Successful teaching

Nearly all graduate students of education come to class with either a tentative or calcified formulaic belief on how to teach students. This comes from their being parents, elder siblings, company bosses, church leaders, and so on. The issue thus is not whether education graduate students have a teaching formula or not. The issue rather is whether one has a clear mental picture of his/her teaching formula. If one has one, I assume that it's already a product of careful and lengthy reflection. 

I believe that most forms of teaching require certain elements. It's not easy to name all of them as teachers have different ways of teaching. But I think all teachers would agree that the following are requisites of good teaching: (1) attention from students; (2) sustained attention (if not interest) from students; (3) emotional security with the teacher; and (4) academic connection. I believe that they should all be applied following such order otherwise one’s teaching will most likely fail. To me, the value of this formula is obvious. The teacher must catch first the attention of the students before he/she starts working on sustaining their attention. Simple as they may seem, both phases almost always pose a real challenge. The next phase is getting the students to feel emotionally secured with the teacher. This, too, may not be easy. This can’t go first with any of the previous phases which are like ice breakers whose purpose is basically to disarm and open up the students. When these three phases have already been established, only then should the teacher make a move for sustained academic connection with the students. I think it’s often unwise to just run the students through with academic teaching without securing first their attention, interest, trust, and confidence. While the elements in this formula are necessary conditions of successful teaching, still there are other important considerations, like classroom arrangement and other teaching policies whose purpose is to establish a culture (i.e., sustained and patterned behavior) of academic excellence. I hope I could say more about this matter in the future.

"Problem"

What kind of problem do we have in mind when we teachers say that the goal of science and math education is to produce effective problem solvers? Are we not supposed to qualify our use of the word "problem" here? I mean, problems solvers where? In what area of human activity? I'm raising this question because many of us seem to ignore the fact that life problems could not be divided into scientific and mathematical problems alone.  Obviously, there are other problems that could not be answered satisfactorily using mathematical or scientific thinking alone. Some of such problems, I must say, could even be more important than the problems one had been asked to solve in physics or advanced algebra. Here are some examples of such problems: (1) Should I terminate my pregnancy? (2) Should we implement again the death penalty? (3) Is abortion immoral? (4) Should we legalize same-sex marriage? To address these questions, one can't just do mathematical or scientific reasoning. What is needed here is rigorous or disciplined evaluative reasoning, which, unfortunately, is not taught the way scientific and mathematical reasoning are taught in basic (primary and secondary) education.

"Control"

Should we control our students when we teach? Do we need it when we teach?

To answer these questions, we should tell first what control is.

Partly extinct bird species now lives protected near FC

Those are the talons of INC. This mean looking pair aptly stands ominously near the UP Faculty Center. It sort of reminds us students to turn in our semestral papers on time, or else. So hang on there, second sem is not yet over.

Accountability in SPED

The idea of standardized schooling has been much bandied about since the institutionalization of the "no child left behind policy" in the United States in 2002. That the schoolteacher becomes accountable for the progress of schoolchildren's learning is one of the significant implications of this development. Inevitably, schoolteachers have been saddled with the requirement of accountability as their salaries and promotions are determined by the students' performance in the standardized tests. Whether the application of the principle of accountability in basic education institutions is the right approach is an issue for which satisfactory resolution remains elusive, even in countries that seek to follow the footsteps of America.

It's common knowledge that a good teacher may not always succeed in effecting learning on every student. This observation is not difficult to comprehend as teaching indeed is simply a try or attempt verb like fishing. That is, any teacher may fail to teach even if he/she is teaching in the same way that any fisherperson may also fail to catch a fish even if he/she spends the entire day trying to catch a fish. That’s how it is in the business of teaching. A math teacher may also not succeed in teaching math, especially to non-mathematical students. A philosophy teacher may likewise fail to teach philosophy to non-philosophical students. The same goes for reading teachers; they may also fail to teach a student to read, especially if the student does not have the required capacity to learn how to read. Requiring thus a schoolteacher to be accountable to the learning of all schoolchildren may not do justice to excellent teachers who may fail to teach on the ground that the student has a recurrent learning problem, does not have the mental capacity to learn what is being taught, or is psychologically inadequate to take what is being attempted to transmit.

