first analysis paper notes

Below are the notes from a study group session that included Debbie, Marilyn, Kristi, Shane, and myself over at SCS today. Use them, print them, throw them away, whatever. What do you guys think she is going to ask? I am so nervous about this...I don't know why, just am. I can write, I just feel like I need to write all 5 responses ahead of time to feel prepared - and then what would I do? Memorize them? Anyway, here are the notes...I'll stop rambling.

Q#1
Noddings: Philosophy of Education
Philosophy of Education Before the 20th Century
Educational Philosophers are interested in analyzing and clarifying concepts and questions central to education. They answer questions like “how should children be educated?”

Socrates and Plato
• Socrates taught by engaging others in dialogue i.e. “Socratic method”
• The teacher asks a question and responds with another question to entice a deeper thinking.
• At times the teacher dominates the dialogue and leads the listener.
• Plato’s educational philosophy provided for special educations for different members of the state.
• Trade/skill educations with the best being reserved for the rulers. It was a ‘functionalist’ model.
• Arguments to the philosophy are given on pages 9 – 10.
Aristotle
• Believe that people should be educated or trained for their appropriate place in life.
• All people possess excellences or virtues but the virtues differ. i.e. those of a rule differ from those of a slave.
• He was concerned with a community’s needs vs. individual rights.
• He established a model of moral education.
• Did not believe that people could even with heroic effort guarantee their own consistently moral behavior.
• Circumstances affect us.
Rousseau
• “Philosopher of Freedom”
• He seemed to extol the natural state of human beings over the civilized one.
• Human beings cannot achieve their highest potential as wild animals.
• His philosophy was that people should be educated so as to preserve their natural goodness and also induce a positive sense of civic responsibility.
• His beliefs lead to the movement called “open education” – doing, feeling and observing.
• A.S. Neill echoed Rousseau’s belief that all children are naturally good and pressures of society make them grow up too fast and ruin them.
• Note: he believed the entire education of women must be relative to men.
Pestalozzi, Herbart and Forebel
Pestalozzi:
• Children should be educated through the senses.
• “Object lesson” was his approach.
• He was concerned with moral education and believed that all lesson should have amoral point as well as a cognitive one.
• He did great work with poor children showing they could learn as much as wealthier ones.
• Albert Einstein was taught at a swiss Pestalozzi like school.
Herbart:
• “ Apperceptive mass” It was a collection of previous experiences that could e called into play to understand new percept or idea.
• Early advocate of scientific methods in education and believed that minds should match the way a mind works.
• 4 step lesson that his followers made into 5
o Preparation
o Presentation
o Comparison
o Abstraction
o Generalization
o Application
Froebel
• Father of kindergarten : children like flowers “unfold and grow”
• Used mystical symbols to create meaning and give shapes importance
You can then start to write your analysis essay by having the introduction paragraph as a form of a summary. Introduce your general thesis statement. This way, your readers will have an idea what you think about the article. You may argue for or against the contents of the paper and that your analysis should contain the full support of whatever you feel or think about the reference material.
Write your discussion paragraph in a persuasive essay format. You are trying to convince your readers that you have analyzed the paper in the best possible way. Of course you cannot expect all your readers to accept what you think but providing persuasive items will do.
Generalize a conclusion. After you have presented all the details about your analysis of the essay, you can then write a conclusion that will reflect your general idea of the paper reference. Make sure that you reiterate the contents of your thesis statement and finalize your arguments for analysis. Many school essays should have a sense of conviction in the conclusion part.

Analysis Paper I – Question #2
Dewey’s approach to education, connect to sustainability.
Be able to articulate, demonstrate thinking about the various parts of a topic – define the topic.
Method: I took the ideas that are central to Dewey and partnered it with an idea that was presented in the Sustainable Leadership book. My thought is that it would be simple enough to take each Dewey idea and analyze it in comparison with the sustainable idea. Honestly, it’s a bit of a tough comparison – but could be done without stretching any of the basic ideas.
Dewey Idea: Pay attention to the environment (curriculum, teaching methods, and physical environment.
Sustainable Idea – pay attention to the environment – leave the world better than you found it, small footprint
Dewey Idea: Teacher must have command of the subject matter and be a student of students. Teacher has a strong sense of purpose.
Sustainable Idea – one of the business ideas of sustainability is to have a strong sense of purpose, the thought that we all know where we are going and know why we are going there.
Dewey Idea: Education is transformative and the goal of education is more education.
Sustainable Idea – constant growth in size is not sustainable, constant attention to our purpose is sustainable
Dewey Idea: Democracy is key in his philosophy – Unlimited and expanded communication, shared experience, and commitment to mutual engagement. It invites the individual to grow constantly.
Sustainable Idea – the idea of sharing what works with other people/openness to new ideas moves all of us forward
Dewey Idea: Education is not to replicate the previous generation, but to build on the last – moving forward.
Sustainable Idea – same approach, generally an idea about the environment, if we continue to deplete resources at a high rate, we will leave the next generation to deal with a more significant issue.

