The Caring Ethic in Administration of Rural versus Urban Education - Research Paper Example

The Caring Ethic in Administration of Rural v/s Urban Education Submitted _________________ Submitted by:_________________ ____________ Institute:_____________________ Table of Contents No. Chapter Page 1 Introduction…………………………………………………….. 03 1.1 The Ethics of Caring…………………………………..…03 1.2 Moral Implications of the Caring Ethics ………………..04 1.3 The role of Elementary School Principals ……………...05 1.4 Rural v/s Urban Educational Administration…………...06 1.5 Community Based Curriculum…………………...……..07 1.6 Rationale and significance of study…………………….07 1.7 Problem statement………………………………………07 2 Literature Review………………………………………….……08 3 Discussion………………………………………………………14 4 Suggestions …………………………………………………….17 5 Recommendations……………….………………………...........18 6 Conclusion……………………………………………….….......19 References 1. Introduction It is common knowledge that the relationship between students and teachers plays an important role in learning motivation. Students gain a lot and are more productive if they perceive themselves to be a part of the educational system, viewing the teaching process as a team work that requires cooperation of students with teachers. This feeling of belongingness can be developed if the teacher is caring towards the pupils. 1.1 The ‘Caring Ethics’ The ethics of caring were initially brought to public attention by Noddings (1988) in her first work. Noddings argues that caring be incorporated in moral education given at school to children (Smith, 2004). According to Smith (2004), Noddings talks about caring at two levels: home and school. She believes that providing care to children, especially at school level can play a major role in their moral development and can eventually contribute to making better caring human beings out of students. The caring and morality theory by Noddings is based on the connection between sympathy and being attended to. The feeling of ‘being attended to’ which is a consequence of sympathy leads to ‘caring for’ and ‘caring about others’ behavior (Smith, 2004). Noddings (1988) claims that if an air of caring is created and a care based relation is developed between teachers and students, the moral development process can speeded up. The learning goals will then be achieved more naturally, since the process of transmitting knowledge will become a cooperative process rather than an interfering one for the students (Noddings, 1988). As the following review of literature and observations will enlighten, the importance of ethics of caring is being realized today by many elementary schools all over the world. The caring ethic is prevalent in traditional forms of education in some shape or another. It just needs to be refined in order to get maximum benefits out of it. 1.2 Moral Implications of the Caring Ethics Noddings (1988) is of the view that when one feels cared-for, he or she responds to it with care. This interaction leads to moral development. As the care giving relationship grows, individuals feel an urge of being moral in order to maintain that relationship which ensures a ‘good’ state. Perry (1997) believes that teaching basic conflict resolution even in an atmosphere of respect is also basic in moral development. It avoids frustration due to unresolved issues and help in retaining the ‘good’ state. Perry (1997) has suggested the following three educational initiatives that must be taken in order to enhance character building and moral development of students. These are as follows: Forming a caring community inside school where children develop a sense of belongingness. Implementing a comprehensive and multidimensional character education program in which children are given the opportunity to learn moral lessons in a variety of experiential ways. Teaching at least some basic conflict resolution strategies. 1.3 Role of Elementary School Principals A principal or head of an institute is the highest administrative authority within an educational setting. The roles associated with principals are multifaceted. They are responsible for ensuring smooth working and productivity of the school, regulating the staff, making sure the provision of required materials by the school, monitoring curricular activities and making important term related decisions throughout their tenure in any educational institute (State University, 2010). According to the state University (2010), the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) has created six standards for influencing the preparation of principals. These include: Implementation of a shared school vision, nurturing and sustaining an instructional program within and in accordance with the operational culture, managing of school operations, collaboration with families of pupils and with members of diverse groups that the school might be serving, promotion of integrity, fairness and ethics and lastly, collaboration with higher social and political powers in schooling context. Noddings’ care ethics if related to these standards, apply directly to three of these; Promotion of ethics and integrity, collaboration with families and diverse communities and developing a shared school vision. Ever since the new legislation regarding the roles of the principals, many principals report to be feeling greatly increased workload (The Principle’s role in Rural Schools, 2008). The new system and set of laws is not very supportive, not only their administrative responsibilities are kept on increasing, but the penalties and reforms regarding taking action against a principal whose performance fails to reach the fixed standards are also being expanded. 