Daniel Theisen outlines his teaching philosophy in which he believes education plays a necessary role in propagating a society's culture from one generation to the next. As an educator, he sees it as his responsibility to impart the beliefs and moral systems of society to students while also encouraging free thought. He aims to inspire students to have a lifelong love of learning and sees his role as an educator, not just a teacher, in imparting knowledge and understanding while motivating students. As a social studies educator specifically, he emphasizes teaching literacy, research, writing, and argumentation skills alongside content knowledge in an interdisciplinary manner while promoting analytical thought in students.

1. Daniel Theisen
04/26/15
Teaching Philosophy
Education is one of the necessary functions of any self-sufficient and stable society. Our
education system is a structure through which we propagate and recreate, from one generation to
the next, our society and culture. It is the system through which we maintain balance and order,
more so in some ways than law and government itself, though the latter are necessary
contributors to the equilibrium as well. According to the C3 Framework, “Our democratic
republic will not sustain unless students are aware of their changing cultural and physical
environments; know the past; read, write, and think deeply; and act in ways that promote the
common good.”1 Following the logic of this notion, I hold a philosophy of beliefs about
education as it regards myself, my future students, and the system as a whole. This philosophy is
the subject of the following elucidation.
First and foremost among these beliefs that I hold is that because of education’s role as a
necessary part of a self-sufficient society, an educator is tasked with imparting the beliefs and
moral system(s) of the respective society to their students. This is the primary function of any
education system and is especially a function of the Social Studies educator. This is a
responsibility I think few people would doubt. However, educators must also remember that they
must only impart or communicate these beliefs and morals and not proselytize or otherwise force
the students’ own beliefs in one direction or another. The academic environment is to be a
community of free and open thought. Additionally, educators must also impart a sense of
responsibility and respect for their society as well as for others within it, so as to produce a more
affable body of social participants with which they have to interact. Such knowledge and skills as
respect, responsibility, and moral codes allows graduating students to become more fluently
engaged in society and more productive and progressive members.
So far, I have used the term “educator” to discuss the roles and duties that I feel are
important. I will explain why I chose to say educator and not “teacher”, for these terms and their
use is also a part of my philosophy. Often, Educator and Teacher are terms used interchangeably.
I however use the terms not as synonyms, but as separate levels of a tiered category, that
category being types of Pedagogues. The first level is the Lecturer, whose care for the students
does not extend beyond the walls of the classroom, and who does not do any more than
encourage rote memorization of that which is necessary to pass. The lecturer is seen as no more
than a stranger by the student. The second level is a Teacher, one who imparts knowledge and
understanding of the connections between things and how they work. The Teacher is well liked.
The third level is an Educator, one who also imparts knowledge and understanding, but at the
same time inspires their students to have a love for life-long learning and an insatiable appetite
for knowledge. The Educator is well respected and thought of kindly. In my definition of these
levels of pedagogues, there is a fourth and final level, which I call the Mentor. What the mentor
offers is wisdom and a personal connection to the point where they are like family. The first part,
wisdom, is nearly impossible to impart to a group numbering more than a few. A pedagogue with
as many students as the average school teacher has must adapt their style and technique to
1 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social
Studies State Standards:Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History
(Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013). 5

2. accommodate to all learners in the student body and thus loses the significance and impact of
each word. Their wisdom falls softly on the ears of the many. The latter point, personal
connection, walks the thin line between professional and friend and is a line that is best avoided
by both the K-12 pedagogue and student. In line with these definitions, I feel I must strive to be
an educator, not only teaching content and connections, but inspiring true learning and an
appetite for knowledge. I will of course attempt to be a mentor to those students that I can help
on that level, always being careful of course to not cross professional boundaries, but must focus
on being an educator to the whole of the student body. I will always hold myself to a high
standard, by which I am at a minimum an educator, accepting that any less is an insult to myself
and a disservice to my students and their educational development.
Thus far, the roles and responsibilities I have listed have been the responsibilities of
educators in general. Promoting a socially approved system of morals, creating respect for
society and for others, instilling a love for learning and if possible wisdom; these are all
responsibilities of any pedagogue. However, I am to be a Social Studies educator and thus I also
must illuminate the necessary roles of this specific type of educator. One of the first and
foremost roles of a Social Studies Educator is to teach and promote proper practices. Included in
this is literacy instruction through various means for both reading, writing, vocabulary, and the
creation/interpretation of other literary and communicative forms. In social studies, this will
often mean learning to deal with videos, images, audio, and artistic representations. In social
studies, teaching proper practices also means fostering the ability to effectively and thoroughly
argue one’s own views whether it is through verbal presentation, writing, or some other form of
delivery. However, in conjunction with this practice, it is also necessary to teach restraint,
respect, and manners, as argumentation loses efficacy when an educated discussion devolves into
a boisterous vociferation, victory in which is predicated only upon who is the loudest and most
obnoxious. In addition, proper practices include research skills and proper citation (such as
footnoting). While teaching Chicago Manual of Style may only apply within our discipline,
proper citation is a necessary tool for retaining a sense of professionalism and preventing
plagiarism. Plagiarism prevention, a moral and legal responsibility of an author, speaker, or other
such presenter, is an essential piece of literacy instruction and must occur frequently and
deliberately. Student must know in and out of school the importance of giving proper credit and
how to avoid accidentally committing a fraudulent act. However, before any student can even
come close to applying their writing and citation skills, the must learn research skills and writing
skills. Research writing is an aspect that provides a tool and skill which they can take from the
classroom and apply across all disciplines, as well as outside of academia, for the rest of their
lives. Effective research, writing, and argumentation is a skill that will serve them well time and
again. Proper practices in paper/essay writing, as well as synthesizing a coherently written
argument (easy to read and understand without the need for a spoken explanation) that is
formatted within correct and fluid grammatical structures are hugely important. This focus on
coherency is not just for written communication, but for spoken as well. As my mentor teacher
told our students on day one, “Once you leave here and go out into the world, saying ‘You know
what I mean’ is not acceptable,” because more people in this world than you may expect, “will
take a poorly worded comment at face value,” rather than spending time trying to figure out what
you may have meant. I want students to articulate their thoughts on paper and in discussions.
Beyond proper practices, a social studies educator must also instruct content knowledge
while promoting meaningful learning and not simply rote learning. This focus on content
knowledge means all content knowledge, including the barebones facts, the more intricate

