Invitation, Program, and CHED Endorsement

Invitation, Program, and CHED Endorsement

The History and Philosophy of Education Program

College of Education, University of the Philippines, Diliman

invites you to the

2^nd National Seminar-Workshop

in Values and Moral Education

Download DepEd advisory here

Download invitation here

 Download Program 1 here & 2  here

Download CHED Endorsement here

Theme

CRITICAL THINKING AND REASONING IN MORAL/VALUES EDUCATION: GOALS, CONTENT, AND PEDAGOGY

Benitez Theater, College of Education

University of the Philippines, Diliman

Quezon City

September 4, 2010

Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

For inquiries, kindly call U.P. College of Education at 9299322 or

 text mobile phone numbers 09274187819, 09084518151, 09173653076.

                 (Seminar fee: P1,500 inclusive of handouts and certificate)

 

Values and Moral Education

Values education forms the core of the nation’s educational endeavor. It directs all the other educational activities that each Filipino student undertakes. It provides an avenue for students to acquire knowledge, hone skills, acquire and cultivate certain values and attitudes, and develop certain habits.

It is then imperative that values education be taught to Filipino students by teachers who have, and who know, the fundamental and advance skills, content, and methods/strategies involved in values education instruction. Such values education instruction involves both the implicit and explicit development of positive attitude toward the subject “values education” in particular, and a deeper sense of moral obligation in general. 

This national seminar-workshop aims to draw the participant’s attention to the important role that Values and Moral Education play in Philippine Society’s attempt to turn out educated individuals and citizens. The attainment of this end requires that schoolteachers are equipped with clear and precise knowledge of tenable goals, content, and pedagogy of Values and Moral Education.

Objectives

At the end of the seminar workshop the participants should be able:

1. To state clearly the place of values education and moral reasoning in the context of formal education.

2. To formulate and justify some possible goals of Values and Moral Education.

3. To identify the relevant skills for effective moral reasoning and problem solving.

4. To determine appropriate teaching techniques and styles for teaching moral reasoning and problem solving.

5. To develop appropriate exercises for the advancement of the moral thinking abilities of students.

6. To appreciate the role of moral reasoning in developing good Filipino citizens and individuals.

7. To articulate the value of moral reasoning in nation building.

PLENARY SPEAKERS (8:00 AM to 12:00 NN)

                               The Goals and Content of Values and Moral Education

                                Dr. Zosimo Lee, CSSP Dean and Professor of Philosophy, UP Diliman

                                Pedagogical and instructional concerns in values education

                                Dr. Grace Koo, Professor of Educational Psychology, UP Diliman

                               

                                               WORKSHOP SESSIONS (1:00 to 4:00 PM)

                               

                                A – Instructional strategies for teaching values education in elementary and high school   

                                B – Philosophy for children: Content and strategies

                                C – Teaching values through analysis of moral dilemmas

                                D – Teaching values through literature-based instruction

                               

VALUES & MORAL EDUCATION: AIMS, CONTENT, & PEDAGOGY (Part 4)

It's been over a year since I promised to post this final part of my thoughts on values and moral education.

Aims and content 
My idea of the aim of Values and Moral Education is nothing earth-shaking. It should be aimed at getting the students to acquire the knowledge and intellectual skills that will enable them to address moral or evaluative issues effectively. But what exactly should be taught in Values and Moral Education? Well, one is, how to think and communicate in clear and precise terms. Another is, how to detect good and bad reasoning. Another is, how to argue correctly. Another is, how to evaluate one’s own or another person’s reasoning correctly. We could add many more in the list for as long as it is in keeping with the goal of developing highly rational problem solvers in the area of values and morality.

Clear and precise thoughts and language

Since Values and Moral Education should aim to sharpen higher order thinking skills, it is important that students learn first how to think and express themselves effectively. This is not the be all and end all of Values and Moral Education, but this will make a good starting point. Having the ability to think clearly is a necessary condition to solve difficult moral or evaluative problems effectively. Lucid thinking enables us to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant matters. And should we commit some errors in reasoning out our positions, the detection of which, either by us or by our critics, becomes faster and easier owing to the clarity with which we expressed ourselves. Having such ability thus will enable the problem solver to save more time, energy, and other resources, which could be used to consider other options.

