The American education system has been a battleground for several opposing educational philosophies. Although this battle spans centuries and involves other Western cultures, it has been especially prominent in the United States over the past hundred years. New ideas about the psychology of learning that emerged in the last decade of the 20th century enabled the creation of new pedagogies and further deepened the conflict. Some of the competing pedagogies are: traditional conservative/classical, progressive liberal, critical, feminist, multiculturalism/centricity, and whiteness studies. Each theory/philosophy has established values ​​and ideas that it uses to further understand and prescribe educational practices. While different in many ways, they all have a number of the same determining factors: teacher, student, curriculum, methodology, learning environment, desired outcomes, and student-teacher relationship. These component elements, while present in each theory of education, are defined differently by all the philosophies and the great minds that represent them. To truly understand the social, historical, political, and philosophical roots of the problems in our education system we must carefully examine each theory. This article will focus on comparing and contrasting the ideas and definitions of traditional, liberal, and critical classical pedagogies of what it means to be a teacher and a student, as well as the methodology practiced. A teacher is cautiously defined by all three pedagogies. Classical philosophers consider the teacher to be the authority in the classroom. According to them, a teacher is a giver of knowledge and an intellectual authority figure who has the power to discipline his students and model the correct behavior he considers good... middle of paper... and an objective position and analyze each of these philosophies from a non-personal point of view. Traditional classical, progressive liberal, and critical pedagogy are just some of the philosophies that exist in our education system. Everyone observes, studies and approaches the idea of ​​school in a different way. While they have some similarities in the sense that educating individuals in society is the most important thing, they still differ significantly in their approaches to acquiring the necessary information and knowledge. The notion of teacher, student and the methodology that belongs to each philosophy are distinct for each pedagogical idea. The more we learn and analyze other component elements of different philosophies, the more we, as teachers and students, will be able to make good choices and decisions when it comes to our definition of education..