Using the Knowledge of Good Ends to Decide Appropriate Means of Education - Essay Example

?Table of Contents Introduction 2 Identifying the good ends 2 Identifying the appropriate means to realise the goals 5 The ability to make good decisions or think wisely 7 Translating knowledge into practice 9 Taking up learning as a personal responsibility 10 Conclusion 12 Student teachers’ educational judgement in the 21st century classroom: Using the knowledge of good ends to decide appropriate means Introduction The future of education depends largely on the decisions that present-day practitioners employ in mentoring future teachers. On one hand, the recent challenges seem to direct us to explore non-traditional means to resolve the issues. On the other hand, a careful review of the literature and the present practice could make us realise that after all, what we need is to revisit the prominent theories that have been employed in the past and reapply them to the present scenario. This paper provides a brief philosophical view of education to identify the good ends that mentors should aim for in their teaching education program. Guided by traditional and modern philosophy of education and the insights offered by the current literature in the field, the present paper hopes to contribute to the proposal of identifying good ends to decide appropriate means for training 21st century teachers. Identifying the ‘good ends’ ‘Good ends,’ in the teaching field are the ideal characteristics student teachers should possess in order to prepare them for the challenges in the field. Good ends would serve as guide to help mentors determine the process that student teachers should undergo during education. To identify these qualities, we take light from the wisdom of the great philosopher, Aristotle. In addition, we dig upon the current literature to reveal further insights on the qualities of an effective teacher. Coulter and Wiens (2002) explored Aristotle’s view of phronesis and related it to the desirable qualities of a teacher. According to the authors, the term phronesis may mean the same as practical wisdom or practical judgment. By practical wisdom, Coulter and Wiens (2002) mean the possession of knowledge and the ability to apply knowledge in actual terms. In their discussion of phronesis, Coulter and Wiens consider the arguments made by Hannah Arendt, a Jew philosopher who distinguishes between good thinking and making good decisions. Coulter and Wiens point out that there are teachers who possess knowledge yet are unable to transform their ideas into concrete actions, in other words, they are unable to attain phronesis as they stop in merely possessing knowledge. A review of current literature on the qualities of an effective teacher confirms the importance of knowledge or subject matter expertise as one ideal teacher quality (McNamara and Webb, 2008; Auger and Wilderman, 2000; Chickering and Gamson, 1991). However, the said sources do not reflect qualities relating to the concept of phronesis, thus confirming the lack of realisation of the difference between the possession of knowledge and its application. Coulter and Wiens (2002) articulate Arendt’s argument that to possess phronesis, teachers should be ‘judging spectators’ and ‘judging actors’ at the same time. Judging spectators are able to think and reflect on what is happening around them. They possess an understanding of occurrences, and are able to interpret these occurrences on their own. Following this, future teachers should be trained to make good judgments. This is possible if teachers will be allowed to think and decide for themselves. Krishnaveni and Anitha (2007: 28) identify the exercise of autonomy and proper decision making as a form of teacher empowerment. Thus, to promote the attitude of judging spectators, mentors should provide opportunities for student teachers to make their own decisions whether in terms of instruction, classroom management, and assessment. Moreover, teachers who are judging spectators are able to deal with ‘plurality’or the ability to coexist with others, even those from other cultures. Following this idea, we recognise Arendt’s suggestion to develop the concept of plurality amongst future teachers. However, we also acknowledge the fact that the ability to accept plurality is culture-bound. Therefore, mentors will have to work out on the student teachers’ exposure to other cultures to make them accept plurality. Following the argument on plurality, we take into account the trends in education that go against the concept of pluralism or multiculturalism, namely, individualised instruction and online education. In this form of instruction, education occurs amongst individuals without the presence of significant others, thus negating the ‘commonsensical concept of the person’ (Seery 2010: 4) as ‘a dynamic agent related to the public world’ (Wiggins cited in Seery 2010: 4). These forms of instruction do not adhere to Arendt’s concept of judging spectators due to the absence of plurality. In his article, Seery (2010) analyses how the virtual space works to change the process and value of education. He emphasises the construction of personalities that ‘not only have no