Knowles and Knowles (2001, in Brynes, 2002) pointed out that “emphasis on accountability fails to take into consideration the single fact of life: children are different” (p. 240). Quite poignantly, with individualized education program and Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory in mind, Knowles and Knowles (2001) said:

Why is it that we insist on calling a child “learning disabled” if he has difficulty reading, but we don’t label a child “disabled” if she can’t compose a song? Educators have set up altars to reading. They worship at its shrine and intone the doctrine “Outside of reading, there is no salvation” (in Brynes, p. 241).     

          In the US, individualized education has evolved from being learner-customized to being concerned, as the IDEA97 requires, with facilitating access to general education (Brynes, 2002). It is now common thus for  special education to be not only focused on the usual academic matters but also on practical and vocational skills necessary to ensure effective functioning in one's future workplace. In spite of this, however, IDEA97 is much more concerned with the student’s acquisition of traditionally taught knowledge and skills in school (Brynes, 2002). To address the issue in view, it is often asked whether a learner-specific education is necessary in view of the differences of learning abilities and deficiencies of schoolchildren with or without special needs. 

           
            Requiring all students to learn how to read when some of them are not capable of doing so is said to be a humongous mistake (Knowles & Knowles, 2001, in Brynes, 2002). For there appears to be no wisdom in insisting that a student ought to learn something that he/she is not capable of learning. The time spent in learning the unlearnable is squandered as it could be judiciously devoted to acquiring skills and knowledge that may be more useful to an individual who need not master the ability to read in order to be an effective worker.  

 Other educationists, however, maintain that students should be made to meet high educational standards to enable them to maximize their opportunity to enjoy high quality life. A learner-customized program and standards are often viewed by its critic with suspicion as it may create an illusion of success.  That is to say, substandard education may lead one to overestimate his/her own questionable abilities (Jesness, 2000, in Brynes, 2002). Jesness (2000, in Brynes, 2002) also cautioned that having learning problems does not necessarily mean inability to learn, and that standardized schooling is for children without special needs alone. As for the difficulty that one may experience in the early stage of learning, Jesness (2000) seems to view that as a simple fact of learning, nothing that should keep the schoolteachers from pushing their students to attain what may appear to be an impossibly tough task at the beginning:

Many competent readers had to be dragged, screaming and kicking, through their first novels, and many top math students once had to have the multiplication tables drilled into them. Helen Keller first reacted to Anne Sullivan’s finger spelling lessons by screaming, kicking, and biting (2000, in Brynes, 2002). 

          Jesness (2000) concluded:

We teachers should imagine ourselves as swimming instructors whose charges will someday be thrown out of a boat half a mile from shore. If we certify that a nonswimming student is a competent swimmer, he will still sink like a stone when thrown from a boat.

In like manner, a graduate who lacks real academic skills, who has only the trappings of scholarly success, will have a difficult time swimming in the real world. Failure is failure, with or without permission (In Brynes, 2002).

          Now, as the debate rages on the matter between the philosophies of accountability and difference, it would be helpful for the stakeholders in special education to consider the following problems: 

How much struggling is detrimental to a child’s self confidence, and when does hard work lead to success and personal accomplishment? How would you decide whether or not to stop driving for mastery of the skill of reading (or math, or any other academic subject) and shift to teaching skills that are more related to the expected workplace? When would you make this decision? What would the student say about this change now? In 20 years? What options would this open or close? (Brynes, 2002, p. 237)  

         Well, these immediately foregoing problems are very important, but I think they will never reach the Philippine shores until we decide here whether standards-based test is a necessary element of our own basic education. I believe we should have been deliberating on the possibility of adopting such kind of evaluation as it's probably something we direly and urgently need. 

          But is it appropriate, regardless of who is taking it, to use the results of the standards-based test to gauge the teaching competence of the teacher? I'll address this matter later.

References 

Brynes, M.A. (2002). Taking sides: Clashing views on controversial issues in special education. Connecticut: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.

Jesness, J. (2000). In Brynes, M.A. (2002). Taking sides: Clashing views on controversial issues in special education. Connecticut: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.

Knowles, R. & Knowles, T. (2001). In Brynes, M.A. (2002). Taking sides: Clashing views on controversial issues in special education. Connecticut: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.

