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A teacher's philosophy about education is revealed in the teaching style, management style, classroom climate and in how he/she interacts with the families and students within the classroom. While I believe a teacher has one main philosophical perspective that drives her in the classroom, she could be influenced by several viewpoints based upon the type of students and curriculum that she has in any particular year. The four main philosophical perspectives of which I speak are Essentialist, Perrenialist, Progressivist, and Constructivist. My own personal philosophy comes from a Perrenialist point-of-view, in combination with Progressivism. I love to question and draw out the truth from within the minds of my students using social and world problems that we come across in our curriculum. However, I also find myself drawn to certain aspects of the three other perspectives. Teaching is definitely an art, and I am learning to make who I am come through in ways to best impact the students that I teach.

First, the Essentialist teacher is an authoritarian figure in the classroom and giver of knowledge. The students are presented with concrete facts through the means of lecture and question and answer sessions. Since the teacher is the source of knowledge she must be steeped in all academic disciplines, especially in science, math and humanities. The goal of an Essentialist teacher is to help students solve the problems in the world through the study and application of science to those problems. This goal is accomplished through the application of objective means to evaluate their works, especially through competency-based assessments. Knowledge is essential to the survival of society and an Essentialist makes sure that knowledge is presented directly.

Rather than dictating the information through lecture, a Perrenialist teacher presents truth through a constant stream of questions. One response in class discussion leads to another question. Instead of knowledge ruling, ideas rule. Discussions are teacher facilitated and the students are guided to knowledge through questions in order to unearth responses necessary to discover the truth. The teacher's role is to analyze and discuss ideas with students so they can grow and mature with transformation. Dialoguing through abstract concepts enables that transformation to higher learning to take place. Curriculum is centered around the Classics by which students are exposed to the problems of the world

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