physical connection to real selves but significantly can be radically different to their real origins’. In an environment such as online education program, the students may assume another person’s personality, character, values, and even race, thus neglecting the essence of accepting plurality. In this regard, virtual communities such as blackboards, social networking sites, and e-mails should not take the place of class recitation, group activities, survey, research, and other informal assessments for education students. Meanwhile, reflecting back to being judging actors, Arendt, suggests the ability to translate knowledge or judgment into actions. Such initially requires perceiving actions, even their own actions, through ‘two-in-one dialogue’. Perceiving judgments through ‘two-in-one dialogues’ may lead teachers to perform actions in line with preformed judgements. Arendt’s ‘two-in-one dialogues’ are what we call today as self-reflections or intrapersonal communication. This act involves listening to one’s opinion, assessing views, and building a final judgment. In relation to this concept of intrapersonal communication, Gadamer (cited in Cleary and Hogan 2001) claims that people learn only through conversation with oneself. Self-learning, according to him, occurs as one takes up learning as a life-long responsibility. Although inputs are provided to a person, learning will not occur instantly without the person’s ability to assimilate knowledge into the system. As such, learning occurs only when the person transmits the knowledge into the system (ie, brain, cognition). Following Gadamer’s point, we confirm that learning is a personal responsibility. The arguments posed as regards the ‘good ends’ or ideal qualities to be developed amongst student teachers are quite few; nevertheless, they provide a good lead to decipher concrete means to be employed in the teacher education area. To note, the ‘good ends’ implied by Arendt and Gadamer in their separate articles include the ability (1) to make good decisions, (2) to translate knowledge into practice, and (3) to take up learning as a personal responsibility. Making these ‘good ends’ the goals of teacher-education programs, mentors should carefully examine the means they will employ to target the goals. Identifying the appropriate means to realise the goals Subsequent to identifying goals or the ideal characteristics of future teachers is deciding appropriate means or approaches to employ to attain the expected results. In this section, we provide some suggestions to target the three ideal characteristics we have identified. To illustrate our opinions, we rely on two prominent learning theories, namely, behaviourism and constructivism. The divide between the two theories has been going on for decades. The behaviourist view, initiated by its forerunner, B.F. Skinner, posits that every behaviour can be explained by heredity and environment (Baum 1994: 7; ‘Behaviourism’ 2008). In this sense, heredity and environment play important roles in learning and motivation. In contrast, the constructivist view takes much from the views of Jean Piaget (cited in Kamii and Ewing 2006) that learners undergo accommodation and assimilation during the learning process. Exposed to new concepts, learners construct their own, relying basically on prior experiences they had. Primarily, the major difference that the constructivist view has with the behaviourist view lies in the ability of the learners to learn concepts on their own, using the depths of their own learning capacity and experience. On one hand, this ability to construct concepts on their own, shares the behaviourist view that the environment plays a significant role in learning. On the other hand, the constructivist view provides more leeway in maximising the learner’s possibility as it considers all experiences, whether conscious or subconscious to contribute to the learner’s ability. In contrast, behaviourists credit only on those behaviours that are observable to influence learning. The differences between the two theories present some implications on the way mentors would train future teachers. In particular, behaviourist teachers will tend to inhibit examples for their students to learn from and imitate, whereas constructivists will allow students to explore ideas in and outside the classroom. The former would ensure providing necessary learning and experience within the classroom through heavy discussions and review, whereas the latter would let student teachers gain insights from their own experiences in practice teaching. Moreover, behaviourists will serve as role models to their students, and make students mirror their examples, whereas constructivists will only guide the students to become the teachers that they want to be. Having explained the differences between the theoretical bases on which this paper is anchored, we will review the ideas presented by the philosophers to see which of the two theories and approaches would be more beneficial for future teachers. The ability to make good decisions or think wisely Teachers should have the ability to make good decisions for their students. As Arendt suggests in her notion of the judging spectator, teachers