Philosophers, adults, and children

A child who is dominated by a sense of wonder and an adult who has never grown tired of the world usually hold one thing in common: an appetite for asking and wanting to answer all sorts of difficult why and how-do-you-know questions. The inquisitive adult, more often than not, however, knows that his/her problems may defy universally acceptable solutions, whereas the child probably or usually thinks that his/her parents or teachers could enlighten him/her with a single, simple, and final answer to his/her question. Often, however, in the face of the difficult questions that children raise, parents and teachers find themselves startled, lost in thinking, and unable to respond with a confident tone of authority. What is time and space? Where did I come from? Why am I here? What will happen after I die? Is there a God? How do you know that God exists? Why God exists? Why should I be good when I seem to be always having fun every time you say that what I’m doing is bad? Satisfactory answers to most of the difficult questions children ask proved slippery. It is not therefore surprising if many adults, parents and teachers including, are wont to dismiss the little children’s ability to raise challenging questions as a simple nature of young minds. “Yes, that’s just how little children are, they ask questions for which no satisfactory answers could be pulled out,” many adults would knowingly say.

Of course, there are those who find themselves marveling at how well children could be so deeply curious about matters that typically fall outside the typical concerns of the common-sense adults. Kudos, we believe, should go to those adults who are convinced that grown-ups must not ignore the difficult questions children ask. What could be at stake when children are looking for answers to most of their what, why, and how-do-you-know questions is the future of their cognitive efficacy, imaginative and creative abilities, interest in knowledge and truth, and productive emotional attitude toward the universe and things that appeal to their interest. Indeed, adults must ventilate the curiosity of children and get them to think further than to simply give them evasive answers or shrug them off in the hope of making them feel that they are on a helpless chase of truth (Hence they should give up bothering adults with their questions.). In the opinion of Fairbairn (1999),

                       

                        Every time that a child’s idea is not heard (or not listened to even if physically it is heard), or is brushed aside as irrelevant, or ignored as being silly, or worse still results in a reprimand, brings more close the time that he or she will stop offering ideas into the public arena. And from that follows, almost inevitably, a move into less engagement with class activity in general, a lessening of interest and entry onto a spiral towards failure. What is most disturbing about this phenomenon is that often the children who are treated in this way are those most fired up with excitement about ideas and learning that is until unimaginative and unemphatic teachers stamp on their enthusiasm (p. 106)

The children’s realization that they exist, that certain things around them defy their reasoned understanding, and that they are aware of certain facts are just the beginning of some sort of unintentional warm up exercise that could lead them to recognize, for example, that they don’t fully comprehend why they are here and whether the things that they witness are always what they seem to be. Certainly, more could be said along this line of observation. The manner by which children raise their questions usually indicate that they are looking for a satisfactory rational answer whose truth, for them, will be sufficient to understand or know what they think lies beyond the current scope and depth of their experience and reason. Turgeon (1999) thus gives this reminder to the teachers:

The young child should not be discouraged from speaking but, as his education progresses, the goal is to eliminate ‘excessive verbosity’ through guidance of his teacher and practice of the art of disputation. All of this is achieved through a melding of clear critical thinking, careful articulation… (p. 49)

“Difficult questions” children ask, in the context of this post, include problems that have been keeping many thinkers busy for the past two thousand five hundred years.

1.      Where did humans come from?

2.      How do we know that we are not dreaming when we are awake?

3.      What should I possess in order to be considered beautiful?

4.      If God is omnipresent, must He also be in hell?

5.      How can a god like Jesus Christ die on the cross?

6.      Why do you say I’m “good” when I obey you? Why does obeying an adult make a child good?

7.      How do you know that your answer to my question is true?

Some adults may find most of these questions outrageous, if not silly, but questions like these should be a cause of real joy rather than a dismissive response or unexamined alarm on the part of educators and parents. This kind of questions are strong indicators that the intellectual faculty of the child, despite his/her lack of experience and young mind, is capable of raising problems that gave rise to millions of tons of books and that kept many great minds in this planet very busy. So, what could be more beautiful than witnessing a young student who thinks and inquire in order to be enlightened? This could be a sign that a child is threading on the path that could lead him/her to become the good thinker his/her parents, teachers, and society might want him/her to be. Up to this point, however, we hope that those who were tasked to guide an inquisitive young mind are intellectually equipped to keep the student moving on the right track until he/she could do his/her journey all by him-/herself or with as little assistance as possible from wise teachers and mentors. One of the most important benefits of engaging students in a higher-order thinking and talking exercise is the acquisition and development of required skills, habits, discipline, and attitude for solving practical problems effectively. 

