Teachers develop a philosophy whether they know it or not. I think it's helpful to identify your philosophy so that you can evaluate your decision making and how your philosophy actually affects your decisions and whether or not you support certain ideas.
Your personal philosophy as a teacher is what drives your classroom experience. How you think students learn, what you think they should learn, how they should be expected to behave, participate, and etc. This all drives your curriculum and instruction. Teaching without a philosophy is bound to be less effective than having a guiding philosophy. However, as you grow and mature in your teaching abilities, your philosophy should grow and mature too.
An educator's philosophy of education should be one that services his or her students. This philosophy is the approach an individual educator takes toward his or her classroom. Can all your students learn? You must believe that they all can and teach with this in mind. Your philosophy of education should apply to any classroom situation, any subject, and any individual student. It will be a guide and a goal for you to work toward.
If an administrator asks you for your philosophy of education, have one well articulated. This will serve as a statement you may be asked in an interview. Be prepare to have one at the ready. An administrator will be seeking to learn whether or not you really have a career plan for teaching in a classroom that is reasonable. Your philosophy should show that you have an idea what pedagogy is and can be.
Being a teacher in a classroom is like being the leader of a small country, full of differing points of view, assorted needs, diverse talents and abilities, and conflicting goals. Your job is to figure out what kind of a leader you will be, given that you have a job to do despite any objections or deflections by the students. You must find a way to get them all working together toward a common goal; and you must help them achieve both individually and collectively. And, of course, you will have limitations and obstacles to contend with along the way. This is the task of an educator and the elements which you must consider as you develop (and continue to develop) your philosophy of education. Best wishes on your journey.
Being a teacher is much like being a parent. One must be stalwart in his/her purpose. Malcolm Forbes stated, "Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one." As post #4 has so well said, the students are more important than the particular lesson because if a teacher can instill a sense of curiosity for learning, the student then will acquire knowledge.
Ironically, it is so often something that a teacher mentions that is not in direct line to a particular lesson, that a student is affected by long afterwards; something that indicates that teacher's perception of the world of learning.
It's hard to...
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imagine a teacher in a classroom without a serious sense of purpose. Being a public teacher is difficult enough from day to day, and sometimes the philosophy is the only thing to remind you why you are there. It helps us keep our eyes on the whole forest as opposed to the individual trees.
For example, with difficult students, I like to remind myself of two key components of my philosophy:
"No student is unteachable, and no student has reached his or her full potential"
And if I get too full of myself, or too focused on the subject:
"The student is more important than the subject"
Rather than focusing on every student learning everything I have to teach them about history in the span of a year or two, I try to teach them why I love the subject, in hopes they'll learn it on their own for a lifetime.
To me, having a philosophy of education is important because it allows you to adjust (relatively) easily to a variety of new and unexpected situations.
For example, think about how many things happen to you in class every day that you could never have planned for. A student says or does something that you haven't really experienced before. The administration decides to do something that disrupts one of your class periods. A student wants to ask questions that are interesting but not exactly on topic. How do you react to these things?
If you have a clear sense of who you are as a teacher, it is easier to respond. When the student acts up, who are you? Are you a strict disciplinarian or are you more of an understanding teacher? When the other studen asks the questions, what is your goal for class -- are you going to get through that lesson no matter what, or are you going to respond. If you know these things, you can at least respond to the students in a way that is consistent with who you are trying to be.
If you have no philosophy, you are aimless. You react to every situation as if it were some isolated thing with no real relationship to all the other stuff that happens. You will end up acting in very inconsistent ways and students will not know what to expect from you.
A philosophical framework, often called your philosophy of education, is simply, what you believe about the educational process, and how you plan to approach your classroom/students given what you believe.
I think there are two ways to approach this question: cerebrally and practically. A "philosophy of education," cerebrally speaking, is never going to remain stagnant once you enter the teaching world. As a senior in college, your level of experience with teaching likely does not exceed student teaching and internships. This is a great time for you to think about how you wish to approach the classroom, your students, the curriculum, and the entire educational process because you are the most unaffected by some of the negative sides of teaching as you will ever be. (I often wish I could find my first "Philosophy of Education" essay. It would be interesting to see what I thought the profession was all about with my college idealistic mindset.)
Personally speaking, developing your philosophy of education will at least give you a beginning goal. Then, understand, with every single year of experience, your philosophy will likely change. You will start to realize what it is really important to you in a classroom, and what things you are willing to sacrifice. If nothing else, just for you personally, this will help you keep the big picture separate from the details. (When you experience a particularly difficult day, you might forget about the big picture and allow the details to really get you down. Refocusing depends on your ability to remember your goals.)
On a practical level, however, writing your philosophy of education and keeping it updated, is a great idea. First, it will definitely come up in interview questions, in one form or another. It might even be an exact question on an application. Next, most teachers are required to obtain a number of Continuing Education Units (CEUs), or classes, each year to keep their teaching licence current. Additionally, most public schools require individual teachers to write "growth plans" each year, with specific goals detailed within. At the end of the year (especially for new teachers) principals or supervisors will use these growth plans as a means of evaluating their teachers. I found myself, in my first 2-3 years of classroom teaching, using my philosophy of education in many of my CEU classes as well as in my growth plans.