Expanded thoughts and study help:
Dewey’s approach to education defined:
The environment (curriculum and physical environment) plays a large role in education. The teacher must have command of the subject matter and be a student of students. The teacher must relate the idea of “continuous trajectory,” or the idea that in all learning the previous idea is connected to the current one and the next idea will be directly connected to the current one as well. So it is with all education – the purpose of education is more education. Teachers must act on that idea in their pedagogy and connect all knowledge. Education involves reconstructing prior knowledge, understanding, and insight as the student takes in new questions, problems, perspectives, and realms of activity. The process is transformative. The idea of democracy in teaching is that it is marked by sincere communication, shared experience, and a commitment to mutual engagement. A democratic society is not interested in replication of the current society, but rather equipping the young to further the efforts of the current society to build a improved society.
Ideas of sustainability in which I can see correlation:
• A strong, shared sense of purpose.
• Persistently and publicly focus their own attention and that of others on learning and teaching.
• Focus on learning first, then achievement, then testing.
• Deep and broad learning, slow knowing – means learning for meaning, learning for understanding, learning for life.
• When someone else sets targets for you rather than with you, it communicates a lack of trust in you willingness to commit or to comply with them.

Q#3
Dewey and Education Outline
I. Background/Philosophical Principles of Education must first be understood
GEES (geeze)
Growth – learning is not reproductive, rather transformative. In order to grow, one must engage the world more than before by building on past experiences.
Environment – physical and emotional safety are key to education. One’s environment controls him or her.
Empathy – Educators are called upon to be students of students. In order to accomplish this, empathy must be exercised allowing one to see the needs of others.
Social Interaction and Communication – is imperative and the most significant vehicle for educating oneself or others.
II. Therefore, the system that governs individuals is vital to education:
Premise of democracy is to continually expand and build rather than to merely reproduce.
True democracy (as with education) builds empathy as all voices are heard and given opportunity to express opinions, wants and needs.
For a democracy to exist, it must provide an environment free from fear of expression, thoughts and ideas. Replicates a classroom by providing safety and encouraging growth.
Social Communication is open across all subgroups. Experiences and interaction by all allows for growth of the whole and individual.
III. Further ideas include:
Democracy must be taught and practiced (experienced)
Education provides minisocieties where democracy can be seen
Both education and democracy are processes (not states)
Democracy allows for mutually beneficial system of growth
Values have been established by society (not higher order) so education is critical in preservation of societal values.

Question 4 Major intellectual streams (explain these 4)
• Marxism—the strongest of the 4—antagonism between the working and owner classes
• Neocolonial critique
• Existentialism--freedom
• Christianity
20th Century philosopher (1921-1997)
Dialogue and concern for the oppressed
Freire was born September 19, 1921 to middle class family in Brazil. Freire became familiar with poverty and hunger during the 1929 Great Depression as his father lost his job and died when he was young and his family economic status dropped. These experiences, though brief, would shape his concerns for the poor and would help to construct his particular educational viewpoint. Eventually his family's misfortunes turned about, and their prospects improved.
Working primarily among the illiterate poor in Brazil, Freire began to embrace a non-orthodox form of what could be considered liberation theology (a school of theology within Christianity, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church. It emphasizes the Christian mission to bring justice to the poor and oppressed, particularly through political activism. Its theologians consider sin the root source of poverty, the sin in question being exploitative capitalism and class war by the rich against the poor.)
In Brazil at that time, literacy was a requirement for voting in presidential elections.
Freire worked with large numbers of rural peasants learning to read and write in just 45 days—using phonics and illustrations method.
Focused on words that were important to his students such as slum, work, and wealth. He began with words and concepts that had social and political meaning for students—causing students to be not only more attentive but also more likely to be active and critical thinkers.
Believed that education is always political.
Conscientization— developing consciousness -- teachers enable students to join them as active learners who name and critique their own economic and political circumstances (method of critical thinking)—wants individuals’ total transformation (p 39)
With Brazilian coup, Freire was imprisoned for his work and then exiled for 15 years. Seeing other areas of the world, Freire came to see Brazilians’ neocolonial situation as typical for Third World people worldwide. –meaning people who have minimal opportunities to escape financial and cultural poverty. Totally ideological and political, NOT geographic. Domination of the ruling class.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed—Freire’s most famous work expressing his fundamental teaching approach
Christian idea of death and rebirth is central to Freire’s thinking. “Wants peasants to die to their passivity and be reborn as free, creative people. In parallel ways, he wants members of the oppressor class to die to their “having” ways and be reborn in solidarity with the poor.” (Hansen 2007) “The Easter experience” (p 39) reflects his strong Christian orientation—individuals can die and be reborn with new commitments. Type of “class suicide”--Christ’s deep concern for the poor and those at bottom of social ladder.
Christian roots: Authentic dialogue is necessary I few are to establish a more just, equitable and democratic society. That dialogue depends on virtues of faith, hope and love, requiring that we trust and put our hopes in others. Love is key—loving others without expectations on what sorts of people they should be –this is key for teachers as well as revolutionary leaders.
Thus only teachers who believe they can learn from their students and who trust their students, will give them the freedom to choose what they want to become—this is an effective educator.
Christian dialogue emphasizing faith, hope and love blends with Freire’s existential influences.
I-Thou and I-It relationships—
I-Thou: we treat others as free beings
I-It: use others for our own benefit, treating them as objects.
Best known for his attack on “banking” concept of education—in which student is viewed as an empty account to be filled by the teacher.
Teacher-student and student-teacher—a teacher who learns and a learner who teaches as the basic roles of classroom participation and interaction between the two. Democracy as an educational tool.