3. details, modern and historic perceptions and views, dates, belief systems, cultural factors,
languages, vocabulary, influence of governments, psychological factors, and geographic factors.
As for those latter items in that list, I do not mean the study of these subjects separately either. I
don’t mean government class or psychology class. I believe any good and properly instructed
class in the Social Studies, regardless of the subject, incorporates all of these themes or elements
into instruction and learning, and all should be assessed in some form. There needs to be an
incorporation of interdisciplinary learning and application. For example, any good history class
focuses on government and geography. Any good government class focuses on culture and
psychology. In addition to this, certain skills should be taught, including the hugely important
skill of analytical thought. To be analytical means to think critically, recognize patterns, solve
problems, ask important questions, give matters a lot of deep thought, think in convergent ways,
and often times to be skeptical of all information and sources. Again, restraint must also be
taught, especially with skepticism. We do not want students to doubt every little bit of
information they hear, unless perhaps it is philosophy class or Theory of Knowledge in which the
purpose is to question what they know and how they know it. We must always encourage
students to think like scientists, to leave their minds open to every possibility, but to hold a
stringent set of rules or guidelines in their mind by which they will evaluate each supposed
answer fairly and equally. Analysis is critical to proper Social Studies education. Analytic
thought is applicable not only in discipline, or across disciplines, but also for real world
predictable and unpredictable situations.2
Another important part of social studies education, mentioned briefly in the previous
paragraph, is the promotion of Cultural, Ethnic, and Racial learning. Part of this means
encouraging a socially, culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse school and society. It is
important for today’s students to understand their place in our globalized world and their
inevitable interaction with others of different cultures and societal norms, as well as differing
racial identifications and ethnic origins. Yet they must also understand the importance and
rationale behind the modern attempts at preserving cultural and social histories, and understand
that while we are one world and one people, that does not mean we are (or should be) the same.
Understanding and compassion needs to be a central theme in all instruction and we must
promote the acceptance of others for who they are or want to be if they identify as something
other than what they appear to be. Ultimately, we need to recognize our own role as part of their
world and them as part of ours.3
Another important piece of my teaching philosophy which I will outline is the importance
and use of the Social Studies, and most importantly, showing the students what it is and why
they must learn it. The use and importance of some Social Studies subjects is not difficult to see.
Few students fail to recognize that Government as a class is the institution through which we
train them for their role as US Citizens. Other can easily see the utility of psychology, a study
based around the human mind, something each student has and every person they will interact
with has. However, History, the subject most people think of when they hear “Social Studies”, is
the least understood of the Social Studies when it comes to its importance and use. In theory
History and many other Social Studies courses, focus on cultivating an in depth and often
thematically based set of knowledge on a wide array of varied topics and events occurring in
equally various locales and conditions. Based on this knowledge, students of history should form
perspectives about what we know, and hypotheses about what we don’t know. Students of
2 Levels 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the Levels of Relevance.
3 These sentiments expressed in this paragraph essentially align with NCSS standards 1, 3, 4, and 9.

