As an emerging educator the
education philosophy embraced will have great impact on the teaching and
learning process, beliefs about students, beliefs about knowledge concepts as
well as the belief about what is worth knowing. This is so, as each of us
perception or the construct of our education philosophy differs as the source
may be stemming from differing schools of thought. According to Wiles & Bondi,
major philosophies of life and education have traditionally been defined by
three criteria; what is good, what is true and what is read. It must be
understood that our perception of these criteria differs and thus reveals a
unique pattern of response.
The stages of the curriculum development process include planning, designing,
implementation and evaluation. Curriculum development as a political activity
Curriculum development can be considered as partly political because the
planning stage of the curriculum development process is said to be a lay
political activity. Curriculum planning, especially at the national level is
considered to be a political activity due to the reasons below. First and
foremost, curriculum planning is designed to ensure adequate representation of
the opinions of all the major stakeholders in education. In curriculum planning,
the emphasis is on the interest of the people who matter most in education. For
instance, teachers, students, parents and religious bodies among others who are
stakeholders are represented at the planning stage not because of their
competence or technical know-how but because of their interest. Furthermore, the
government of the day seeks to promote its economic and political development
agenda through education. The government would always want the curriculum or the
educational system to be in line with their political manifesto, hence their
participation in the planning process. Again, the government as a major
financier of public education would want to get value for its money. In
addition, the various stakeholder groups compete among themselves in order to
get their agenda into the national curriculum.
Given the fact that our schools exist to facilitate learning, our role as
facilitators must only serve to enhance the teaching and learning experience for
our students. To this end we must ensure that our methods used cater for all the
learners. A rich teaching and learning experience and preferable one that is
eclectic in nature only serves to bolster or enhance the understanding or
grasping of concepts being taught, thereby, creating a good opportunity to
realize the objectives of the lesson. It is of utmost importance that one’s
philosophy embraced is anchored in a sound belief about a positive teaching and
learning experience.