Teaching as an Act of Hope for a Better Perspective and Future - Essay Example

Final integrating paper. Vision and Strategies Teaching is an act of hope for a better perspective and future. The rewards of teaching are neither ostentatious nor obvious, they are often internal, invisible, and of the moment. It is clear that the reward of teaching is simple knowing that your life commits a difference. Educational reform depends not on teachers who have vision but on teachers with vision. In order to produce change one must also formulate realistic and creative strategies for implementing one's vision. No matter how noble the vision is it is useless without some concrete strategies for putting that vision into effect. The work of a teacher, his/her own human shortcomings, the current state of our society, and the present culture of the school environment also provide powerful distractions to me in truly realizing the potential of my vocation as a teacher - barriers that seem to prevent me from truly living the vision of education that I profess. I am often asked: Why teach when you could do something more profitable Isn't teaching beneath your skill and intelligence I need to answer this question and focus more directly on articulating and implementing my vision in order to be in harmony with myself and my vocation. For, if the vision is superficial or hazy, the effectiveness of the teaching as well as the vocation as teacher is in serious jeopardy. Vision can be better understood, more focused, and more concrete if one concentrates on the component parts and their interaction. If we imagine the vision graphically the outer border of the "construct" indicates the parameters of the vision since every vision has some limit of expansion. Setting the boundaries is important because the clearer the boundaries, the clearer the vision. If they are obscure, the vision will be vague and diffuse. The model can encompass three primary internal components of vision: energy, ideals, and values. Each of these internal components is pointed toward the center, the form of the vision. At this point we encounter the intrusion of "current reality," the other primary, but external, element of the "vision". Thus, "current reality" confronts or collides with the three other primary components. This produces either internal "conflict" or 'choices", i.e. the external expression of the resolution of the confrontation in some decisive way. When the teacher operates out of choices, he/she moves toward "current reality" with "vision". If the teacher fails to make a decisive choice, the inner conflict that one experiences usually results in delusion. The various essential components of the educator's vision and my as well are explained below. Energy is the first component. It is the most basic part of the human personality and may be described as an inner drive, impulse, desire, or personal ambition. Energy denotes psychological force or power, and it is considered to be the most primitive of the human personality functions. Ideals connect the individual to a "higher order." These include the part of the human personality that dictates rules and regulations and establishes ethical and moral thinking. In psychoanalytic theory, this would be referred to as the "super ego" with its two component parts: "conscience" (that which presents taboos and punishes) and "ego ideal" (that which offers sanctions and rewards). For Parker Palmer for example, an ideal for the teacher should include "creating a space in which obedience to truth is practiced" (1998, p.12). Ideals can sometimes conflict with energy desires, particularly in the area of moral decision-making. Values present the next component. They define what I most cherish about life and what I most treasure in my vocation as a teacher. Values can be inherited from parents, religious sources, culture, or personal growth. Values frequently include portions of ideas listed under energy and ideals yet values tend to be an entity in themselves. Values can include both tangible and intangible objects which symbolize personal fulfillment and gratification for the individual. Some values develop intellectually while other values are more intuitive in origin. I fully agree with W. Ayers that "values cannot simply be tacked on, but must be explicit, obvious, and embodied in the daily life of the school" (1993, p. 134). The first three components of the "vision construct" represent internal dynamics. Current reality in its turn is engagement with the external world and, since vision does not exist in an internal vacuum, it forms an indispensable part of the "vision". Current reality can be positive or negative (or both, as is usually the case). Without regard to current reality, our vision is only a delusion or fantasy. True vision always contends with current reality which may in itself be supportive to or confrontational with one's vision (or, perhaps, both supportive and confrontational). Current reality clarifies what is really going on and will affect how energy must be invested in managing life, my vocation, and my teaching. Current reality can seriously affect an unprepared for it teacher. For example my teaching practice shows that when the classroom proves to be somewhat unpredictable when issues from "out there" become enacted "in here", when teaching is more exhausting, demanding, and uncertain than ever imagined, a teacher becomes frustrated. Conflict is also often inevitable in unpredicted situations. Energy, ideals, values, and current reality all have power in and over our lives as educators. When energy, ideals, values, and current reality confront each other, we need to respond; and that response can be either productive or destructive depending upon, how we use the conflict. Conflict is not necessarily bad or destructive; rather, the resolution of conflict may be either productive or destructive depending upon the way of dealing with it. It is worth saying that life visions of all conflicts need to be explored and articulated by the teacher. Choices play an essential part in the vision formation as well. A choice is a positive expression of energy that attempts to manage the external environment. Everything I do requires a choice. I may feel overwhelmed by current reality, particularly when it conflicts with my internal values; however, I always have a choice and, indeed, make a choice. Not all choices are equally good, the choices may be conscious or unconscious, strong or weak, positive or negative, aggressive or passive, professional or unprofessional - but everything that one does is a choice, even if it is not to make a choice. In fact, I know that teachers frequently choose not to make a choice in the exercise of their teaching. To form better choices, we need to be brought to the conscious and reflective level of our being. Thus, vision is the projection of the teacher as self which incorporates personal wants (energy), needs (ideals), and values, thus allowing one to function productively in the external world. Vision is both a projection of the self into the future and a current frame of reference from which all of life is judged and evaluated. If one's vision is weak, each of the various components can be examined in order to determine which might need further development. Delusion is not a part of the "vision", but it represents what often happens when vision becomes obscure and my energy, ideals, and values are in a state of inner conflict. When vision loses touch with current reality, it becomes delusional. This is why current reality is such an important component to consider, even though, and particularly because, it