Connecting educational philosophy with practice: Freire, Zimbardo, and Lin

Connecting Educational Philosophy and Praxis

Successful educators generally are those who best connect a sound teaching philosophy and philosophy of education and the practical delivery of educational material in a manner conducive to genuine student comprehension and retention (Freire, 1972). Unfortunately, it is possible to fulfill the teaching and educational philosophy requirement without a corresponding teaching practice; and naturally, without a sound fundamental teaching and educational philosophy, even highly effective teaching methods are likely to produce poor results (Freire, 1972; Small, 1978). In my personal educational experience, I have had the privilege of being taught by several teachers who connected a teaching philosophy with highly effective teaching methods. I have also studied the works of several educators who clearly have successfully integrated educational philosophy and practical methodology.

Tek Youg Lin -- High School English Teacher

Mr. Lin taught 10th Grade English at a prestigious private high school for more than 40 years. Mr. Lin always had a tremendous natural enthusiasm for teaching as well as for helping young students discover their potential as intellectuals and as individuals. His specialty was always teaching English grammar, and because of him, most of the thousands of his former students possess the best written and spoken English skills of anyone they know. Mr. Lin recognized the fundamental importance of grammatically correct speech and writing and of cultivating a broad enough working vocabulary to express their thoughts articulately in any communications medium. The reason his teaching methodology was so successful was that he conducted his entire class in a conversational tone (while sitting cross-legged on his desk) rather than in the formal way that most teachers conduct their classes, especially in high school. He managed to teach one of the most disliked courses in a manner that truly engaged his students precisely because it never seemed to them that they were in a class at all.

Application in My Teaching Approach

Both educators conceived of original ways to examine and illustrate the specific conceptual ideas they hoped to convey to their students in a meaningful way. Since then, they and many other contemporary educators, particularly in the fields of social psychology and sociology, have used the video records of those educational exercises to deliver lessons about the double-edged sword of obedience to authority and about the immoral impulses in many of us that can be brought to the surface under the right sets of environmental circumstances. In my teaching approach, I try to deliver lessons, whenever possible, in such a way that they might conceivably result in life-long retention of the lesson in the manner that these three educators have in their respective academic fields.

Sources Consulted

Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the Oppressed Penguin Books: New York.

Macionis, J. (2008). Sociology. Prentice-Hall: Upper Saddle River.

Small, R. "Educational Praxis" Educational Theory; Vol 28, No. 3 (1978): 214-22.

Zimbardo, P. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Random House: New York.