Theories of Education

Theories of education have been referenced, in one way or another, and/or discussed at some point in every unit I've had thus far(and will likely continue to do so in future units). As we get further into the course, the deeper we delve into the somewhat contentious subject of theorists and their philosophies, and how they have shaped past and contemporary education.

I think the two main theoretical sectors educators tend to fall into are behaviourists or constructivists(though aren't mutually exclusive in my opinion). As I've mentioned in previous posts, I didn't realise the complexities involved in becoming and being a teacher, and definitely didn't realise how intrinsically involved personal philosophy is in your teaching style - I naively thought, or maybe was conditioned to think(from how I was taught), that there was only 'one' way of being a teacher, and that way fell toward the behaviourists orientation to teaching, which more places the importance of the teacher above the student.

Being of a more progressively inclined nature, I feel more comfortable with the ideas that fall in the constructivists approach to teaching, although I have found myself in favour of a number of behaviourists approaches... I'm unsure of whether it's because I have yet to shake of my instilled idea of being a teacher from my primary school days(learning can be difficult but unlearning something is even more so), whether it's the direction I'm headed(maybe I'm a behaviourists at heart and that my progressive disposition will shift to a more conservative view of the world with of age and the bitter experiences may lie ahead???), whether I'll just maintain a balanced stance between both spectrums, or whether I'll be going back and forth between both orientations. I don't know, I guess only time will tell. One thing I am sure of is that it is in my and my future students' best interest to never stop learning and seeking knowledge myself.

Listening

This week's blog entry will be based off Chapter 10 of Techniques for teaching young children: Choices for theory and practice. The chapter covers why listening to children is important, how and when to listen to children, and the issues and debates that surround the notion. I will be talking about the importance of listening from mainly an anecdotal perspective, though a lot of my thoughts and beliefs on the matter were reinforced throughout the chapter.

My family immigrated to Australia when I was 4 from the Philippines; my parents and 4 older siblings - the eldest being 15 years older than me and the 2nd youngest being 8 years older, so a considerable age gap. The age difference and emigration from another country is relative because, as much as I loved/love my family, as a child I felt completely disconnected from them and from my primary schools since I felt I couldn't talk to my siblings because of the age gap, my parents were busy with starting a life for us, and I initially wasn't able to properly express anything in school not only because I was 5, but also because I hardly spoke or understood English. 

As a result of being unheard in both my school and home life, I remember feelings of isolation, frustration, incompetence and distress from a young age. Basically all of which made me anxious to go to school and thus setting a, I guess, bleak outlook on the school environment for me. I remember the teachers being kind and all, but I was so shy as a child I could never even ask for help when I needed it and so unfortunately this is where their lack of discernment really affected my primary school life. 

I grew up in a small rural town so there weren't many other kids(none in my year level anyway) that didn't speak English at home, like me. I was never discriminated against by staff, but I think that treating me like all the 'other' kids was a bit of an error and misjudgement on their behalf as I wasn't like all the 'other' kids, I didn't understand colloquial language and the culture yet, which left me feeling really dumb and like an outsider.

So basically, from my personal experience, before even reading this chapter I had a very similar, if not identical, understanding of listening and it's critical importance and impact in an early childhood setting and early childhood development. To end with, when I listen to my young nieces and nephews, and they know that I'm really listening, I instantly gauge a boost in self-affirmation, which I believe is so important to nurture and appropriately encourage from an early age.

Direct Instruction

In this week's lecture Catherine spoke about the 'Direct Instruction' model. It piqued my interest because the approach seemed to contradict what I've so far come to learn about teaching in this course and seemed to also conflict with my current raw beliefs on teaching(which is shaped from just my own experience at school as a student and obviously not as a teacher).

I had never really heard of the term DI before so I delved into the world wide web in search of anything that could give me an unbiased and easy-to-understand(with my limited knowledge on philosophies & theories in regards to education) explanation of it. From what I've gathered and have very loosely summarised - DI is a teacher-directed approach in which the teacher is governed by a package containing step-by-step instructions on what to teach and how to teach it; the teachers are focused on teaching the class as a whole strictly in accordance to the package that they are given, rather than seeing the students as individual beings.

Come to think of it, I feel like DI is more closely related to how I was taught back in primary school in the mid 90's & early 2000's, than how we are being taught to approach teaching now. Having read a few more articles and anecdotes on DI, I quickly came to realise how polarising it is in it's true form, and at the opposite ends of it are the behaviourists and constructivists of the educational realm. I feel the contemporary consensus is that it is an archaic approach to teaching as it does not address all learning styles, whereas just 15 years ago it was a more acceptable way of teaching. 

My personal opinion on DI is that it can be an effective approach when it comes to spelling and maths, things that can't exactly be learnt by an activity without initial direct instruction, but that's not to say you as the teacher should to stand in front of the classroom for the entirety of the lesson ignoring children's individual needs; I think scaffolding is imperative to children's learning. With that being said, DI as a sole method to teaching is highly problematic in that it doesn't see the child holistically(which I am a firm believer of) thus ignoring individual learning styles and dismissing diversity within the classroom. It also ignores the important recent discoveries of how the brain works in the context of education and learning. 

This blog and this week's learnings have definitely got me thinking more about theories and philosophies in the educational field and has left me with a greater thirst for knowledge on children's development. 

Being A Teacher

Looking through my exercise book to gather ideas for my weekly blog entry, I noticed questions with a similar connotation peppered throughout the pages from my first 2 weeks of this course; The question essentially being "what does it mean to be a teacher?" from both a personal and general perspective.

When we were asked initially it was like, oh easy! it means being a role model, patient, adaptable etc - you know, the usual "safe" answers. Then it was asked again, and again, and in my naivety it almost became a trivial question because... haven't I already answered that 4 times already? Don't get me wrong, I have never seen education as a one dimensional practice with teachers being robots who just teach what is required by law, but I did struggle to conjure up a response deeper than a single word adjective. It was frustrating for me that I couldn't think of anything meaningful, that my responses seemed juvenile, and that being a mature aged student I should *really* have a solid grasp on what being a teacher is as it is something I have learnt, through trial and error from engaging in different fields of study, I am quite passionate about.

An important topic we have currently been learning are the 3 concepts:
- Past Present
- Place Thought
- Learning to be affected

It was easy enough to understand what they meant in theory, but the struggle lay within substantially implementing them in the school environment/thinking of examples, for me at least. It was made even harder to comprehend because, as we've quickly learnt, education is a very fluid field with few concrete answers to questions raised. Which brings me to the topic of theories and philosophies in education. As with anything that involves aspects of being a human, theories and philosophies are going to arise and education as we have come to learn is a field which is bettered by them.

Even though I have only been in this course for no more than 2 weeks, I have already gained the knowledge on how important it is to always question yourself as a teacher. I hope that by the end of this course I have the tools and knowledge to articulate my beliefs on what it means to be a teacher, whilst simultaneously keeping an open mind to perspectives that may challenge my beliefs to keep growing as an educator.