Critical Perspectives on Teaching and Learning - Literature review Example

Critical Perspectives on Teaching and Learning Name Institution Introduction Schools have been in existence for many years and can be traced to learning establishments where scholars passed knowledge to other generations through books and storytelling. These establishments are the foundation for modern schools. The current education system is competitive because it focuses on attracting high-quality teachers, modernizing the teaching profession, developing national curricula, standardizing evaluation processes and (Hargreaves, Earl & Ryan, 2003; Nordgren, 2012; Stewart, 2011). Modern schooling assigns the teacher the role of assimilating knowledge from diverse sources and then disseminating this knowledge to students. One school of thought is that the purpose of schooling is to provide knowledge that can help children and the youth transition to adulthood. Opposing schools of thought argue that schooling reproduces social structures (social justice approach), or can be viewed as financial investments (economist perspective). The common thread in these different perspectives is that schooling is important because it equips individuals with knowledge and non-technical skills (such as critical thinking) for the labor market and life. This paper provides a critical perspective on the purpose of schooling and the reasons why schools are important to modern society. Evolution of the Purpose of Schooling There are divergent opinions on the purpose of schooling. Different authors have asserted different backgrounds on the development and need for schooling. For instance, Hamilton (2014) theorized that schools could be traced to the medieval age. His analysis of Smith-Stow relationship reveals that modern schooling arises from three pedagogic ephocs. The first epoch is the period when pedagogy was individualized and focused on the learner’s processing. The second epoch occurred during the 1840s when the pedagogy that was dominant at the time focused on processing a group of learners instead of focusing on individualized learning. The dominant pedagogic approach was influenced by the industrialized revolution and the need to develop batches of learners. The third pedagogy commenced in the 1890s when practices for pedagogy shifted to individual differences and the role of schooling to emphasize these differences. This nineteenth-century approach elaborated the simultaneous learning approach and elementary schooling. This shifted to revolutionary change were schooling shifted from batch processing approach to individualized learning (Hamilton, 2013). This nineteenth-century approach towards individualization aimed to meet the intellectual, physical, and social development needs of early adolescence. According to Hargreaves, Earl, and Ryan (2003), early adolescence represents a period of uncertainty, self-reflection, and rapid change. These characteristics cause pain and exhilaration for many children. Schooling was therefore individualized to meet the development needs of adolescents. Furthermore, the purpose of schooling gained momentum between the nineteenth and twentieth century in Western society. This period was characterized by economic and technological turbulence. Economies were becoming more uncertain and flexible, technologies were growing in complexity, and organizations were changing their bureaucratic cultures to flexible or fluid cultures. Nations began worrying about their identities as borders became less relevant and people relied on themselves more. The diversity of populations as well as changes in individual lifestyles created a period of excitement and turmoil during the transition (Hargreaves, Earl & Ryan, 2003). The feelings during this transition represent the changes that adolescents undergo during their development. Transitional Approach to the Purpose and Need for Schooling Educators identified the periods in life that cause excitement and turmoil and used this information to identify the transitional period for schooling for educational reform. The educators acknowledged that secondary schools were not responsive to the transitional needs of their adolescents. This is because the schools were initially small academies that taught specialized subjects to the elite youth. Majority of the youth were therefore excluded from this transitional assistance during their adolescence. Educational reforms changed the role of secondary school systems from elite-specialized learning to factory-like mass-education systems. The mass education system resembled a factory because students were processed in batches, separated into classes (age-based cohorts), and instructed from standardized curricula (Hargreaves, Earl & Ryan, 2003, p. 1951). This factory-like system characterizes modern schooling. The schooling style today applies mechanical factory systems such as batch processing, specialized bureaucracy and division of labor. Secondary schooling today involves instructing adolescents using standardized courses of instruction through lecturing or recitation. In both instances, instructors emphasize note-taking and set aside learning time for question-and-answer sessions. This postmodern schooling has undergone significant reforms as educators try to organize curriculum and teaching (Nordgren, 2012). For instance, educators have introduced flexible instructional approaches to meet the diverse learning styles of the students. They have also attempted to make assessment strategies more authentic by using different assessment methods and to make segregation based on age seamless by placing students in heterogeneous groups. These transitions are important because they have modified the role of schooling concerning