Q#5
What is teaching?
One who teaches educates others. To understand what teaching is, it is necessary to understand what it takes to be educated. What it takes depends on your philosophy of what education should be.
To Socrates, teaching was engaging in dialogue. Each person’s argument is deconstructed logically, especially by asking leading questions. Teaching for the ancient Greeks empowered the student to recognize logical fallacies and leading questions and to “know himself.” Teaching involved leading students into discussions of sensitive and “deep” questions. For Plato, teaching involved training the child for the future he was best suited for – whether worker, artisan, soldier, or ruler. Teaching was “functionalist” as children were prepared to be competent adults to meet the needs of the state or public life. Teaching wasn’t concerned with the reproductive life (Noddings Ch. 1)
Teaching is providing opportunities for students to pose and solve problems, providing opportunities for inquiry and discovery, and providing opportunities for students to engage in “real life” through physical labors (Tao). Tao believed that teaching, learning and doing are a union.
Teaching is instilling social hope, a sense of optimism that students live in a world in which justice, equality and collaboration can increase. Teaching is engaged in politics because teachers are preparing students to be tools of the ruling class. At the very least, by being politically neutral, teaching perpetuates the social status quo.
Makiguchi believed that teaching is guiding the learning process by awakening and encouraging individual interests that connect students with broader human concerns. He was not an advocate of self actualization, but rather that teaching should catalyze meaning, or take students from unconscious living, from valueless to valuing, and from thoughtless to reasoning. He said teachers themselves must be value-creating individuals who were contributing to society (Hansen).
Maria Montessori believed that teaching is linking moral, social and intellectual development. She believed that teaching creates a deep appreciation of the order of the universe and one’s place in it, that effective curriculum exemplifies natural order and enables children to know the logic that holds the universe together.
Teaching is an occupation, a way of making a living (Noddings Ch. 3). Dewey said that teaching could be compared to selling commodities – no one can sell unless someone buys. The relationship between teaching and learning are the same as that between selling and buying.
Israel Scheffler proposed what became known as the “standard thesis” of teaching. Teaching is happening if:
1. The teacher intends to bring about learning (intentionality criterion)
2. Strategies chosen by the teacher must not be unreasonably thought to be likely to achieve the learning aimed at ( Syntax, anyone?) Strategies must align with learning goals (reasonableness criterion)
3. What the teacher does must fall under certain restrictions of manner (criterion of manner or rationality criterion)
Intentionality – teaching also includes activities that increase awareness rather than produce knowledge
Reasonableness – modifying as needed throughout the lesson and according to student response
Dewey believed that teaching provides a stimulus for learning but that it is up to students to construct their own learning.
Manner – the student is not systematically prevented from asking, how, why. Manner separates teaching from indoctrination. Manner or rationality may look different in different cultures
Thomas Green noted that teaching is concerned with knowledge and beliefs on the one hand and behavior and conduct on the other. He believed in a region of intelligence; learning interactions that fall outside of it are not included in teaching activities. See Green’s teaching continuum on page 56 of Noddings.
Macmillan and Garrison – teaching is motivating students by addressing their intellectual predicaments and helping to extricate students from them by answering the questions that students should ask.