References

Fairbairn, Gavin. (1999). Empathy, Intuition, and the Development of Expertise in Teaching.  Analytic     Teaching, 19(2), 99-113. Retrieved on December 7, 2007,  from http://www.viterbo.edu/analytic/vol%2019.%20no..2/Empathy%202.pdf.  

Turgeon, Wendy C. (1999). John Salisbury: An Argument for Philosophy within Education. Analytic Teaching, 18(2), 44-52 . Retrieved on December 7, 2007, from http://www.viterbo.edu/analytic/Vol%2018%20no.2/JohnofSalisbury.pdf.

Teachers and students

A mere sign of consciousness, at times even semi-consciousness, among students is enough for a teacher to begin a case of thoughtful teaching. Whereas, a proof of intelligence is almost always necessary on the part of the teacher to be taken seriously by the students. There are times, of course, when signs of various degrees of consciousness and intelligence flicker or disappear altogether. But it's obvious that it's easier to be just conscious than to be intelligent. It's thus far more difficult to be a teacher than to be a student.

Response to Dr. Dizon's "Loving and Beyond loving a special child"

Reading Dr. Edilberto Dizon’s article titled “Loving and beyond loving a special child” brings to mind a number of things I’ve been meaning to say in special education. One of such things is the matter on how well our nation takes care of its own people, especially those with special needs. I remember a quote from Reader’s Digest saying that an excellent way to gauge the strength of a government is to count how many of its people want to work and live abroad and how many people from other countries want to enter and live under the rule of such government. Then I thought to myself that, perhaps, another way to tell whether a government is taking good care of its people is to check whether it provides strong support to its senior citizens.

This time, Dr. Dizon’s thoughts on the matter of developing a special child makes me think that another test of government’s concern for its people is to ask whether it looks after those who are in need of special attention. I’d been to many parts of our country, and casual observation, I’d say, is enough to confirm the suspicion that the leaders that had and have been tasked to run our nation are not working hard enough to contribute to the physical, psychological, emotional, and intellectual growth of its people. Read our newspapers, watch the news on TV, or listen to the news on the radio and you’ll see how many of our people suffer from unspeakable neglect, the kind that belongs only to the realm of darkest dreams and imagination. 

Most of those who need special assistance suffer more owing to the bone chilling negligence with which the administration, one after another, would run this supposedly great nation. Not even a flicker of interest in advancing the quality of life of special people could be discerned among our local and national leaders. Sadly, this has become a criticism to which the administrators of the government have been desensitized or have grown quite accustomed. The criticism itself has become a victim of surreal neglect.  

It’s quite a relief that the article Loving and Beyond shows that there is hope. It offers a good glimpse of what the private citizens could do, even in the absence of government assistance, to maximize the growth and to realize the potentials of children with special needs. It’s good that Dr. Dizon talked at a SPED conference about a great way to address the gargantuan problem of maximizing the humanity of every special child. It reassures too that the SPED Area of the UP College of Education shows that it has a clear vision of Dr. Dizon's guiding concepts and principles which are doubtless very important components of special child development. I’ll say a few words, as my reaction, about each of such thematic thoughts.

On being, Dr. Dizon said that the “child is not more loved or favored.” This should have a humbling effect on any reasonable person as doubtless, all humans, regardless of their traits, are equal in the eyes of God and the human law. Referring to the special child, Dr. Dizon thus reads: “He/she simply needs to have that love expressed much more than any other child” (Italic mine).

The principle of believing is refreshing. It makes me think that one’s dealings with his/her fellow human, especially with those who need special help, can only be potent if we have faith that better or desirable goals are attainable. That is to say, the goals can only have substance in the context of having faith or trust in what the special person can possibly become. It makes me nod to see that believing and becoming are strongly connected in facilitating the development of a special child. Dr. Dizon perceptively intimates that it’s unwise to measure what a child can or should be able to do and become from the vantage point of the achievements of other children. This brings to mind the idea of respect for both the individuality and humanity of the special child.