Ability to detect fallacies

It is always a good thing for valuers to be familiar with fallacies as having knowledge of such errors is in itself a reminder that there are certain forms of reasoning that we should not commit and refuse to accept. For example, appeals to popularity, emotion, and false authorities, which many politicians and commercial advertisements find highly effective, are some of the many ways of conning a gullible public. If only we could show that we deserve something better, we could expect to hear political speeches and witness advertisements that intelligent minds rightfully deserve.

But why do rotten political speeches and commercial advertisements continue to proliferate when they don't reason at all? Think about these. Aga Mulach and Caridad Sanchez endorsing some medicines. What do they know about medicines? Manny Pacquiao endorsing a political administration. How many people allow themselves to be persuaded by a boxer who do not have the required competence to tell whether a political figure is shortchanging her own people? And how many people thought that Joseph Estrada and Fernando Poe Jr. will make good presidents of this country? Let us not be lost in examples because I think you already know what I mean.

Ability to argue soundly

What could happen to a country whose population is incapable of making sound arguments, especially in highly important issues, is not difficult to picture. In matters involving national interests, we decide who should represent us in law making, policy making, and in maintaining peace and order. It's ideal, of course, to think that a very poor country like the Philippines, whose government is generally run by corrupt politicians, should assume the attitude of not having the luxury of time for a gradual change. On this, much of the job rest on the teachers themselves. One of the things that we could do is to teach our young people to value good thinking, and not some noble-sounding moral doctrinal vagueness. Good thinking here means sound reasoning.

We could say that a valuer is capable of advancing a sound argument if he/she offers a set of strong reason to support his/her moral or evaluative belief. For example, it is highly problematic for a valuer to believe that death penalty is wrong by appeal to emotion and pity as these are fallacious ways of thinking. Good thinking here requires the production of strong evidence to support a certain moral or evaluative proposition.

Ability to evaluate and revise one’s own reasoning

The ability to assess and revise one’s own thinking is equally an important element of good thinking or sound reasoning. If this develops into a habit, we could categorize the valuer as a disciplined arguer in that he/she would not advance an evaluative or moral belief without first subjecting his/her own arguments to rigorous questioning.

Pedagogy

I should like to address this question now: How should Values and Moral Education, in its reasoning sense, be taught? My answer to this question is brief. The teacher should employ techniques that will encourage the students to reason out their individual moral or evaluative convictions or beliefs. Teaching here may come in the form of Socratic Dialogue, facilitating group discussion or debate, and assisting individual students in solving moral or evaluative issues. There are of course other forms of teaching and they may be considered valid so long as they emphasize reasoning and they refrain from imposing anyone’s moral values on the students.

So, should we not transmit any one form of value in Values and Moral Education?

The answer is NO. There is one form of value that we could not avoid transmitting in Values and Moral Education in its reasoning sense. And that is the intellectual form of values. Again, some of these intellectual values are the following: clear thinking, sound reasoning, and consistency of thoughts. These are all important requirements for living a good and genuinely HUMAN life. I am placing emphasis on the expression “human” as animals could be happy even if they don’t have to deal with problems using the kind of thinking that we do on issues like abortion, death penalty, cloning, marriage, divorce, and so on.

Summary

Allow me now to restate the problems that I have just addressed:

1. What are the problems of values transmission or indoctrination form of Values and Moral Education?

2. What should be the aims of Values and Moral Education?

3. What should be the content of Values and Moral Education?

4. How should Values and Moral Education be taught?

I am aware that my suggestions in administering Values and Moral Education are by no means complete. But I am confident that they will make a good start towards a good case of Values and Moral Education. Let us teach the young Filipinos that it is commonly wrong for anyone to accept anyone’s claim upon insufficient reason.

The wealthy poor man

"Death of 'Caveman' ends an era in Idaho" (In Tim Woodward, 4/23/10, Idaho Statesman.com, Retrieved on 24 April 2010, from here.). You'd probably say it sucks to be him. But there's no slightest indication that the man thought he lived a miserable life. He was quite contented living in his cave. "I got lots of rocks and rubber tires. I have plenty of straw and fruit and vegetables, my dogs and my cats and my guitars. I make wine to cook with. There's nothing I really need" (In Tim Woodward, 4/23/10, Idaho Statesman.com, Retrieved on 24 April 2010, from here.) The man's name was Richard Zimmerman, a.k.a. "Dugout Dick." He's got no boss, and he never complained about his life. "I have everything here," he said (In Tim Woodward, 4/23/10, Idaho Statesman.com, Retrieved on 24 April 2010, from here.). If so, he must have died a rich man.