should have the ability to think, to use their imagination, and to recognise plurality and natality. The term ‘imagination’ according to Arendt, is the ‘visiting imagination’ or the person’s ability and willingness to explore ‘other perspectives on a matter based on their own past experience and access to other experiences through reading…or watching films’ (Coulter and Wiens 2002: 5). Teachers, as they discuss concepts and information to their students in class, allow the latter to develop the ability to think and process ideas. As such, mere discussions or lectures could be means to lead students to the partial fulfilment of the first goal. However, as Arendt notes, the visiting imagination involves the person’s willingness, thus the ability to think or conceive knowledge and decide for themselves involves the person’s free will. In relating this with the behaviourist view, we may opine that the behaviourist approach is not ideal for training teachers to make good decisions. Behaviourism suggests that people learn or possess behaviour out of heredity and environment (Baum 1994). Thus, in order to learn making good judgements, mentors should provide models to student teachers. This can be achieved through heavy discussions of case studies. For instance, in teaching about classroom discipline, mentors can present to student teachers different classroom management scenarios or samples of how other teachers dealt with disruptive students, students with learning deficiencies, and so on. Doing this will allow beginning teachers to take insights from experiences of other teachers. Likewise, mentors, as they play the powerful source of knowledge in the behaviourist environment, would serve as the model of instruction, themselves. Thus, they will show student teachers the proper classroom management styles through direct teaching scenarios or discussion. In contrast, constructivist mentors will do the opposite. Instead of relying on classroom discussions and samples, they will expose students to the real scenario, for instance, letting students observe different teachers, and learning from those observations using guidelines and reflections. Instead of merely discussing case studies and expounding on problems, mentors will let student teachers handle classes where preconceived difficulties or challenges may be met. This difference extends to the student teaching program that schools offer. To note, those who believe in the behaviourist approach would provide heavy readings to students about classroom practices, whereas programs that promote constructivist views will steep teachers into the teaching experience. Following this thought, we highlight Seery’s (2010) view regarding the ineptness of the virtual environment to provide learners with the ‘public sphere’ needed to fulfil the needs of the learners. As such, we question online education programs for future teachers due to their incapacity to provide real learning experiences that could contribute to their ability to make good judgments, apply teaching theories, and so on. Knowing the virtual community and online education are just some of the contemporary approaches that many teachers take pride on nowadays. Using online blackboards for announcement, e-mails for submission of paper, and online libraries for finding readings may work to some extent but the classroom discussion and activities, pairwork/groupwork exercise, one-on-one consultation, demonstration, and so on still remain some of the best approaches for training teachers. As Freire (cited in Fern, Anstrom, and Silcox n.d.) claims in his view of Active Learning strategy, students learn best by doing, that is, participating in exercises, working in groups, problem-solving, and role-playing. Given this, online education cannot replace classroom teaching and training specially in the teacher training field. Going back to the argument raised by constructivists, we note that the constructivist approach would better promote the teachers’ ability to make good judgements because it is through phronesis that one can attest a person’s ability to apply knowledge and theories. Translating knowledge into practice Coulter and Wiens’s main concern in their article is to guide teachers to translate knowledge into practice or practice phronesis. Taking from this, the behaviourist approach would have the students demonstrate their learning in closely observed classrooms. Importantly, the need to assess whether student teachers have learned their lessons and are ready to apply what they learned in real teaching scenarios is central to the behaviourist classroom. It is by demonstrating ideal teaching practices that mentors can assure mastery of skills. Thus, student teachers in this classroom will be asked to do mock-teaching demonstrations, sometimes mimicking the mentor or teachers from videos and other learning devices. As explained, the need for assessment is crucial, hence mentors will prepare checklists and assessment criteria so that student teachers will be properly guided to demonstrate ideal qualities. In the constructivist classroom, however, the approach is somewhat different. Constructivists view that the social learning environment is