is an external dynamic. Unfortunately, as theorists assert, many teachers who begin their teaching vocation with an integrated vision eventually lose touch with current reality. Such vision is not vision at all; it is only delusion. Now it is time to point out the strategies for implementing vision. The strategies for implementing vision are included in the "vision" under the point of "choices". This dynamic process was vividly discussed, and I can conclude that integrity requires that an educator discerns what is integral to his/her selfhood, what fits and what does not - and that he/she chooses life-giving ways of relating to the forces that converge within the personality. There are no specific "homemade" strategies that can be offered to every teacher for every situation. In fact, strategies, if they are to be effective, must be personalized and particularized for each individual teacher and for each individual circumstance. That is why I personally asked myself where to find these strategies. There are as many different ones as there are textbooks on teaching and administration, teaching manuals, and articles about instruction. The number of possible strategies is, therefore, countless. The task, then, is to determine the appropriate and life-giving strategies that serve as productive means to implement one's personal vision. In formulating and articulating strategies the point to begin is by critical examination of one's current professional practice, and then, through the art of reflective practice, to determine which strategies lead toward vision and which strategies lead toward delusion. Those that are leading toward delusion need to be replaced or revised. The Ayers' text may provide us with some ideas for formulating or reformulating strategies that might lead to vision. An educator is encouraged to seek out other educational authors and sources for additional examples of strategies that might be used in implementing one's vision. To finish with the vision and strategies I should say that when it comes to formulating a vision, we never actually "get to the destination point". That is to say, the vision construct is always in process and is subject to constant revision and renewal. This is because no matter how well thought out my vision may be external reality is always in a state of flux. A static vision is no vision at all. Likewise, teachers' strategies for implementing vision must also be subject to constant revaluation. Strategies that may have been highly successful for a teacher in the past might no longer be appropriate or effective in the present situation under the present circumstances. Again, the fluid nature of external reality dictates that we must be open to a change of strategy in order to be faithful to our vision. In the process of reading assignments and personal teaching experience I came to the following conclusions. I believe that education has social and individual benefits on a person. Education transmits the general culture, promotes social and group relationships, and encourages social change. It guaranties caretaking, giving some definite social status, providing a delayed entry into the job market and sometimes racial segregation. While schools advantage individuals, they exist to benefit the society in general. About human nature, I believe that it impacts the metaphoric visions of school, i.e. by comparing and contrasting these three dominant institutional metaphors for schools, it can readily be seen how people with different images of the school find it difficult to agree on both the means and the aims of schooling. Human nature provokes each school to personify some elements of all of these metaphors listed above and, yet, it is clear that schools are formal organizations characterized by management, leadership, and a reward structure. But they must be and in most cases are communities, where teachers are not only transmitters of knowledge but of great moral influence as well. Students are unpredictable human beings, so a good teacher must be a designer constantly applying thought and action based on professional expertise and the particular situation of the moment. Educators are expected to draw upon their own expertise and transmit specialized knowledge to learners. The most important thing taught in schools today is academic knowledge tightly connected with morality, spirituality and vocation development. Students also learn to interact with people from different social, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. The learning takes place by following precise step-by-step procedures and by applying certain treatments to the student, but regardless of this and the quality of the educational materials the teacher is still called upon to make important on-the-spot decisions every day in and outside the classroom. Academic knowledge combined with morality and vocation brings an individual benefit very important for students such as preparation for their workplace. The economic survival of every society depends upon the availability of people to perform various kinds of work needed. As The Moral Life of Schools project showed, the school's major functions are to prepare young people to take on the diverse job roles and impact their moral development. About classroom discipline, I believe that teachers' main task is to define and defend the boundaries of the learning space, have no fear to seem ignorant and be able to create favorable conditions for students to ask questions for truth's sake. False classroom behavior detracts from and interferes with the educational progress of others. This should be prevented. From the teaching experience comes the conclusion that the teacher should apply particular major ethical principles such as freedom of thought, truthfulness, worthwhileness, respect for appropriate diversity or tolerance, due process in matters of grading and discipline, social justice, fair distribution of scarce educational resources, including the teacher's time and attention, equality of educational opportunity, fairness, respect and responsibility. The ideal classroom should encourage and promote individual self-inquiry and group inquiry, teachers and students must be involved in a search for truth, the classroom should be characterized by a spirit of shared inquiry and discovery learning. Getting over the notion that teaching is the set of techniques or disconnected methods by methods of creative insubordination, self-criticism and finding allies brings mystery and greatness to the education. The morality and character development of students is a serious task for educators, requiring a steady positive moral outlook of the teacher. Moral instruction and moral practice are the two basic methods to encourage moral behavior of students. Teacher's introduction of moral subject matter that has nothing to do with the lesson at hand is usually triggered by a breach of moral conduct that cannot be ignored. For example teacher's praise or blame is the course. The challenge for educators is to offer children guidance and support in shaping their vocational dreams, to develop their positive character features and talents, and this way to improve the whole society. In this case an ideal teacher can be only the person who lives in vocation and subordinates one's self for the good of others, students and society. The purpose of discussing education in terms of the various benefits and expectations of schooling is to come to a deeper evaluation of the difficulties that are present in attempting to achieve consensus in society about education and the way it should be altered or preserved. Read More