organization, assessment, curriculum, and learning (Hargreaves, Earl & Ryan, 2003). Based on the above assertions, the purpose of schooling (elementary and secondary) is to influence the transitional period for adolescents. This schooling helps students to create a sense of their lives before and after their transition into adolescence. Schooling helps students to understand and manage the transition with the support of administrators and teachers. This support includes the development of curriculum that meets the transitional needs of adolescents and the application of innovative assessment strategies that focus on the learning process for transitional schooling years (Hargreaves, Earl & Ryan, 2003). Caution must be applied in this transition because there is a risk of developing a passive learning purpose in schools. Whilst educators are increasingly becoming concerned with improving and assessing educational standards, the outcome of this concern has been changes to the education policy with specific focus on knowledge acquisition, teaching, the establishment of national curricula, and the development of standardized assessments (Crick, 2012). The concern here is that the changes adopt a top-down approach where students become the recipients of knowledge and the teachers become the knowledge disseminators that must engage the learners. This top-down transition creates passive engagement culture since schools are more focused on teaching students to memorize concepts, information, and rules. The challenge with this passive approach is that it does not teach learners how to cope with life issues or to apply knowledge in complex situations (Crick, 2012). A solution is to develop educational policies that change the need for schools from passive engagement to deep engagement. Deep engagement is necessary for an individual to acclimatize to the globalized world. This engagement practice encourages learners to develop their personal identities and participate in knowledge creation. Deep engagement also causes learners to become intentional participants and contributors to social processes. However, this practice is threatened by two key issues namely, politics in curriculum development and classroom constancy (Evans, 2012). Politics in curriculum development have hindered the reform process. One political issue is the choice of curriculum style (critical theorist, holistic, linear and laissez-faire) (Miller, 2011). For example, critical theorists focus on teaching children about social injustices and advocate for social transformation in schools while linear thinkers prefer setting structures and creating order to develop an efficient education system. The challenge for politicians and educators is how to balance the different curriculum ideologies during policy development (Hawley & Jordan, 2014). Social Justice Approach on the Purpose and Need for Schooling The purpose of schooling can also be explained from a social justice standpoint. This perspective looks at schooling as the establishment of equitable educational system for everyone. For instance, White and Cooper (2014) define schooling as the education process that is provided by educational institutions. This education does not occur in schools alone. The authors argue that the perspective that schooling provides an education to help prepare students for life and work is problematic. This is because the purpose of schooling is solely not to prepare students for life complexities and decisions. A social justice perspective looks at schooling as a reproduction of dominant cultural values. Schooling replicates societal patterns. It replicates the transition to globalized policies where standardization of processes is becoming increasingly important. Schooling has become more standardized in terms of procedures, processes, evaluation, and assessments. This standardization illustrates the evolution of the educations system due to societal changes brought about by globalization, population diversity, homogeneity of global markets, market expansion, and the widening gap between the poor and the rich. Societal evolution has made it necessary for educators, students, administrators and other stakeholders to become involved in designing the social futures of students. Their involvement is necessary because globalization has shifted the purpose of schools to the creation of value to the market. For example, the education agenda for the Asia Pacific Economic Consortium (APEC) has changed the purpose of schools to institutions that are open to businesses, foster competition in the marketplace and train students to reach industry-based economic goals (White & Cooper, 2014). The social justice perspective helps stakeholders to adopt a transformative approach to schooling. This transformation is caused by the superimposition of corporate values on the educational system. To achieve effective transformation, educators and corporations would need to address their ideological differences and any threats to school culture manipulation. Once these issues are addressed, educators and corporations could create a partnership that replicates marketplace values in schools, promotes social justice through equity of learning, and supports the democratic development needs of students at local and international level (White & Cooper, 2014). One area of concern in social justice is that schooling just reproduces structures of social inequality. Some scholars posit that schooling replicates structures in the society such as open competition and achievement. However, this replication does not provide any benefits to children from low-income households. According to Harber and Mncube (2011), schools replicate the social and economic systems for individuals. This means that children from low-income