Education needs to prepare students to have understanding of themselves, of their relationships to others, to have an ability to make good moral and other judgements and to act on these. If education ...has a role to play in the alleviation of the crises facing the world, then there is some urgency in reflecting on what kind of education is needed in order to prepare young people to tackle these many crises. It is our contention that the major problem with modern education is that it has forgotten that its main task is helping students to learn to be wise. That is, in considering the aims of education, it is proposed that it is wisdom which is the main aim of education. This will be so whatever level of education we are discussing, though much of our discussion refers to higher education.
This article offers an account of the understanding citizens need in order to justify moral principles in the public sphere and it identifies an important role for moral education in the promotion of ...that civic understanding. I develop this account through a contrastive analysis of Phillip Kitcher's conception of public knowledge and Jurgen Habermas' Discourse Ethics. Kitcher is focused on the social conditions necessary for the circulation of scientific knowledge in advanced democracies; the analysis offered in this article expands on what Habermas and other deliberative democrats claim are epistemic conditions necessary for the construction and circulation of moral understanding. I use this account to critically assess public policy that aims to 'get around' public deliberation by using strategies derived from behavioral economics in order to shift civic behavior in specific (moral) directions. Finally, I specify how such strategies have the potential to undermine moral understanding in the public sphere and I argue for a central role for moral education in mitigating such effects.
We begin by arguing that curriculum development should start with aims rather than, as is typically the case, with subjects. We, therefore, ask what might be the fundamental aims of school education. ...We conclude that they are twofold, namely, to enable each learner to lead a life that is personally flourishing and to help others to do so too. These high level aims can be translated into more specific ones by considering how human flourishing requires, for most people, such things as the acquisition of a broad background understanding, moral education, a life of imagination and reflection, and preparation for work. To illustrate our argument more specifically we then turn to the teaching of science. We show how our position relates to and simplifies present writing about the aims of science education and conclude that our proposals would result in a school science education that had similarities with much current school education, which is desirable as it suggests that our proposals are not completely unrealistic, but some non-trivial differences too, which is encouraging as it suggests that our approach has practical worth rather than simply replicating existing approaches.
This paper advances tentative bases for understanding workplace pedagogic practices. It draws on a series of studies examining learning through everyday work activities and guided learning in the ...workplace. These studies identified the contributions and limitations of these learning experiences. However, whether referring to the activities and interactions arising through work or intentional guided learning, the quality and likely contributions of these learning experiences are underpinned by workplace participatory practices. These practices comprise the reciprocal process of how workplaces afford participation and how individuals elect to engage with the work practice, termed co-participation. Workplace experiences are not informal. They are a product of the historical-cultural practices and situational factors that constitute the particular work practice, which in turn distributes opportunities for participation to individuals or cohorts of individuals. That is, they shape the conduct of work and learning through these practices. However, how individuals construe what is afforded by the workplace shapes how they elect to engage in that practice and learn. There is no separation between engaging in conscious thought - such as when participating in socially derived activities and interactions - and learning. Learning is conceptualised as an inter-psychological process of participation in social practices such as workplaces. It is not reserved for activities and interactions intentionally organised for learning (e.g. those in educational institutions). Nevertheless, particular kinds of activities are likely to have particular learning consequences, regardless of whether they occur in the workplace or in educational institutions.
The significance of co-participation is discussed in terms of the affordance of the workplace and individuals' construction of that affordance and subsequent engagement. Co-participation is proposed as a platform to build an understanding of workplace pedagogic practices. This includes understanding the likely contributions of learning through everyday work activities and the use of intentional workplace learning strategies, such as guided workplace learning (e.g. modelling, coaching, questioning, etc.). Instances of co-participatory practices are illustrated and discussed. Following this, a tentative scheme, founded in socio-historical activity theory, is advanced as a means for describing the requirements for work and bases for participation. The scheme comprises two dimensions: activities and interdependencies.
R. S. Peters never explicitly talks about wisdom as being an aim of education. He does, however, in numerous places, emphasize that education is of the whole person and that, whatever else it might ...be about, it involves the development of knowledge and understanding. Being educated, he claims, is incompatible with being narrowly specialized. Moreover, he argues, education enables a person to have a different perspective on things, 'to travel with a different view' Peters, R. S. (1967). What is an educational process? In R. S. Peters (Ed.), The concept of education (pp. 1-23). Routledge and Kegan Paul. In asserting this about education, Peters has more in common with another great English educator, John Henry, Cardinal Newman, than one might expect, given they are separated by about a century and start from different philosophical perspectives, namely Kant to a significant degree in the former and Aristotle in the latter. Both nevertheless acknowledge the importance of reason and its development in any education worthy of the name. I will argue that in describing the 'educated person' Peters is not far from the view of Newman, who saw education as being about the 'enlargement of mind'. Although Newman hesitates to call 'enlargement of mind' wisdom, and Peters does not use either term, there are good grounds for proposing that in distinguishing between education and training, and in asserting education is moral education because it is concerned to improve persons, Peters acknowledges the higher purposes of education and hence, we can add, its connection with wisdom. Significantly, what such a reading of Peters emphasizes is his insistence on the intrinsic value of education, a view seemingly lost in modern market-driven conceptions of education.
