Candidate for
Board Member; Windsor Unified School District

Philosophy of Education:

In my youth I was intrigued by John Dewey, America's most eminent Pragmatist. For the past half century there have been many innovations, but his basic tenets are unchanged.

Dewey was an advocate for student-centered learning as opposed to teacher-centered. What essentially is student-centered learning? Dewey contended that learning is change that takes place inside the learner. The instructor can facilitate but cannot directly create this change. He/she can best facilitate this change by providing learning events in which the student has the central role.

The difference between teacher-centered & student-centered instruction:

Teacher-Centered

1. Sees learning as a result
of teacher action

2. Sees the student as
passive.

3. Sees the student as automatic receptive: a vessel to fill with information.

Student-Centered

1. Sees learning as a result of student action.

2. Sees the Student as active.

3. Sees the student as not an automatic receptive. The student must work with information to retain it.

The rationale for student-centered teaching.

Learning is continual change that occurs within each student. No one can force these changes to take place. Each student must cause these changes to occur by being receptive to new ideas, skills and attitudes.

Students are selective about what they absorb. The teacher needs to encourage students to want to receive new ideas, skills, attitudes and to want to put energy into active practice which will lead to permanent change.

Students differ from each other in important ways. Each has had different training and experiences and thus has developed a different structure of knowledge. Each message communicated by an instructor to students will fit into this personal structure of knowledge in a different way. Students need to have opportunities to fit new information into the existing structures, so that the new ideas are firmly attached and available for recall and use. Information that the student does not work with and is not integrated into the existing structure will be easily forgotten and not available for recall or use later. Student-centered lessons enable the student to work with new ideas, skills and knowledge and to integrate these fully into new ideas, skills and knowledge and to integrate these fully into his personal structure of knowledge. Once integrated the knowledge will be retained and will be available for application in a wide variety of situations.

The War Against Boys

Today the American child's life is too strictly regimented. His/her activities are planned for them. The parents are made to feel guilty if they are not out cheering for their child at the baseball game. Parents often take too active an interest in their child's success or failure on the soccer field of basketball court. He/she is often disgraced by his/her parents before his/her teammates. He/she needs more independence. They must chose their own playmates and organize their own games and play by their own rules. That's what development is all about. In this way one is required to stand on his/her own two feet and hold his/her own against his/her adversaries.

American boys must be allowed to feel proud to be boys. They are losing their self esteem and will to achieve. They are dropping out of school at ever increasing rates. When I was growing up, street gangs were not so prevalent. Boy considered it cowardly to use weapons such as knives and guns. They lived by a code of conduct. They settled their differences with their fists. There were rules - no hitting when one was down, no hitting below the belt, no sticks or stones. The other boys saw to that. If there was a fight on the school grounds, the vice principal would take the two pugilists into the gym and put the gloves on them. When they'd had enough, he'd see to it that they shook hands. Now boxing is not allowed in the public school. Boys are no longer allowed to be boys. They join gangs in order to let off excess testosterone. It is a rebellion against a society that will not allow them to be themselves.