Philosophies and movements in education

There are a number of well-known educational movements out there. All of them sound confident with their respective claims, which are often inconsistent, if not conflicting, answers to the basic problems of education. What ought to be the purpose of education? What ought we to teach in education? How ought we to teach?

Often, the proponents of the movements would justify their answers to these questions by citing the "truth" or "universality" of their assumptions about reality, the human being, knowledge, good, and, at times, beauty. Such assumptions, it may be noticed, are traceable to one or more philosophies. One, of course, has his/her own philosophy, possibly quite different from the known ones. Often, however, the student's or teacher's philosophy is more or less consistent with or similar to one or more philosophies. Platonic Idealism, Aristotelian/Lockean Realism, Augustinian Idealism, Thomasian Realism, Sartrean Existentialism, and Rousseau's Naturalism are some of such philosophies. (Already, my use of the expression "philosophy" here suggests that it is basically a body of fundamental beliefs or assumptions that one uses to justify answers to questions that are more or less similar to the educational problems that I've just stated.)

Students of education should be cautioned that it's not uncommon for a certain philosophy to be tied to the ideals and visions of a certain educational movement. Experts, however, may not agree as to the connections other authors make between an educational movement and a certain philosophy. This implies that impeaching a certain aspect of a philosophy does not necessarily mean that one has effectively undermined the validity of a certain educational movement.

One way to effectively invalidate an educational movement, and its recommended educational practices, is to show first that there is indeed a lack of robust connection between such movement and its supposed theoretical foundation (a philosophy or a cross between two or more philosophies). The next job is to attack the areas of philosophy/philosophies that serve as the major pillars of an educational movement in question. Another way to invalidate an educational movement is to prove that it has, if any, very little practical value, and it does more harm than good to the stakeholders, especially the students, in education. Of course, a more potent approach is to question both the theoretical and practical value of the movement in question.

The simple lesson that I wish to state here is that it's just unwise to embrace something if there is no good reason to do so.

For: My future students

When should it bother you if you fail to teach?

Many teachers deal with their students as though learning would certainly follow if the teacher has the required knowledge and ability to teach. This, I believe, often gives rise to good teaching attitude and practices. But we should also understand and keep in mind that, in the context of formal schooling, teaching and learning are neither causally nor logically connected. That is to say, learning does not entail the occurrence of teaching. Much less, teaching does entail learning. Now, this is just an introduction, not the issue itself.

Should you allow your conscience then to nag you if you're a failed teacher to your students? Take note that, with this question, I'm not suggesting that you have nothing to worry about if your students didn't learn from you. Just think about the issue without bothering whether we've similar answers to the problem that I've just stated. (TO BE CONTINUED)

Print more, save money: Shift to Century Gothic font

Yes, that's what the experts say. Detailed story here.

But in response to this, experts from the dark side might advise the capitalist to raise the price or reduce the amount of the ink that we use. That's the bad news.

Freedom, determinism, and stupid love

What did you say? Love is a sick joke of nature? Well, probably, sometimes nature has no sense of humor.

A friend thought he'd be ready to move on after breaking up with his pretty, actually very pretty and quite decent, girlfriend two years ago. Shortly after the disengagement, the poor gentleman's words and behaviors would show that he's fighting a nagging thought that he made the wrong decision. He'd later find himself trying to figure a way to get across the deep, perhaps now insurmountable, chasm between him and the source of his deep sense of loss. He googled and found blog traces of his inamorata, and finally, he sent her an email. I have no idea of what he said in the letter. Only God knows what's going to happen next. I'd bet nothing, if I'd be asked to wager.

But I'm still wondering if she might choose to answer him. Or should I ask, will she take the bait? Well, if you tend to sympathize with the girl, you'd probably take the case from the point of view of a Sartrean existentialist: the former girlfriend, because she's a human being, has the freedom to answer the email or not. But if you'd identify yourself with the guy, you'd probably prefer to take the case from the point of view of a Skinnerian behaviorist: that the girl can't make a real choice, and her response (i.e., one of silence or otherwise) to the letter shall be determined, mostly, by the content (the stimulus) of the letter.

Do humans really make a choice or are they all determined, at all times, by forces beyond their control? It seems to me that Skinner's right, but it bothers me to believe with solid certainty that humans are incapable of exercising genuine freedom.