It’s good that Dr. Dizon mentioned first the idea of being, which suggests equality, before turning to bonding and belonging. It’s difficult to talk of human bonding if the facilitator of the special child’s learning does not recognize him/her to be as human as the facilitator. Likewise, it’s impossible for special children to be genuinely connected—in the sense of belonging—to someone who does not have the required character to relate with them. Quite rightly, Dr. Dizon suggests that bonding and belonging should begin at the special child’s home and immediate community, the take off ground of special learning. This is a very important advice for numerous reasons. One very important wisdom, I believe, is that bonding and belonging make anyone, not only the special ones, feel good about him-/herself. And when one feels good about him-/herself, self-esteem and confidence are building up. This point makes me think of the principle of believing one more time. Special children are inspired to dream, to do their best, when people around them believe in what they are realistically capable of doing. But it’s hard to spot the potentials of the special child when they are not strongly connected to those who are supposed to help them. It is thus enlightening that Dr. Dizon includes bonding and belonging in his thematic thoughts on therapeutic education. For both are foundations of believing and dreaming.

The idea of going beyond the range of the moment when planning for and assisting a special child is likewise related to the concepts of being, believing, becoming, bonding, and belonging. I understand that having a special child always rouses fear among parents who worry about who’s going to look after the kid once the parents are gone. Dr. Dizon’s thoughts on the matter of transmitting skills and knowledge to attain a certain degree of self-sufficiency on the part of special children is laudable. It reminds the parents that they can do a lot of things to get the special children to surmount the challenge of their special conditions. This point draws support from a lot of studies that suggest that special children are capable of helping themselves, if only we shall be wise enough to teach and support them first.

I have no doubt that all those B’s are necessary guiding principles that will provide a clear direction for special education facilitators and family of special children who should work together to maximize the potentials of special children.

Notes on happiness

1.    Happiness is the enjoyment of pleasant sensation objects of wants, needs, or desires bring.
2.    Resources are usually needed to secure objects of wants, needs, or desires.
2.1  There are, of course, pleasurable things that could be secured almost effortlessly and without spending any form of currency. Some of such things are memories of good things or happy thoughts.
3.    Some resources, at times, need to be sacrificed to secure happiness or sustain the enjoyment of objects of wants, needs, or desires.
4.    Could we possibly feel pleasure and be not happy at the same time?
4.1  For me, smoking is pleasureable, but if I'll do it it again, I'm sure that my guilt shall be so overwhelming that I'd hate myself for doing it again. I'd find smoking pleasurable and hateful at the same time. But since the latter is more powerful, I can't, on the whole, be happy despite the pleasure smoking will bring.
4.21 I think, it's not wrong to say that happiness is an instance of enjoyment of pleasure.
4.22 Pleasure is a desirable sensation brought about by one's contact with a certain object.
4.23 But then again, I can't enjoy the supposed pleasure massage brings if I'll have one inside a lion's cage.
5.   Not all things that make us happy are things that we seek. We may not have previous consciousness of the pleasure certain unknown things can bring. Such things could be new discoveries, friendly strangers, exotic food, etc.
6.   Happiness, as a context-free idea, is neutral.
6.1 But happiness derived from hurting animals or humans is both reprehensible and morally unacceptable.
7.   Sources of pleasure and happiness, if enjoyed excessively, could become toxic like alcoholic beverages.
7.1 If you doubt this point, try spending every second of your life with your girlfriend or boyfriend or with any loved one. 
7.2 So, even if blogging makes you happy, it's unwise to spend your entire waking moment blogging. There, too, are other important things that one must do aside from writing his/her thoughts on the Internet.

Music

It's a handy key to our distant past. Whether it's alien or not, when the sound of which hits some memory strings, it opens a world of ethereal images, bright places, pretty faces, and intoxicating scents that make you 16 years old once again. Like a bomb, it penetrates your inner world before it explodes and blows you back to the days of innocence and childish indifference. Aaah, music. Indeed, nothing beats this fountain of youth.

The Housemartins's Build is one of those sounds that brings me back to the good old days, which, luckily, are just around the corner everyday.