m a better physics teacher now due to the constant support of Chris and David. I spent

about a month and half with them on the 3rd floor of East Side and they taught me many

things including how to accommodate Specific Learning Needs.

Ashley, for example, had a difficulties understanding the lab part of conservation of

energy. I have learned from Chris that we as a teacher have a responsibility to take

appropriate actions (e.g., scaffolding) to ensure that instructional content is

comprehensible for students such as Ashley who lack a strong background in math and

science. So Chris asked me to go over the labs with her everyday during the lunchtime.

Providing Ashley with the scaffolding she needs to master lab on conservation of energy

was something I enjoyed very much. Like Danielle, Chris also told me that he couldn’t

teach me everything because part of teaching is improvisation. I had a chance to learn

more about it on January 9, 2015 when Chris and David both were absent due to an

illness. I was not ready to teach the class because I learned about their illness around 9:

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30 am. Since I did not have lesson plan, I knew that I was going to learn many new things

on that day. And I did.

I quickly created a list of 10 questions covering all topics of conservation of energy. I

asked the students to solve the question. Once again, I noticed that Ashley had difficulty-

applying math to solve physics problem because she often misinterprets the information.

I applied Lemov’s No Opt Out method for differentiating instruction for Ashley in this

lesson to address her need and did provide her with written step-by-step answers of the

procedure for solving the Potential, Kinetic and Spring Energy problems. My technique

—which I call Lemov approach—facilitated Ashley’s ability to apply correct

mathematics to solve Physics problems because she was able to use the answer-key to

vindicate that her solutions resemble….

What causes such change?

Just because I have added new concepts to my educational philosophy does not mean I

have discarded my old one. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. These new concepts (creating

community inside the classroom) enriched my educational philosophy. In fact, I will

continue adding new concepts to my philosophy because I am a normative.

As a science teacher, I remain loyal to the normative thinkers, whom I call dreamers and I

defend them in the spirit of Richard Lavoie and Aamir Khan, as being those who

recognize that all students, including Callied, who got only 25% in the unit test-1, have

potential to do well like his counterpart, Blair (who earned 98% in the same unit test).

First, I would recognize the factors that contributed to the failure of those six students

who fall beyond the two standard divisions to the left. Then I will incorporate respective

modalities into my lesson plan using the model of my two heroes i.e., Richard Lavoie and

Aamir Khan. Richard Lavoie’s fine documentary How Difficult Can This Be: The FAT

City and Ammir Khan film Taare Zameen Par (Like Stars on Earth) as a model to help

these six students overcome the academic challenges so that they can move from left side

of the standard deviations to the right side of the normal distribution. It is worth noting

that three of these six students, Danielle reported me, are IEP students. I am 100% loyal

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to Richard when its come to treating IEP students.

Aamir, as a teacher of Indian Boarding School also demonstrates how a teacher can help

his/her students (e.g., Ishaan) overcome disabilities (e.g., dyslexia). While Richard helps

me understand [by exploring relationship between associative and cognitive tasks] that

teaching is not merely a profession, it is about helping to increase the most abundant

resource in the world: human capital, Aamir helped me understand every student—even

IEP students—has the same potential. While Richard help me understand the real

meaning of the word “fairness” “fairness doesn’t mean everyone gets the same treatment,

just everyone gets what they need”, Aamir helped me understand by demonstration that

how to be fair with every student inside the classroom. This is why, I think Richard and

Aamir are normative who have the aspect of people like Horace Mann, Freidrich Froebel

Charlotte Mason, Jean Piaget, Margaret Bancroft, Booker T. Washington, John Dewey,

Maria Montessori, John Holt, Marie Clay, Jerome Bruner—and Howard Gardner—who

express value judgments about how literacy—and classroom environment ought to be—

especially with students like Cailled, Camille, James, Natalie, Ethan and Nico—who

have learning disabilities.

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