roup work also helps facilitate the hands-on projects and activities because in groups the students tend to help each other with what they do not know how to do.I also feel that motivation helps students believe in themselves and excel in their learning. Horace Mann points this out in The Republic and the School when he says; “Knowledge cannot be poured into a child’s mind, like fluid from one vessel into another.”(Mann 37) Children learn when they are motivated. Along with motivation there are students who do not have a high self-esteem, and as a teacher it would be my goal to help bring that self-esteem up. Encouraging words and praise to the students takes merely seconds, but to the students it can go a long way. I can never forget those teachers who always told me that I was doing a good job and to keep up the good work, it meant a lot to me. It’s also been a motivational tool that helped me want to do my best to show them that I really was good and that I know I can do it. I am a student and I know that’s how students will feel. The satisfaction they get from hearing their teacher tell them they did a great job cannot be expressed on paper. In conclusion, the philosophy that I follow revolves around the child. If we are to be educators of children, we must cater to those children’s interests and needs. The Pragmatist philosophy is one that truly meets those ideas and philosophy of what education should be and how we should go about it. Closing with Dewey who exemplifies the Pragmatist view and the need to focus on the child’s need, he says, “Moreover subject-matter never can be got into the child from without. Learning is active. It involves organic assimilation starting from within. Literally, we must take our stand with the child and our departure from him. It is he and not the subject-matter which determines both quality and quantity of learning.” (Dewey 95)...
