WELCOME TO MY WORLD

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WELCOME TO MY WORLD A PERSPECTIVE ON EDUCATION
By David Futter
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I am providing this presentation to you to
explain the direction my class will be heading
this year. We have met as a group and made some
decisions. We believe this is different than the
usual structure in the school and would like to
offer it up as an alternate way to enhance
learning and the development of students.
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MY PURPOSE IS TO CREATE A RESPECTFUL CLASSROOM,
WHERE LEARNING IS PARAMOUNT WHERE STUDENTS CAN
DEVELOP THE IMAGINATION TO CONTEMPLATE THE
WORLDS MAJESTY AND TO EXPLORE ITS UNTOLD
MYSTERIES AN ENVIRONMENT WHICH ALLOWS THEM TO
FOSTER FUTURE POSSIBILITIES.
TEACHERS STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
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Philosophical Undercurrents I begin from the
position that I exist as does the world around
me. This maybe self evident by the fact that you
are watching me do a presentation. However, in
education there are various philosophical
understandings on the nature of epistemology and
ontology that might contest this point. These
positions direct pedagogy, methods of instruction
and curriculum. One comes from the lineage of
Plato, one from Rousseau and from the
Durkheim. While each philosophy has its own
elements I will postulate that they have the same
undercurrent the undercurrent of Idealism. This
trend causes them to run into problems as the
beliefs are played out logically, internally and
externally. The charts on the next few pages will
hopefully provide an explanation.
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• Plato
• Believed every thing on earth had and ideal form,
  including ideas.
• Humans were expected to transform their minds to
  try to understand these perfect forms
• Education was about specific types of knowledge
  and study

• Rousseau
• Focused on the abstract individual
• Believed in the natural development of the child,
  to let it unfold like a flower.

• Durkheim
• Focused on the abstract individual
• Along with others like Comte, they believed
  education was about socialization

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INFLUENCES AND EFFECTS
Greatest antagonism between process and content
within current systems today
While I believe Plato has some sympathy with
school as socialization, he would argue the what
of education in training the mind is paramount.
Conflict arises from unrestrained or guided
growth and training for social orientation
The space in the middle is where the three
positions converge and represent the current
state of most schools and school systems. The
current emphasis in most schools in Canada is on
a Rousseauan model
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I believe there is a world out there and we can
know it. We can interact with it. We seek to
understand it. Evolution occurs in many ways for
different species. For humans while biological
adaptation was the original forming of our
species, a change occurred along with our
developing of larger brains. We began to think.
We developed language and eventually culture. The
current method of evolution, for us, is
primarily cultural. Humans used language to
understand the world around
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us. It is not a direct experience as we mediate
our understanding with ideas, values, beliefs. As
a result a human beings understanding is
embedded with and within a social, cultural and
historical context. The human brain goes through
a transformational process, but the resolution of
that transformation for humans depends on
dialectical influences. For education this
means it is fundamentally a
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social, cultural and historical process.
Education will be embedded with the philosophical
beliefs, values and ideas. Through analyzing my
own practice I can see the origins of the methods
and my own beliefs about the educational process.
Three traditions seem to be evident from the ones
presented earlier.
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From Plato, I believe content matters. Students
need something to study. I do not believe there
are specific subjects that are more important
than others. One needs to gain a certain amount
knowledge in order to develop understanding or
what Egan calls becoming an expert. Developing
expert knowledge sets up the ability to develop
mental schemes to comprehend, dissect, analyze
and reflect upon the information. The process
of moving forward is inherent in this process.
The
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process however, is not totally child centered
because the primary learning dynamic is the
relationship between teacher-student. It requires
this dynamic to allow learning to occur. The
second influence comes from Rousseaus model. He
recognizes the natural development of the child.
To some extent this is true, as there is a
development process happening within the child.
There do seem to be differences between ages
groups.
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Rousseaus theory and subsequent followers such
as Dewey, have merit in their argument of
allowing for the childs own preferences and
therefore, choice within the learning structure
should be available. Egan makes a point with his
understandings which illustrate how a childs
thinking about the world will be different at
different stages and therefore the learning
environment and methodology should reflect this
capacity. I do believe that the student
requires a guide, a compass point
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through the learning process. This fact seems to
be evident from a historical context. Thirdly,
socialization is a human process. It is how we
become acculturated into human society. I
disagree with Egan that this is not part of
education. While I do not agree with perpetuating
some rigid social order and reproducing classic
class divisions, I do believe as teachers we must
attend to the whole child development if such
is lacking in the childs life.
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AND SO...

• MY STUDENTS HAVE DECIDED TO HOLD CLASS MEETINGS
  TO DISCUSS MATTERS WITHIN THE CLASS
• THE CURRICULUM WILL BE SHOWN TO THE STUDENTS AND
  THEY WILL DECIDE WHAT TO STUDY
• THEY HAVE AGREED TO MY RIGHT TO PUSH THEIR
  THINKING TO FACILITATE LEARNING AND TO CHALLENGE
  THEIR ASSUMPTIONS AND UNDERSTANDING.
• THE PRESENTATION OF THEIR WORK WILL BE THEIR
  CHOICE, BUT WE WILL SET CRITERIA FOR THEM
  TOGETHER

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AND SO...

• WE AGREED TO WORK ON CREATING A FEAR FREE
  LEARNING ENVIRONMENT. A CHILD USE OF SILENCE IS
  HIS/HER RIGHT, BUT NOT OUT OF FEAR
• WHILE CHOICE WILL BE PARAMOUNT WITHIN THE CLASS,
  FREEDOM HAS SOME LIMITS. WE AGREED THE CHILDS
  CHOICE ENDS WHEN THEY ARE OF A DANGER TO HIS OR
  HERSELF OR TO OTHERS, IF THEY INTERFERE WITH
  OTHERS LEARNING OR MY RIGHT TO TEACH.
• TEACHING WILL AIM TO EXTEND LEARNING AND DEVELOP
  HIGHER ORDER THINKING.