1.4 Rural v/s Urban Educational Administration There is a difference all over the world in rural and urban ways of teaching at schools. New methods and innovations are usually launches at urban level, while rural schools are quite prone at imitating the new methods (Bauch, 2001). There are also many noticeable differences in the teaching and administrating style among the two categories of educational institutes. The factor that plays role in this difference is ‘Sense of Place’ (Budge, 2006 & Bauch, 2001). Sense of place refers to a special feeling of attachment with one’s inhabiting place (Budge, 2006), which happens to be much higher in rural areas as compared to Urban areas (Bauch, 2001). The administrative style of urban and rural schools needs to be different since they are set in different settings. The goals and educational purposes of schooling that are fit for an urban culture might not be appropriate to function within a rural culture and vice versa (Bauch, 2010). According to Gruenewald (cited in Budge, 2006), having a sense of place and understanding the place is vital and basic in determining relationship with people of that place. . According to Starr and White (2008), Cited in The Principal’s Role in Rural Schools, (2008), another difference between the two administrations is that of work load that determines the operational framework for an administration. The rural population is widely distributed and rural area principals work out the administrative issues within a limited and small scale framework as compared to the principals in urban areas (Starr & White, 2008; in The Principal’s Role in Rural Schools, 2008). The same researchers point out that rural schools’ administration also faces the problem of lack of funding due to decline in resources. Therefore, the administrative processes at rural and urban level are quite different from one another due to different operational cultures in the two environments and also due to discriminative educational policy at both the levels considering the gradually spreading awareness regarding sense of space in both of the mentioned areas. 1.5 Community Based Curriculum and its Applications Budge (2006) has used a term ‘sense of space’ in her work. This sense of space means the culture, acceptance of change, values and needs of any given area. The caring ethic implies that all educational designing in an area must be in accordance to sense of space (Bauch, 2001). In easy words, sense of space refers to the social norms prevalent in an area. These must be considered when introducing or applying an educational curriculum or design in any given area. 1.6 Rationale and Significance of the Study Although there is considerable amount of existing research that investigates the ethic of caring and its educational implications in the rural educational setting but there is a scarcity of research comparing the same in urban and rural settings. According to Budge (2006) the curriculum’s accordance with ‘sense of place’ is an important contributor in achieving the educational goals in any given locality. This study aims to explore the differences that exist in practicing the caring ethic in urban and rural educational administrations, and possibly to identify the causes for these differences. It is hoped that this study will prove to be a beneficial addition to the existing pool of knowledge and will encourage further comparative studies to develop implications regarding the differential measures to be taken for the betterment of moral education in the urban and rural setting in accordance with the nature of both habitats. 1.7 Problem Statement To compare the application of caring ethics in urban and rural educational administrations. 2. Literature Review An account of some relevant research findings reviewed while conducting this study is as follows: Masumoto and Welty (2009) conducted a study in which they explored the administration of three different schools in the rural settings. The first one was the Marvin high school. This small Californian school achieved the highest API (Academic Performance Index) ranking in the rural region of the state. Interviews with the teachers and parents revealed that they share vision of student centered development and actually took pride in the performance of the school. The administration has incorporated intra and extracurricular activities in the term work to enhance a feeling of belongingness and to develop a sense of friendly competition among the students (Masumoto & Welty, 2009). This is definitely a reflection that the caring ethics are being well practiced in the institute. The students feel they are a part of the system and in trying to perform well for their school, they are learning a lot of curricular and civic tasks in a natural manner. The Roseland high school also visited by Masumoto and Welty during the study had been in program involvement status for a while. The first finding revealed that even though they had sufficient funding, they did not hire an outside consultant to bring about changes in school. This finding is in coordination with the concept of ‘sense of space’ (Bauch, 2001 & Budge, 2006). Other findings that relate to the ethics of caring include that most teachers and superintendents interviewed expressed a concern for student problems like poverty, family and health issues and were able to relate these with the academic development of the same students (Masumoto and Welty, 2009). The third school visited by the researchers was the Thomasville high. The findings revealed two important things about the school that are relevant to the community and the caring ethic. First was the divided leadership responsibility that was shared by each and every member of the staff and second was extensive involvement of the community members and parents of the students in helping improve the school system (Masumoto