Love relationship could be a very interesting thing. It often defies understanding. I mean, most people don't bother to think seriously or even dream about it. But when it's tension rather than friendship that sustains it, when it assumes the form of a sadistic-masochistic game, it's tempting to be curious about the laws, if any, that governs it. No, it's not the bodily contact that is contemplated here. It's the mind game that keeps those involved affected even when they are already physically separated. The funny thing is that they can't take the stretching too far, but they can't release themselves either from the tension they have created. How far could they go with the tension seems to keep them thrilled and craving for more. Boredom seems to be the unbearable enemy of adventurous love. And if you can't play the game very well or if the other partner ceases to enjoy the game, then the tie, we could expect, is bound to break. This makes me remember some friends and former students who almost got killed, nay, murdered themselves, because of miscalculations and indiscretions. Not a few came to me to keep themselves from dying completely. I'm glad no one died permanently. I'm happy most of them are back finally.

OVCRD includes EQ among UPD online journals

This is the latest development in the Publications Committee of the College. Like I said, we are aiming for the inclusion of the EQ in the list of publications maintained by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Another good news is that full texts of the submissions are available online. If you're looking for some materials to review for your thesis, dissertation, or professional research, you might find some helpful articles in the site. Click here.

Thoughts after reading "Building a Better Teacher"

Aside from having the right amount of knowledge and skills, what else do good teachers need to increase their chances of succeess in teaching? Read on. I promise you that the answer could not be found in the school situation.

Elizabeth Green's article titled "Building a Better Teacher" was published in The NY Times on 2 March 2010. Part of the story is about Doug Lemov, an American educational trouble shooter who works as consultant for schools that wish to improve the quality of education they offer. Green reported that Lemov found that abilities to command attention and to give clear and precise direction reside in the core of effective teaching. Another part of the story is about a group of educational researchers that piled up more evidence for the commonsense belief that effective teaching requires competence (i.e., sufficient knowledge, training, quick mind and sound judgment) to teach the subject . It seems futile thus to impeach any of the abovementioned elements of good teaching, for after all, these are some of the things that educators and great thinkers value as far back as the time before the pre-socratics were born.

But will the said elements of good teaching suffice to ensure a significantly improved performance in school? The answer is no, for we all know that even the best teacher, regardless of the amount of scholarly and professional qualities he/she possesses, could still fail to teach his/her students. It seems to me thus that Lemov and that team of researchers, Green including, are too absorbed with facts about formal teaching that they have unintentionally neglected the major role that other factors outside the school situation play in the advancement, stagnation, or retardation of learning. I think I'll have more to say about this if my time will permit me. For now I just want to say a few words about success and failure in teaching, a topic that is often ignored in debates on the principles of accountability and difference in schooling.

She said this time she'll dance

And she did! Who do you think is the finest dancer among these kids? Choose one, c'mon! There. Now, you can bet, that's my kid. Go Bebeh!

Congratulations JM dela Paz & G. Porter

I'm so thrilled to hear from my two former EDFD 120 students that they've been invited to join the UPIS faculty starting June next academic year. I'm confident that both of them will be an asset to the University as they're not only beauty and brains. They're also passion and energy.

Congratulations Gayl Porter and John Michael dela Paz!

You two make me smile with pride. I'm genuinely happy today.

Cooking is the best art!

Cooking is an art whose product could satisfy one's grumbling stomach. In cooking, learning from a great cook does not necessarily mean that you are going to do a cheap imitation of a master's work. In cooking, reasonable people don't say, "If the cook is Mike, then the food is great." In cooking, people don't normally raise the sort of questions people ask in painting: "Is this Monet?" In cooking, greatness always depend on the taste of food and not on the name of the cook, and that's another thing that seems to make cooking greater than what painters do. I still like to paint though.

In painting, whether the work that you possess is ugly or not, if it's an original work of a "master" like Monet, Van Gogh, or Picasso, then it must be a "good" painting. In painting, the value of the product may depend on the simple name of who did it, and that is to say, in painting, you can forget about beauty or the lack of which. In cooking, you can't just declare that the food is good without putting it in your mouth. Unlike painting, "beauty" (taste of food) in cooking is always an issue. And regardless of who cooked the food, if it is great, it is great.

Wittgenstein on his Tractatus

This is a startling find. Wittgenstein, referring to his book Tractatus, said in a letter to an editor:

"The book's point is an ethical one...My work consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one" (In Edmonds, D. & Eidinow, J. (2001). Wittgenstein's Poker. NY: HarperColins Publishers. pp. 158-159).

