This blogg references Jane's rural scenario. "She feels the students don't want to do her work, and that her classes are at times difficult to control. To add to this she has found the community challenging, and at times some parents have seemed openly hostile to the school".
With reference to one of the scenarios, how might knowledge of the philosophy and history of education help you understand your role?
Jane's scenario.
Having experienced a year long posting in a previous retail business to a rural community I can easily understand Jane's feelings. The research I uncovered in relation to the rural postings reflects an understanding in the academic community of the scope of issues that are being tackled. What's stated in Boylans (2003)pg8 paper was that out of eleven universities in NSW only one was offering rural content for education coarse. I had an arha moment then no wonder rural communities are having such a hard time. Now I thought well what they need to do is start taking students out to do practical experience and thats what the Hudsons(2008) did, their report showed that yeah a simple exercise in hands on development helped change the attitudes of preservice teachers so that they were better equip to make employment selection.
I used to think teaching was.
Teacher+student+classroom+curriculum=school
Looking at the scenario in the scope of her career however unpacks so many issues, this could be just one school of many after all it's a job and if your not comfortable you should move on, certainly if your not doing any good. But if you read the scenario carefully you'll see that there is room to move in her approach, thats where the philosophy of teaching come's into play. Jane can change the work, she can implement different lesson. Jane can have the parents respond to what they believe needs to happen so she has a better understanding of the community.
How might knowledge of the philosophy and history of education help you understand your role?
I certainly had feelings about what type of teacher I wanted to be, I think that I understood what the role was in context of the community. This was all before I actually started educating my self in the philosophy and history of education. I'd like too think at the very least it would make me a better teacher (optimist), of coarse the pessimist in me says I'm just part of the industrial machine making more gogs.(the realist in me is typing).Mostly I'm feeling like I'm joining a relay race that's already started and I will never see the end of, just the people I participate with.
I think it's helped me feel good in knowing that the field is evolving beyond what I experienced. I believe that we grad dippers are being trained to be better teachers then then our predecessors. Our Education of the profession/Trade it's history and philosophy helps me understand the teaching environment's we are entering and hopefully will help me with my career.
I'm aligning my own philosophy's and beliefs into existing frameworks this is saving a lot of thinking time which I'm sure is why they do it.
My own basic philosophical belief is that education should be presented to all pupils equally without restraint's imposed by race, economic status, religious beliefs or political views and we educators must strive to be relevant and have a objective view of the past.
Understanding my role?
Not every school is going to be the same nor is the communities or students, philosophy's good and all but I'd rather make up my mind on the job (I could be developing unrealistic expectations of my self).
The nine provocations
Should we teach students or subjects?
When I'm presented with a student that wants to learn more I'll teach them more otherwise I will endeavour to deliver the subjects in a fun provoking manner.
How will I control my students?
I think understanding my limits will help a lot in the class room as well as having mechanism to implement when that happens rather then just say I don't know lets move on.
Thanks
Mike, love the way you give us insight into your own personal philosophy. We are, as grad dippers, all working out our place in the 'relay race', deciding what we believe and having our own seemingly concrete ideas and goals constantly shook and questions in this course. Are we ready to teach?? I almost feel like looking up to the sky and whispering WHO AM I(ala Zoolander)
ReplyDeleteIn this course we are being given the tools to understand our students; their cognitive level, their ability to learn, and what and how motivates them. But what is interesting is that all these tools we can use to evaluate ourselves. Indeed, it is drummed into us that if we want to be good and successful teachers, we need to re-evaluate ourselves constantly. Blooms taxonomy, Hermans Index, and Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development are just three methods we can use to better understand both our students and ourselves. It would seem that the example of Jayne is to show us all that sometimes if we hit a roadblock in our teaching, rather than blaming the students and environment, the best thing to do is look within our selves and our pedagogy to find the reasons why it isnt working. As young teachers, this can be more than a little confronting.
"...we educators must strive to be relevant and have a objective view of the past." The word STRIVE here is the key. It seems that if get to a point in our teaching where we are not striving for something, pushing ourselves to learn about how profession/trade, then how can we expect our students to strive in their own learning. In his article "The Heart of a Teacher" Palmer uses the student example of how to describe a 'bad' teacher:
"Their words float somewhere in front of their faces, like the balloon speech in cartoons."
These teachers remove themselves from not only their subjects, but also their students. They lose heart. The either stopped, or never started, to strive to be objective.
Thanks mate, a great and personal reflection!