and Welty, 2009). This study revealed the existence of caring ethics in some rural areas of California and also brings our attention to the need of further incorporation of the caring ethics into the school activities via a more structured process to for the students benefit most from it in becoming responsible citizens. Corbett (2010) has shared some personal experiences in the article The Politics of Language in a coastal community. The article discusses the hindrances to community based curriculum and explains that language is an important one amongst these. When we talk about involving the community in curriculum and we talk about using standard language in the same project, we are causing confusion (Corbett, 2010). Language is just one issue. There have been many other researches that identify further issues in applying the ethic of caring in educational administration and in designing a community based curriculum. In a comprehensive compilation by Schafft & Jackson (2010), writings of many different educational researchers have been included which mostly reflect their concerns regarding the rural educational system and hindrances in implementing community based curriculum. These hindrances highlighted in Schafft & Jackson include Language issues (Corbett, 2010), political and economic issues, social and community based problems and problems due to globalization. Schafft & Jackson (2010) discuss the achievements of St. Mary’s Area Middle school and the underlying causes of success of this specific institution. It is located in the North central Pennsylvania which is not a densely populated region. The premises are very vast and include a lot of natural surroundings like trees, river forests etc. whatever taught in this institute is practices within the premises by the students. Schafft & Jackson report that the institution definitely addresses the community issues in an applied way and curriculum has been braided along with locally relevant opportunities. Zacharakis and colleagues (2008) conducted a study to explore the political economy of rural schools in Heartland and concluded that there was a lack of community consideration. There is an increasing trend in these areas among parents to send their children to urban schools far off for education instead of admitting them to the local school. This is also illustrated by Bauch (2001). Zacharakis reports that it is also common for the families in relatively more remote rural areas to take up some house or apartment in an urban or suburban area, and the mother and kids shift there and life there for the sake of children’s education while the father lives and earns by hard work on the same rural area from where the family belongs. This is an alarming situation because the future of rural schools is very much dependent of the sustenance of the rural communities (Zacharakis et.al, 2008). In exploring the matter further, Zacharakis further points out that student scores in academics are not an appropriate parameter to measure the efficacy of the school administration. Qualitative studies involving parent and student interaction with teachers and involvement in the academic process must be conducted in order to establish such findings. Zacharakis and colleagues (2008) concluded that principals can play most important role in this regard, therefore training workshops for principals in such areas must be devised and conducted at large scales (Zacharakis et.al, 2008). A case study research conducted by Budge (2006) examined the influence of rural sense of place on rural leadership. Some administrators and teachers belonging to rural areas involved in leadership were interviewed. Demographics life place of birth, years of rural experience etc were collected. They were asked to give account of any instances where rurality had influenced their leadership. They were also asked to relate any experiences in which they learnt that students’ experiences were related to social well being. Most respondents reported that their students lack educational aspiration because they question the application of this education to their daily lives in the rural setting. The researcher observed that even the interviewee’s talk reflected that they felt isolated from other areas of the country. Use of phrases like ‘the outer world’, ‘the bigger world’ was common. The teachers reported feeling hopeless and unenthusiastic due to a lot of people pursuing education from ‘bigger’ places. (This finding is paralleled in Zacharakis et.al, 2008). One of the administrator interviewed said that caring is of utmost importance in a school administration, and without it the schools ultimately lose their respect and status (Budge, 2006). The study has been concluded by Budge (2006) with a recommendation for a research based critical leadership reforms including the training of administrative like heads or principals. It is suggested that new leadership reforms be introduced in such areas after detailed analysis of the matter. Another concern is the speed with which modern technology is being brought into the rural setup; and its sequence. Schafft and colleagues (2006) have provided an interesting case study to elaborate this phenomenon. The study is based on a school in Ridgemont; a small, rural area of Pennsylvania that has seen a lot of development in fields of technology since 1996. The technological development started when in mid 1990’s the school hired a new curriculum director who was from outside the town. Fast speed and low prices wireless internet connections were established in and outside the schools. Most of the residents of the area now have wireless internet connections at home. It was a great effort to introduce technology via schools. This study highlights the need to used