My Philosophy of Education When I ponder my own philosophy of education and life in general, I realize that much of it took shape

from the influence of the poem written by Rabindranath Tragore, which begins I slept and dreamt that life was joy(1). I do not believe we can shape our own philosophy without first being exposed to many others. How else can we have our own, without knowing what the options are? Once I established in my mind, what my philosophy of education is, I then checked to see if I am applying this in my own life. Looking at epistemology, that asks us how do we know what we know, I found the answer in the second line of the poem. I awoke and saw that life was service(2). Awakening from the state of unconscious consciousness, not the state of sleeping and dreaming is what I mean here. We all are on this earth to serve and be served in some way. In order to serve, we must first be educated in some way; in order to be served, we must be seeking education, or knowledge. Somewhere in the middle, we must be capable of knowing if and when we need to seek service of others to help us grow in the direction we are heading. In my own quest for understanding other cultures, I address the logic aspect of philosophy and how many others and myself lose meaning in conversation with others when cultural boundaries bring different meaning from both sides. Metaphysically speaking, we all have free will in that we choose to serve others or be served by others. I acted, and behold, service was joy(3) finishes this poem with such simplicity, yet depth if the reader muses over it and relates it to their own life. In this line, I extract the thoughts of ethics applied in what I do. What have I done that is good, bad, right or wrong, in how I have treated others and myself? How do we begin a life of service? What does that journey look like? Where does it go? As I apply these thoughts to this assignment to express my philosophy of education, I unravel the path that does not describe a curriculum, a syllabus, or a classroom in the usual sense, which perhaps was expected from me. My philosophy of education takes a different route.

What is education? What is my philosophy of education? Much like knowing what love is, which we can only know after discovering what love is not; we search our surroundings and experiences of education. By experiencing what education is and is not; we extract the experiences we felt useful, that are in alignment with our own morals and beliefs, and whatever builds a foundation for our approach to build our own philosophy of education. As I reflect on each decade of my life while entering the next, I realize that the poem is very much an influence in how I approach life, learning, and locale. From the first breath we breathe, swaddled in the arms of our loving parents, or whoever is our caretaker, our education begins. The influence of those caregivers begins the shaping of our own lives as we begin the lifelong journey of learning to learn, who we are, and what is our purpose. Young learners are eager to learn but require guidance from those who work with them in order to begin understanding what they want and how to get it. Exposing young learners to a wide range of experiences gives them options for choosing a path to pursue. Just like deciding on ones own philosophy, children need to see the options in order to make a choice. Much like Socrates maieutic method of teaching, the role of the teacher is to awaken the latent knowledge the learners possess in their subconscious mind. This is the place where they will develop strong skills in questioning, testing, and ultimately becoming the person who gives back to society in the form of mentoring the next generation once they establish their own path. Socrates influence in this manner is something I strongly agree with because the model of teaching I use is so similar. Therefore, it is my belief that his maieutic method matches closely with my own delivery of learning in the classroom. Amusingly, for those that question this assumed new, modern model of teaching by using playing and games as the delivery of the material, it is not a new concept at all. The second line of the poem written by Rabindranath Tragore can mean many things to many people. It means many things to me at different times of my life. This brings me to the second line of the profound poem by Rabindranath Tragore, which reads, I awoke and saw that life was service (2). What is service? What am I doing here? What is service to others? Am I serving myself? Am I serving others? Am I in the right place now, or is it time to

