Transcript Session One
Session One Introduction • • • • Website Email List Syllabus Assign Topics • What are some issues that you feel are currently facing education- List three • Examine f they match he syllabus John Dewey • Was opposed to traditional educational practices • He saw them as imposing learning on children • Focused on textbooks and passing on information rather than teaching children to think • Focused on standards and rules • Limited creativity • Taught conformity • He thought that schools were structured through and unnatural patterns of organization – – – – Strict time schedules Rules of order Classification of individuals Opposite a natural organizations like a family Dewey’s Philosophy • Rather than imposition from above is cultivation of individuality • Rather than external discipline is free activity • Rather than learning from texts and teachers is learning through experience • Rather than learning isolated skills and techniques by drill and practice, is gaining skills by ends that make direct connections • Rather than preparing for a remote future to making the most of opportunities of present life • Rather than preparing for a static life, prepare for a constantly changing world • Dewey believes that traditional schools try to impose values of a mature person on a immature learner that is not ready to learn them • All education causes some type of experience, Dewey believes that often traditional education produces experiences that have negative affects. Those opposed to Dewey • The purpose of education is to improve Humankind • WE cannot discover the difference between bad and good in a laboratory or through an experiment • Governments improve not by forcing programs through schools, but by improving the citizens that make up the country • Man by nature is free, in order for him to succeed, he needs discipline. • Education must recognize that values are necessary part of societies • A liberal education is for everybody • An education is not for training for a better job, but for becoming a better person • Liberal education of the young is all about teaching them the habits, ideas and techniques they will need to continue to educate themselves throughout their lives. • You can only be a good citizen once you have developed your intelligence • Learning does not stop once you become an adult Conclusion Dewey’s critics • Intellectual training – Feel the focus on social emotional detracts from intellectual mission of the schools Dewey• Social-emotional growth – Can not develop intelligence without developing social emotional Adler vs. Holt • Mortimer Adler feels that democracy is best served when public schools have a uniform curriculum objectives for all students • John Holt feels that imposed curriculum damages the individual and usurps a basic human right to select one’s own path of development Adler • Paideia proposes one curriculum that would be used for everyone • Some basic components of this include the following • Increased preschool education • Common objectives for all children which included – Opportunities for personal development – All children become full fledged citizens – When grown all children will work • To achieve these objectives, schooling must be general and liberal • One single 12 year course of study • One elective- what world language(modern) • No specialization, no electives • There would be organized into three main columns of teaching and learning – Acquisition of organized knowledge – Develop intellectual skills – Enlarge the understanding of ideas and values • • • • • !2 years of Physical education Homework Good teaching Learning needs to be active Teachers must help students process discovery John Holt • Children should have the right to decide what they want to learn, by whom, when and how much they should learn • Each of us has the right to control our own learning • Why should children be forced to go to school, do homework when adults are not forced • Children should control their own right to educate themselves, should control what and when something goes into their mind • Schools are terrible institutions, far worse than many institutions than any on the outside • Teachers are given too much power, no one should have that much power • Schools are completely authoritarian • The law in this country is beginning to see schools in this light Behaviorism Vs. Humanism B.F. Skinner • Proponent of behaviorism • Carl Rodgers • Believed in the human side of of motivation Behaviorism • When a behavior is followed by a consequence that is reinforcing it will induce the behavior • A hot person gets reinforced by coolness when they go into the shade • If the behavior is first associated with a stimulus you can change a behavior operant conditioning • Negative reinforcement is the removal of a negative. If you get a A, you will not have to take out the trash • Are people free if they are controlled by reinforcers? • What about salaries, gifts ? • Skinner believes that all effective causes of behavior lie outside the body Rodgers • Believes in psychotherapy • Freedom to do what is needed is an dinner thing • Everything can be taken from a man except for his ability to choose his attitude • Man has the ability to choose and is free