4. history must have then the ability to argue their theories effectively and establish themselves as
legitimate sources and contributors to historical debates. The ultimate aspiration regarding the
study of history is that we as a society may cultivate a populace of intellectual thinkers who
possess a better understanding of the choices and actions we as humans make, in order to create a
better future and prevent the mistakes of the past. As such, History should be a tool based in
human interaction and behavioral psychology that helps us prevent the mistakes of the past and
replicate the successes. It is an active and living art, not a stagnant and boring study.
Unfortunately, this idea of History is rarely how it is taught. This is the result of decades
and centuries of teaching history as a study and no more. It has been taught for too long as a long
list of facts from dusty stagnant old books. Many teachers fall into the trap of doing things the
way they learned them. To teach history as the facts and to make it something that never is truly
utilized. Do not mistake my comments as claiming the type of instruction I wish took place
somehow does not exist at all. There are some educators who attempt and even achieve a form of
instruction that conveys the utility of History. I am simply saying many fail to do this, and I can
often times count myself among them. Too often it is taught as simply facts, with the
unreasonable hope that somehow the student will mystically understand the utility of history
with no help or outside explanation. As if we somehow expect them to apply the lesson we in
theory learn from the French Revolution or WWI to their own lives without any added help. I
intend however to be an educator that can make history at a minimum useful, if not also fun. The
form this style of education would take could vary greatly, but would focus on activities in which
the students attempt to apply the lessons of class content to their own lives through creative and
analytical exercises.
The Final piece of my philosophy I will explain concerns formal philosophies of
education and styles of instruction. Thus far I have explained the goals I wish to achieve with my
students, but with few exceptions have made no attempt to explain how I will arrive at these
targets. Here is where I explain these matters. As far as Modern Educational Philosophies go, I
am a Progressivist. I believe in the Progressivist thinking when it comes to the process and style
of education, in which the student is leading their own education as an active, rather than
passive, endeavor. The student must ask questions, build their own knowledge in their own ways,
and continually deconstruct and reconstruct the ways they view reality as new knowledge and
ways of thinking are attained. They must allow themselves to wonder and then experiment with
the world, all the while the educator being the one encouraging and guiding this process. I tend
to favor the newly developing trends in education and the idea that education should change,
adapt, and overcome. Education is for the student and should be led by them. However, like
Essentialists, I believe in training the basics and in creating a formally structured environment
with discipline as a central tenant of that structure. However, my idea of environment and
discipline is dissimilar to theirs. The environment should be built with the aid of students and
rebuilt with each new class. School should be a home which they helped to build, not a prison
they know nothing about. It should not be something forced upon them by an authoritarian
regime of teachers. Discipline should be self-molded and self-created, meaning something
different for each student. It should be a learned skill, not a military style drill. Like
Perennialists, I too believe in having the student understand the development of trends in the
human past. Students should be able to identify and utilize common patterns of human action and
interaction. However, focusing on the past is creating in oneself a weakness, a reliance on the
achievements of dead men and too little focus on how to achieve even greater things.
Additionally, the focus on the Western World leaves students culturally and globally deficient in

5. an otherwise culturally and socially blended world. Like the Social Reconstructionists and
Critical Theorists, I too believe in learning to deal with current issues and creating a better future,
as well as using critical thinking to assess current paradigms in society and politics and
challenging those that don't work or have become outdated and insufficient. However, I cannot
deny my students an understanding of the social, cultural, and political events of the past which
themselves may act as a key to more affable encounters today and a brighter future tomorrow.
All the other Philosophies of Education offer a great deal, but I align best with Progressivism.
Progressivism is something truly new and unique to education. It says nothing about past,
present, or future. It says little about structure or discipline. It rarely tries to specify subject area
or content focus. Progressivism defines strategy and unlike the other philosophies that strategy
isn’t about the type of environment the teacher will create, or the special current issues they will
present, or the classics they will teach. Progressivism in fact says little about the teacher
themselves or their actions. Progressivism is about the student. About creating enthusiasm and a
thirst for knowledge; a desire and even a need to learn. It is about encouraging the student to
learn because they value their own education, not driving them on with a riding crop like a horse
in a race that has no clue why it is being forced to run, where it will end up, or why people cheer
or jeer based on its speed or ranking. That is why I am a Progressivist, because if I was the horse
I would want a pasture to explore and experiment with, not a jockey to whip me when I’m
confused.4
In the end, my teaching philosophy is this: I am a pedagogue, but not in the literal sense
of the word. The term comes from Greek and literally it means “to lead the child”. I shall not
lead them, but rather guide them. Education should be student based, student driven, and student
led. I want my classroom to be active and interesting. I want it to be safe and inviting. I will give
my students guidance and tools to accomplish their goals, myself included as one of those tools. I
am but a compass, a guide book, a map to the world. I will implore them to use me and to learn
from me. In line with the NEA Code of Ethics, I will never pressure them in beliefs or in morals,
allowing each to have their own, but will be an ever ready arrow pointing the way to
understanding, compassion, invaluable skills, and lifelong learning.5 I will present them with
many views and many ways to look at issues and topics. I will provide them an experience that
will open and expand the mind. This is what I believe is education. This is my role as an
Educator.
4 LeoNora M. Cohen, Philosophical Perspectives in Education.Oregon State University, 1999. All information in
this paragraph regarding modern Educational Philosophies came from this website. See Bibliography for link.
5 Principle 1 of the NEA Code of Ethics.

6. Bibliography
Cohen, LeoNora M. Philosophical Perspectives in Education. Oregon State University
(Department of Education), 1999. http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/ed416/PP3.html
National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). National Standards for Social Studies Teachers.
Volume 2, (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2002).
National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3)
Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-
12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History. (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013).
National Education Association. “Code of Ethics” in NEA Handbook 2013-2014. (Washington
D.C., 2014).