move on? I do not mean the literal sense of moving on, however, in some instances that too is an option. Moving on can mean to me, to change direction, find a new way to do the same thing, or enhance what I am doing by learning at a deeper level; which on occasion means returning to school. Once I have this clarity of where I am with regard to education, I question myself as to the usefulness of my acquired knowledge. What is the purpose of this acquisition? In my mind, service in this sense is offering to others, something you have, in order to enhance their lives. In service to myself, my belief is that when I am aware of my own gifts and freely give them to others who are on their own journey, without expectation of a return, I have served myself; my life purpose at that point of time. Service to myself can also come in the package that I realize I need more knowledge in order to be of service to others. With that realized, I seek further understanding or information, either by enrolling in a class or extracting that information from my surroundings. In the role of a teacher, most of this service is conscious. If service offered to another requires prior knowledge, I contemplate how that knowledge is acquired. There are many times that this service from a teacher is far greater a gift at a deeper level than either party has conscious awareness. I am sure that most people can reflect on their life in school and recall at least one teacher who impacted them this deeply; not just as a great teacher; but also as a mentor who opened their minds to or supported a path they eventually chose for their adult calling. A formal classroom setting, online learning, and seminars are not the only way to seek and find knowledge. At the onset of seeking knowledge, a child does not know they are doing this consciously, so they need to be guided in learning and finding answers to questions. Like Socrates, I believe that learning for your people is best achieved through playing and games because it awakens their critical thinking skills they will use for the rest of their lives. Life presents opportunities to learn every day. If we are clear on what our journey in life looks like, we can find opportunities to gain knowledge everywhere. We can be educated by experiences. If we have faced serious injury from an incident related to our work, we hopefully learn how to avoid this in the future. If we see negative consequences from what we do with our prior knowledge, we can learn how to change to have more favourable results. If we remain unaware of outcomes such as these, we are no longer learning, and therefore not being

educated. My current journey is to have multifaceted understanding of cultural differences and their approach to life and learning. I could have stayed in my home country, where a university course would give me a western perspective of this issue. I did take a course in intercultural communications there. I did understand the concept, but did not really experience it. Many classmates dismissed the ideas and found the whole idea absurd. Why? When a learner only wants the credits for the course, they will take only what is required to get that, and most importantly, a classroom does not give experience. I think they miss the whole point of the opportunity to become more aware of the world and how others interact in it. I think it is sad that a person is given the opportunity to further their education in a formal setting, and actually learns very little regarding the course material. However, if one is not immersed in that culture they are studying how can they truly understand it? For that reason, I think that real education comes from life experience, after the learning in a formal setting. I am learning this concept while I work with many different cultures. The classroom for me is the workplace. Living in a community with me as the odd-one-out gives me further understanding. Trying to fit in with others in a country and an approach to life and belief systems that are foreign to me are also my classroom. As I progress in my age, I realize that what I learned from a textbook has molded my understanding of what I apply in my life. More important, if I do not question what I read by using critical thinking skills, and eventually develop my own belief systems around that information, I have learned little. A book is a resource to give background on a concept. It is my responsibility to apply it in my life and my work. There is no sense in reinventing the wheel. There is a great deal of sense in interpreting what exactly is the purpose of the wheel. The wheel in this case is the willingness to accept new information in order to proceed in gathering the knowledge that is already available with regard to a subject. As we gather that information, and interpret it for our own use, we are educated in a useful resourceful manner to be used to serve others. The poem concludes with the idea that service is joy. Once I was clear on what end of service I was holding, I realized that the next arena for me to experience education was to return to school and gain deeper understanding of the cultures

I was trying to comprehend. I realized that this time I was the recipient of the service from others. So, what is my service I woke to? Returning to school and immersed in the culture will give me deeper understanding of what knowledge I am seeking. Hence, I awoke and saw that life was service, to me this time; in that I need that service in order to gain the knowledge and experience I am seeking. My philosophy of education therefore is a process of learning and using that outcome to be served by others, or to be of service to others. The method of attaining that education is varied. We are born into this world, requiring constant care and attention. Those who provide this begin the education process for us. Once we have reached an age of some independence, we go to school, where a teacher will guide us further on that path of seeking knowledge and exploring our own thoughts toward what knowledge is. Formal education, in a school setting is necessary in the early years in order to discipline ourselves to focus on learning, but the world and our life give us the greatest education if we are aware of our surroundings. According to Ibn Sina, our environment and education play a role in our choices of good and evil. I would take that a step further and add that a change in environment and a change in education can change that path. If taken out of a violent environment and educated otherwise, the person now has choices and has been given the option to make a choice to change. If we apply our school-acquired knowledge to our life, we will find that we are constantly readjusting our current status of knowing. If that is the case, then what follows is the realization that there is always more to learn. The next step is seeking that knowledge to enhance what is known already, and the cycle continues in the classroom of life.