What else could he be meaning to say with "all that I have not written" if not the metaphysical, ethical/moral, aesthetic, and spiritual?

So, the unsayable or unknowable is after all more important--and not devoid of meaning--than what the logical positivists thought are the only utterances that are sensible (i.e., empirical and analytic statements).

But, perhaps, this is nothing earth-shaking for those who are afflicted hitherto with the disease that is logical positivism. The quotation however proves that the logical positivists, during the time of Wittgenstein, the early one, saw only what they wanted to see in his Tractatus.

It's odd, nonetheless, for logical positivism to have held sway on the the question of linguistic meaning for a number of years though they don't deserve the following they enjoyed even for a smallest fraction of a millisecond. Okay, let's just say that logical positivism, despite its spartan narrow-mindedness, was not an utter waste of time as we learned anyway a great lesson from its humongous mistake: requiring the use of a principle (verification) that cannot meet its own demand.

If only those who nodded to them realized that it's inhuman to confine language to what is either true or false alone, the world could have been spared the trouble of dealing with one unnecessary irritant.

Cool stories today from science

If you're a denizen of the world of science, you might not want to miss these:

1. "Surfer inspires comparisons to Albert Einstein"
2. Undying (human) cells of Henrietta Lack (HeLa)

Social Reconstructionism: Where should we begin?

It seems easy to say why we sorely need an education that will enable us, in the long run, here in the Philippines, to reform our society into something it ought to be. But it's unwise to begin by looking for someone or some thinkers whose philosophy or philosophies shall be used as a guide in formulating a social reconstructionistic education in our country.

I believe that what we need to do is to examine or diagnose first our social and cultural situation before we reformulate the goals of education, think of what we ought to teach in order to accomplish such goals, and decide the manner by which we're going to deliver the agreed contents of reconstructionistic education. The social reconstructionist advises us to inspect the various areas of our social and cultural realities: politics, morality, arts, language, psychology, collective intelligence, worldview, and so on. What we ought to teach should be responsive to our own needs. But how could we tell whether there's anything wrong with our politics or the morals of our people, for instance? One way to diagnose our situation is to read our daily papers, both the broadsheets and the tabloids. They will not suffice as a strong basis for our diagnosis, but it's not bad to begin with them as they could show whether something is wrong with our politics or the morals of the people. How many people die everyday for no good reason? How much do corrupt government officials steal from the people? Does the public fall for commercial advertisements fallacious claims? How many people are ill and helpless? How many senior citizens and special children suffer from nightmarish neglect? How does the administration running our government survive condemnation? How many Filipinos want to leave this country? Suppose there are good reasons to believe that such and such are the problems of our people. Is there anything that education could do to effectively address our difficult situation?

Problem of Social Reconstructionism

Social Reconstructionism suggests that education should be an institution of change. Fine. But who will ever disagree with this very broad claim?

But this type of reconstructionistic change is said to go beyond the limits of space occupied by the school campuses. Isn't that good enough a reason to say that reconstructionism is good for us? Great! Great! But this is not clear enough about how things should be done. What exactly are or should be the objectives of formal education? What ought we to teach in school? How ought we to teach the supposed matter of education?

Social Reconstructionism implies that formal education is inadequate if it has no conscious effort to address the enduring problems of one's cultural and social context. This part needs clarification, too, as we do not know yet how far this context goes. Should it be responsive to the requirements of our immediate context alone?

A difficult problem remains unsolved even if we grant that there is no quarrel as regards the social reconstructionistic function of education, for this is still too abstract.

We must not lose sight of the fact that social reconstructionists do not share one and the same philosophy, ideology, and even psychology. In a way, Plato was also a social reconstructionist as evidenced by his desire to realize his vision of an ideal society. Karl Marx was also a social reconstructionist who thought that his communism was the solution to the problematic tension between the capitalist and the working class. Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio were neither platonists nor marxists, yet they also count as fine examples of social "educators" who desired systemic change in their society. How about Jesus Christ, St. Augustine, Gandhi, and many more? Even Hitler would count as a social reconstructionist.

So, while it's not difficult to agree with what Social Reconstructionism says in general, we can't help but quarrel when it comes to deciding whose framework ought we to use to guide the educator's attempt to partake in re-engineering or re-building our rickety (i.e., morally and legally corrupt) society.