community based curriculum in rural schools. It was concluded that two factors played important role in success of this school and IT technology. First was the role of leaders (school principal, teachers, administrators and supervisors of the project) and second was lack of resistance on part of the community members to accept the change (Schafft et.al, 2006). In one study, Berkely and Thurston (1998) found out that the ethic of care is of utmost importance in creating morally string citizens and that it is easy to apply in rural communities since these are small and usually peaceable. It is easy to create a caring community at school within a small, closely interrelated rural community as compared to a vast and culturally more diverse urban residential area. Teacher’s perceptions regarding the characteristics of an ideal educator include caring and being concerned for the students (Wienstien, 1989; Rog, 1992 & Webb 1991, cited in Perry and Quaglia, 1997), yet the student’s continue to feel uncared for as far as their teachers are concerned (Perry, 1997). According to Noddings (1984), cited in Perry and Quaglia (1997), to accomplish caring requires an overt action. This leads to the question that what behaviors are perceived as caring behaviors of teachers by students? The question has conveniently been answered by Hayes et.al (1993) as cited in Perry & Quaglia (1997). Hayes and colleagues have suggested six characteristics of teachers that are actually perceived as caring behaviors by students in general. These include: teacher as a provider of fun and humor, helpful in academics, encouraging success and positive feelings, showing personal interest in students, provider of good subject content, willing to do some counseling and responsive to the student outside the classroom (Hayes et.al, 1993, in Perry & Quaglia, 1997). A study was conducted by McCraken and Barcinas (1991) to find out the differences in the characteristics of urban and rural schools and also the differences in student’s aspirations in both settings. Urban schools were reported to be having a large number of students, vast size, much more number of teachers and complex categorization in administration as compared to the rural schools, where the size of schools, number of students and teachers was much less and the administrative structures were simple (McCraken & Barcinas, 1991). Applying this study into the context of current study, it can be speculated that teachers might not be able to care for each and every students properly due to large number of students (Graue et.al, 2007). The above literature review has highlighted the problems faced by rural and urban educational administrations in trying to apply the ethics of caring. The hindrances in implications of caring ethics differ in urban and rural areas due to difference in the characteristics of population and prevalent culture among the two habitats. 3. Discussion As the observations and literature review have also revealed, there is a difference in practicing the ethics of caring among rural and urban administrations in the educational setting. The cultures, environment and needs of people in rural and urban localities are different, which calls for a different, locally applicable curriculum for each locality. The observations made during the course of current study are in accordance with the reviewed researches. The urban principal Ms. Woods for instance is more directive and dictating as compared to the two rural principals. The rural principals commonly hug the children and are soft spoken. This is supported by Berkely and Thurston (1998). The peace ability of rural settings is also verified by Schafft’s (2006) Ridgemont study in which it was concluded that one factor in advancement in the area was the lack of resistance from rural people for changes. The caring ethics involve delivering an education that is individually and collectively meaningful for the students. Explaining the process in terms of community interactional theories, Schafft and colleagues (2006) have provided a flow chart for demonstration by taking example of the case study on Ridgemont included in literature review: The above illustration by Schafft and colleagues (2006) clearly demonstrates the benefits of a community based curriculum in rural areas. It shows how important it is for the curriculum to be according to the community needs and what functions it can serve. In addition to being individually useful for students, such a well planned and designed curriculum can actually affect economy, population retention and lower the rate of out rural migrations at any given place. Perry (1997) suggests that sense of community is associated with and leads to better student teacher relationships and even better academic performance. This is vital in today’s society. According to Noddings (1988), including the ethic of care in education leads to better moral development. Children develop their moral sense and understanding based on their day to day interaction and dealings with others ( DeVries & Zan, 1994, cited in Perry 1997). It is therefore important to embed the ethics of care in their daily routine at school. Two success cases of educational administrations in the rural settings have been identified during the literature review. One is the case of St. Mary high school (Schafft & Jackson, 2010) and other is that of Marvin High school California (Masumoto & Welty, 2009). In both these cases, there are some common factors. These include environmental relevance of studies, caring attitude of teachers that is perceivable by students, lesser number of students and a developed sense of belongingness among teachers as well as students. These factors should be considered as key points in educational implications by the educational administrations in both rural and urban settings. Teacher’s training has also been stressed by some researchers (Budge, 2006; Perry & Quagia, 1997 and Zacharakis et.al, 2008). Teachers’ and principals’ training no doubt is of utmost importance in this regard, but it is equally important that this training be based on proper research and it should be differential in nature, suiting the needs and values of the community or area for which each specific training workshop is being conducted. 