households attend poor schools and get poorly paid jobs or become unemployed. Only a small percentage of these poor children succeed in gaining well-paid jobs. Political elites in developing countries take their children to private schools to retain their family position in the society. The replication of social and economic systems in the education system reveals that schools serve a role in perpetuating social inequalities. Another school of thought is that in addition to reproducing social inequality, schooling has also worsened the lives of people in the community. Schools replicate violence that is perpetuated outside the education system and causes harm to the society. Learners are active perpetrators of this violence and are not protected from violence in the society (Harber, 2009). These schools of thought oppose the notion that schooling serves an important purpose in poverty alleviation. The main lessons from these opinions are that schooling can also reproduce social ills such as inequality, violence, and authoritarianism by political elite. Educators should therefore not take it for granted that schooling serves a positive purpose. They need to understand and appreciate the struggles that nations have in providing democratic, peaceful, and safe schooling environments for learners. Economist Approach to the Purpose and Need for Schooling The economist perspective also provides a different meaning to the purpose of schooling. This perspective looks at schooling as financial investments. Economists view students as individuals that spend time and money to acquire consumption and wealth in their future (Oreopoulos & Salvanes, 2011). This economist approach helps explain the behavior of the labor market and simplifies models of microeconomics and macroeconomics by decreasing the number of parameters. It views schools as financial investments that need to make financial returns for stakeholders. This approach is different from the traditional investment perspective that perceived schooling as black box where individuals entered and gained one-dimensional skills for productivity. In contrast, economists acknowledge that schooling creates diverse experiences and develops multi-dimensional skills to help individuals succeed in the labor market and in life. An economist approach therefore teaches that the purpose of schooling is to help individuals make effective decisions about their work, family, marriage and health. Economists also argue that schooling is important because it affects consumption value. Schooling influences preferences and causes individuals to become goal-oriented, risk averse and more patient. In addition, schooling is needed because it lowers the probability of unemployment or the need for welfare among workers. This reduced risk has positive nonpecuniary effects on the self-esteem and mental health of individuals that have gone through the education system. Conversely, lack of schooling produces nonpecuniary effects such as loss of income, lower job status, higher stress levels, reduced mental health, and higher risks of unemployment Schooling also plays an important purpose external to the labor market. For instance, schooling develops skills in individuals such as medical skills to help doctors to treat sick people. Schooling is important because it equips individuals with knowledge-based skills to perform technical duties as well as social and critical thinking skills to interact, communicate, and solve life problems. These skills are useful for society because they distinguish between those who learned acceptable behavior in schools to those with unacceptable behavior. The strong correlation between social skills and critical thinking, and schooling could be attributed to the lessons learnt in class such as interacting with classmates, writing essays, and completing assignments. Schooling is therefore important because the development of these skills makes students more attractive to potential employers as well as social networks such as marriage partners. Furthermore, empirical evidence shows that schooling makes individuals more competitive marriage partners, has lower divorce rates, delay childbirth and have fewer children (Oreopoulos & Salvanes, 2011). These non-pecuniary returns reflect the importance of schools outside and within the labor market. Conclusion The paper has shown that there are different schools of thought on the purpose of schooling. From the transitional approach, schooling serves an important purpose in helping adolescents to transition to adulthood. From a social justice approach views, schooling serves an important purpose by replicating social structures. The lesson from this approach is that schooling reveals social inequalities that affect life transitions for children from poor backgrounds. Lastly, economists confirm that schooling creates economic value by equipping individuals with multi-dimensional skills from the labor market. A critical analysis of different literature on the purpose of schooling is that the three perspectives acknowledge the importance of schooling for the society and for individual development. References Crick, R.D. (2012). Deep engagement as a complex system: Identity, learning power and authentic enquiry. In C. S. Reschly and C.A. Wylie (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Student Engagement (pp.675-694). New York: Springer. Hamilton, D. (2013). Towards a theory of schooling. New York: Routledge Revivals. Harber, C. (2009). Toxic schooling: How schools became worse. Nottingham: Educational Heretics. Harber, C., & Mncube, V. (2011). Is schooling good for the development of society? The case of South Africa. South African Journal of Education, 31(2). 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