Philosophical Foundations of Teaching and Learning

 

Article 1 - (Werner, 2008)

The “Teaching for Hope” article by Werner (2008) discusses how education relies on being “hopeful”. Without having hope, students are often confused and anxious about the information and material they learn about. As Werner (2008) indicates, anxiety is not a friend of learning and can lead to separation, loneliness and hopelessness. Furthermore, these emotions and feelings lead to disengagement in the classroom As a result, students become unmotivated and uninspired. They just go through the motions. You could potentially argue that they become hopeless. Question to the author – what does being hopeful actually mean?

In short, my definition of “hopeful” is to be motivated and inspired.

As teachers, it is our job to make education hopeful.  In my opinion, teachers need to be creative and innovative in their own unique way to present data/information in a meaningful manner. As Werner (2008) writes, learning should be memorable, important, and emotion-full. Whether that means using technology as vehicle to deliver information, or by formulating positive and interactive discussions, or etc., teachers need to motivate and inspire. In my opinion, content is only a small part of learning. Teachers need to teach their students how to: be critical thinkers, be accepting and acknowledge different opinions/views, and understand the emotional context of the content. Depending on the teacher, this can be done in a multitude of ways!

In closing, it is important for our students to understand that content only paints so much of the picture. Just because a book/article presents information, it doesn’t mean it’s entirely true (i.e., Werner’s example of the expulsion of the wilderness because his student learned about dying ecosystems). Through exploration, discussion and openness, students will hopefully understand that education is hopeful and continuous. However, much of this depends on the teacher’s outlook of education.

Article 2 - (Christou, 2010)

As Christou (2010) indicates in his article, the history of education, pedagogy, and teaching are imperative lessons for today’s world of educators. By uncovering what has previously worked, and what didn’t work assists educators in learning/unlearning the best methods/styles of teaching. In my opinion, this especially goes hand-in-hand with innovation. In the tech world, innovators are constantly testing old and current ideas in the hope to create something special. Even if something was previously a failure, creators could potentially try to fix and modify a portion of the idea and make it functional. I personally believe that this strategy works for teaching as well. For example, old and traditional methods of teaching like long lecturing, constant testing, and memorization were the main modalities of teaching back in the day. In today’s world of education, we still use these modalities of teaching, but we fine tune them and implement creative ways to make these modalities more inclusive, intriguing, communicative and fun. As Christou (2010) writes, a forward-looking, hopeful, and inspirational vision of teaching pedagogies are dependent on the improvement of historical contexts and amongst other things. By learning and unlearning from history, educators must be innovative and creative in their own genuine way. Every educator and teacher is different. Through practice, discussion, and guidance, educators can find their own specific style of teaching that works best for them. This is just my opinion anyway!

Although historical context of knowledge is important in bettering our skills, I firmly believe that practice in the field triumphs all. This is also how I felt when I completed my Bachelor of Education at UBC. Some of the knowledge and content we learned through the historical context of education helped… but actually teaching was the biggest teacher

References

Christou, T. M., & Bullock, S. M. (2012). The case for philosophical mindedness. Paideusis, 20(1), 14-23.

Werner, W. (2008). Teaching for hope. In R. Case & P. Clark (Eds.), The anthology of social studies, Volume 2: Issues and strategies for secondary teachers (pp. 193-197). Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press.