4. Suggestions In light of this study, following are some suggestions meant for those who wish to research and explore this topic in the future. The hypothesis must be more directional and specific in future studies to study the aspects regarding implications of the caring ethic closely. The nature of study must be exploratory, open to any new findings related to the topic during the research. Sample size must be large and representative of a greater population if possible. Sometimes, the teacher’s behavior is explicitly demonstrating care ethics bit the student might not be feeling it at all (Noddings, 1988). Noddings (1988) suggested in this regard, devising inventories that attempt to measure the student perceptions regarding care ethic. Therefore, in future, the opinions of students must also be somehow incorporated in the study. 5. Recommendations In light of all the above discussion and observations taken during the course of study, following are some recommendations to be incorporated in the implementations of the caring ethic, especially in the urban localities. The students and their parents should be involved in the educational planning process at some level. Teachers and principals must be trained in the ethics of caring since these play an important role in parent and student satisfaction with an institution. A balanced approach must be applied to solve the issue. The curriculum devised must neither be overly community based, nor be extra urbane and irrelevant to the community members. Students must be involved in the norms setting process so that a sense of belongingness is developed among them. Counseling must be encouraged in all educational settings. 6. Conclusion In light of above observations and discussion it can be concluded that there is lack of awareness regarding the caring ethics among man y educational administrations and educators do not realize the power it has. They need to be trained as to how to apply it in their administration and contribute in producing socially sensitive and morally strong individuals. It is also concluded that there are differences in application and implications of the caring ethics in urban and rural educational settings and on the whole, the caring ethics in education are more commonly being practiced in rural settings as compared to the urban settings. Further research especially that involves comparing the practice of caring ethics in urban and rural educational settings and investigating the factors underlying this difference is strongly needed to design and conduct some training on the administrative level in this regard. References Bauch, P. (2001). School-community partnerships in rural schools: Leadership, renewal, and a sense of place. Peabody Journal of Education, 76(2), 204-22 Budge, K. (2006, December 18). Rural leaders, rural places: Problem, privilege, and possibility. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 21(13), 1-10. Retrieved from http://jrre.psu.edu/articles/21-13.pdf on October 18th, 2010. Graue, E; Hatch. K; Rao, K & Oen, D. (2007). The wisdom of class size reduction.[Abstract]. American educational research journal. Retrieved from: http://aer.sagepub.com/content/44/3/670.abstract on October 18th, 2010. McCraken, J.D & Barcinas, J. T. (1991). Differences between rural and urban schools. Journal of research in rural education, Vol.7, No. 2, pp.29-40. Masumoto, M., & Brown-Welty, S. (2009). Case Study of Leadership Practices and School-Community Interrelationships in High-Performing, High-Poverty, Rural California High Schools. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 24(9), 1-18. Noddings, N. (1988). An ethic of caring and its implications for instructional arrangements. American Journal of Education. Vol. 96, No. 2, pp.215-230. Perry, C.M & Quaglia, R. J. (1997). Perceptions of teacher caring. Teacher education quarterly. Retrieved from: http://www.teqjournal.org/backvols/1997/24_2/1997v24n208.PDF on October 18th, 2010. Schafft, K.A & Jackson, A.Y (2010), Rural education for the twenty-first century: Identity, place and community in a globalizing world (pp. 115-131). University Park, PA: Penn State Press Schafft, K. A., Alter, T. R., & Bridger, J. C. (2006, July 17). Bringing the community along: A case study of a school district’s information technology rural development initiative. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 21(8). Retrieved from http://jrre.psu.edu/articles/21-8.pdf on October 18th, 2010 Smith, M. K. (2004). Nel Noddings: the ethics of care and education. The encyclopedia of informal education. Retrieved from: www.infed.org/thinkers/noddings.htm on October 17th, 2010. State University. (2010). School Principal: The role of elementary and secondary school principals. Education encyclopedia. Retrieved from: http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2333/Principal-School.html on October 16th, 2010. The Principal’s Role in rural schools. (2008). Articles base. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/the-principals-role-in-rural-schools-665202.html on October 18th, 2010. Thurston, L.P & Berkeley, T.R. Morality and the Ethic of Care: Peaceable Rural Schools, Caring Rural Communities. Rural Special Education Quarterly, Vol.17, No.3, p.71-79. Read More