We start our paper with a critical exploration of the current ‘back to basics’ approach in South African foundation phase teacher education with its emphasis on strengthening the teaching of subject ...knowledge. We claim that such a proposal first demands an answer to the question ‘what is foundational in foundation phase teaching?’ We propose an answer in three stages. First we argue that teacher education should be concerned not only with schooling or qualification (knowledge, skills and dispositions) and socialisation, but, drawing on Gert Biesta’s work, also with subjectification (educating the person towards the ability to make wise educational judgements). Secondly, these three aims of education lead to five core principles, and we finish by showing how these principles inform our storied, thinking and multimodal/semiotic curriculum. Our answer to our leading question is that pedagogical ‘know-how’ and views of ‘child’ and ‘childhood’ constitute the subject knowledge that is foundational in the foundation phase curriculum.
Redesigning vocational education Leeman, Yvonne; Wardekker, Willem
Journal of curriculum studies,
06/2011, Letnik:
43, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article describes and reflects our experiences as researchers in a design-based research project on a curriculum innovation focused on meaningful, co-operative learning in vocational education ...in the Netherlands. The project was successful in gaining insights in possible practices for workplace learning but did only partly realize the individuation aims formulated for the participating students. Among the reasons for this are the complexity of the project (having different types of schools participating) and the desired outcomes formulated by the financing authorities (somewhat contradicting the original goals of the originators). Mainly, however, this study reflects on the authors' contribution as researchers: it succeeded only partially in helping the project keep focus on the individuation aims. This study inquires into the causes and suggests that at the start of design-based research projects a profound analysis of the project structure and power relations and negotiations aimed at realizing conditions for real partnership are necessary. Also, one should not under-estimate the amount of time and involvement required of researchers.
The case is presented for a dilemmatic perspective to the educational provision for pupils and students with difficulties and disabilities. This perspective recognises the links and tensions between ...social and individual values and models. The paper focuses on the central significance of dilemmas of difference in understanding policy and practice issues in the field. One of the central arguments is that a commitment to inclusion implies a commitment to meeting the needs of a minority and therefore to arrangements which may not be required by the majority. Inclusion is about mainstream schools accommodating a full diversity, and in doing so leads inevitably to adopting dedicated or specialised support systems for some. The paper provides an overview of recent changes in policy and practice as well as looking at possible future trends. An inter-disciplinary model which connects individual and social perspectives is proposed both for explanatory purposes and for designing provision in terms of the interaction between the inclusivity of the system and responding to additional individual needs.
This paper considers the role of pedagogy in teachers education cooperated with discipline, using a case example. The case example is Science Lesson Research I・II, a subject in the Faculty of ...Education at Kagawa University in which this cooperation can be considered to function effectively. This class has continued with almost the same content and form at until today since 1998. The class adopts a method in which physics, chemistry, biology, and geoscience teachers teach lessons with science pedagogy teachers through discussion with the students. When doing so, it is essential that the teachers reach a shared understanding of how science should be taught in advance. The main aspects of how science should be taught in the shared understanding are enabling children to understand scientific knowledge with interest, and requiring elementary and junior high school teachers to base their teaching on the government curriculum guidelines and textbooks, while including innovations and creativity beyond them Explaining the validity of this way of teaching science based on a pedagogical conception of education is an important role of pedagogy. This explanation is shown by this paper. In doing so, this paper takes the premise that it will clarify what lessons that respect the right of the child to express his or her own views are like.
In this paper the social aims of education in views of Jaspers as the representative of the existence philosophy and the role of virtual education in relation with the aims are studied. The research ...methods used are qualitative content analysis as well as practical syllogism. Jaspers believes there are differences between community and society. Community which has been shaped and grown in the historical developments has its own traditions and uniqueness, whereas society that could be planned and formed has no history to be aware of and lacks any uniqueness because of its similarity to other societies that are planned and formed in the same manner. So educating learners as useful members of community means, on one hand, preparing them for future life and job provided by virtual education and on the other hand, it means reviving, preserving and fostering traditions and genuine historical culture of that society to learners through creative relation, day to day life, manner of speaking and social encountering like face to face contact with human character of a teacher. On the foundation of research findings the educational systems should educate the teachers who are representative of traditions and authentic historical culture of that specific community. It should also provide the context for interactions between the teacher and learners in the school and community in order to animate the community's traditions and culture in the students and supply the ground for preserving and growing them. Finally some applied implications have been mentioned.
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