important to promote learning. The social learning environment, as Vygotsky (1978) posits, includes the more knowledgeable other (MKO), who serves as guide to the learner. The concept of the MKO in the behaviourist classroom pertains to the mentor as the source of knowledge and desirable examples. However, in the constructivist classroom, student teachers may benefit from MKOs other than their mentors. What is important in the constructivist theory is to provide students with concepts from which they can construct their own ideas or learning. As such, the MKO in the constructivist teacher-education program may include the mentors, other teachers observed in the field, practitioners and teachers that student teachers have encountered, students, media, and everything within the social environment. Notably, students in the laboratory may serve as MKOs to student teachers as they provide the day-to-day challenges to make beginning teachers construct their own ideal concepts of teaching. Experience, in this regard, is the best way to learn, and teacher programs that provide the more experiences would create more possible means to reach the end of translating knowledge into practice. Taking up learning as a personal responsibility Self-learning is everyone’s responsibility. As Gadamer claims, every person should take learning as a responsibility for life. This principle is true for every teacher. In order to ensure effectiveness in the classroom, teachers should keep abreast of the latest trends and approaches, knowledge and skills in their learning contexts. On this aspect of education, the behaviourist mentor will promote continuous learning amongst students by constantly discussing with them, assigning readings, and requiring reports. These things are inevitable part of instruction and education. Nevertheless, these activities, if done heavily, could make learners hate studying. Therefore, to realise the good end, mentors should choose readings that are relevant and interesting to students. The constructivist approach may add interest to the habit of self-learning by allowing student teachers some freedom in the process of instruction. Constructivists approach instruction in a different way by making students the centre of instruction. In his article, Peters (1967) suggest a more liberal form of education with the students as the centre of instruction. Being the centre means being the priority, thus student teachers should be made to decide for their own, what readings they want to take, so long as those are relevant to the subject matter. Allowing them to find their own reading interest and styles gives way to what Palmer (1917) promotes as ‘extensive reading’. Extensive reading entails reading based on one’s interest whereas its counterpart, intensive reading, requires student teachers to read those that will be discussed in class. The difference between the two with relevance to teaching is that intensive reading controls the knowledge or input on the learners whilst extensive reading may teach them other disciplines to which they can further apply learning. Extensive reading allows students to read according to their interest, pace and level (Collie and Slater 1987). Mentors who help build the habit and enjoyment in reading will promote the student teachers’ desire and ability to do self-learning. Likewise, extensive reading will make student teachers learn their first language more, and expose themselves to another language. Gadamer (cited in Cleary and Hogan 2001) emphasises the need to master the first language and learn a second language. Teachers should have a generally efficient way of communicating using the first language. However, to address the needs of the 21st century learners, they should also consider learning another language, that which their students use. Such will allow teachers to be “adequately prepared to work with students from diverse linguistic backgrounds” (Curran 2003: 17). Conclusion The call to address the needs of the 21st century learners could lead many teachers stumbling in the dark to find new approaches and learning theories to radically allow an emergence of new solutions and practices in the teaching field. However, a closer look at the views of philosophers such as Aristotle, Arendt, and Gadamer would provide student teachers and mentors complacency to review the theories and approaches that are currently being practiced. In fact, to develop good ends amongst future teachers, mentors can find light from Piaget’s theory of constructivism. This theory supports phronesis in that it allows students to use their free will to think wisely and creatively as Arendt suggests, to apply their knowledge as Aristotle promotes, and to value learning, as Gadamer recommends. In the constructivist learning environment, mentors can rely on the free atmosphere to lead future teachers to reach the good ends. References AUGER, W. AND WIDEMAN, R. (2000) Using action research to open the door to life-long professional learning. Education, 121, 120-127. BAUM, W. (1994) Understanding behaviorism. Oxfordshire, Marston Lindsay Ross, International Ltd. Behaviorism. (2008) [Internet]. 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