Much like the teacher in the article "The Aims of Education" by Nel Noddings, when a student asks me why they have to learn the Pythagorean Theorem my answer often moves towards how they will need to know the information when they take Geometry so they will be able to finish proofs yadda yadda. Aside from standards, I have never really taken a step back to look at what the forefront of education is/was. However, as I read through the Noddings article and the article "Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle Over Educational Goals" by David Labaree I instantly connected and thought of moments or times when the different purposes of education took a forefront in how I was teaching/learning.
Both authors speak of the democratic purposes of schooling. Throughout my classes for teaching social studies I remember most of the instruction being focused on how to create lessons to create a responsible citizen. In fact, it is stated the GLCE's, "balance disciplinary content and processes and skills that contribute to responsible citizenship and form a foundation for high school social studies coursework." So you can see that from the very beginning I was trained to give explanations as to why on the basis of responsible citizens and future coursework.
The statement that stuck out the most to me was "the U.S. promotes general education at even the high levels of the system, in comparison with other countries, where specialized instruction begins much earlier." (Labaree 44) While reading this I instantly thought of my experience in London and how the students took a test at the end of year 5 that began tracking students into different schools and different career paths. I agreed with Labaree when he said this limits opportunities for some students. Middle school students mature and grow so much and I think of how some of the students that I have had in 6th grade that are now top achievers. However, I am unsure that I believe that NCLB or even the idea of equality is any better.
The next purpose Labaree speaks of is Social Efficiency. While reading this section all I could think of is consistently hearing that students need to learn Science and Mathematics because we do not have enough educated workforce for the jobs available in the current day.
Social Mobility reminded me of school while I was in school. School was competitive. School was what the student took out of it. There were opportunities to become successful at all levels. Some students went to career centers and some students were able to take college classes while still in school.
Noddings also speaks of the purpose of schooling to interests and happiness. If a student is happy and interested they are more likely to succeed.
I was able to connect to all of these purposes and can think of policies and situations that conflict the purposes in schooling today. The real question would be what is the best policy? IF politicians agreed (which is improbable) would any specific purpose be better than the others. Or is a blend of these purposes the best option? We are moving towards pushing careers that are for the workforce, competition is coming back to school systems in a small measure, and equality still plays an overwhelming importance with NCLB and frameworks like the Common Core.
http://www.parenting.com/blogs/mom-congress/melissa-taylor/what-purpose-education
This article shows parents quotes of what the purpose of school is. Each parent has different opinions that show support of the various purposes explained above.
Your discussion of the specialized instruction, your connection to tracking students in London, as well as your comments about the career center and college classes made me think: are we offering enough to our students? Or rather, do we need to give students these opportunities sooner?
ReplyDeleteWhen you think about it the structure and design of education, it really does stay the same from middle school to high schools—kids take classes that focus on the most important “core” subjects like science or English, but I feel like schools need to allow for more exploration in other non-core areas. Don’t get me wrong, the core classes are important in many ways (I am an English teacher, so I know!), but I feel like maybe we need to let students see these core classes more rooted in different job fields instead. Maybe schools create different classes that still incorporate the cores, but specializes those “core” skills within different potential fields like math in auto care, writing in law enforcement, or science in cooking. I know some teachers may already do this in their elective classes, or tech center programs, but I still think it is very limited. I also think it might help students stop asking that “when will I ever use this again?!?” question.
Also, I liked your resource. It made me wonder how often do we ask our students (as well as parents) what the purpose of school is and what their answers would be.
Hi Andrea,
ReplyDeleteYour posts offers a couple of points that really made me think. First, I too am always being told that the nation needs better science and math students. You credited this push to the Social Efficiency goal, but I think the other two goals advocate for this as well. In the digital age, we are surrounded by math. After all, the root of many computer programing languages that create the operating systems that run our devices can be boiled down to math. According to Labaree (1997), the democratic equality theorem argues “all members of a free society need familiarity with the full range of that society’s culture” (p. 44). In today’s age, that means that people have a command of math so as to understand technology. Math (and science) also offers a number of lucrative careers. Thus, Social Mobility provides motivation for students to be pushed towards science and math.
At the end of your post, you questioned what the best policy is and if it would be a blend of the three. As Labaree (1997) illustrates, we are in a climate where are blend of the three goals prevails and the clashing goals are forcing the educational system into decline. Thus, I think that we are best off moving away from a blend and perhaps away from the goals entirely. It seems to me that Noddings (2009) was on to something in saying that perhaps we should strive for happiness—maybe the rest of the goals would inherently ensue.
Andrea,
ReplyDeleteI like how you indicate that education has to be a blend of the three purposes. There has to be a balance between all three of the purposes of education that was indicated in the readings. It is our responsibility to produce not only quality workers but the right citizens and human beings as well. When you talk about the Pythagorean Theorem and explaining to students why they need to know I might explain to them because this is teaching you problem solving and complex thinking which are skills you will need. School had to become less and less about content and more about the life long skills we teach like problem solving and complex thinking skills. I question by what you mean by “pushing career toward the workforce”? What workforce are you referring too? The jobs the kids will have don’t even exist today so we what workforce are we pushing them to? 10 years ago there wasn’t Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram or the iPhone. So what will the workforce look like in 10 years? I am not sure a policy can be created that appropriately tells us what to teach or how to teach. I think the Framework of the Common Core is essential in providing consistency in education across states but I don’t believe there can ever be a policy that tells us how to produce the right citizens or human beings. But then again we can’t produce the right workers without producing the right citizens and human beings so I education must be about all 3.
Andrea,
ReplyDeleteI think it is interesting that you were able to quickly think of examples of all three models of education that Labaree suggests from your experience in schools as a student and a teacher. I bet all of us could do similarly and trace the models through our years in the classroom in one role or the other. I think this points to the fact that there seems to be an ebb & flow to when one model was given greater priority than the others. I think it also points to the fact that it seems that these three models have yet to co-exist peacefully with one another as they hold different goals. I wonder, if you suggest a model that takes into account all three purposes, what would it look like? Can you think of a way to proceed that would all us to work towards all three goals simultaneously? I would be super interested to hear about your ideas.
Best,
amanda