Christopher Bauer’s Weblog

Greetings,

I like how Ornstein leaves the philosophical question implied in her work open-ended.  The entire time I was reading this work, I was asking myself, ‘How does this philosophy or theory apply to me?’ and ‘Do I fall into this category?’  By the end of the two sections, philosophy and theory, I was growing slightly uncomfortable, because I didn’t identify with any of the theories or philosophies completely.  Thus I suppose I will answer Ornstein’s four ‘basic questions’ and create my own.

First off, Ornstein asks, “What is truth and how do we know and teach it?”  From my own education as a History major, I have decided that there IS a truth, a correct answer to every question, for example, what is 2+2 or why did someone do this? Whether or not we as a human civilization knows the answer, or can know the answer, is another question, for example, we can figure out what 2+2 is through formulaic processes, however we cannot know, for certain and in its entirety, e.g. why someone did an action, or what are the complete repercussions of that action.   For the latter, we can make educated guesses and support it from evidence from readings, experiences, or other, related, publications.  In order to teach students, we have to show the dichotomy of these forms of knowledge, then teach the students how to research the topic and then come to a conclusion of their own making, supported by evidence that outweighs evidence presented by any other side.

Ornstein’s second question is “What is right and wrong, and how can we teach ethical moral values?”  This, in my opinion, is a slightly unfair question.  By the time that students reach even a Middle School, they should already know the answer to what is right and what is wrong, as I see it that their parents should have taught them that.  However, if it comes down to me to help formulate a student’s moral character, I suppose that the most respectful way of doing so is to respect the law, and the rule of law.  Despite the flaws and (arguably) inherent ways of oppressing groups of people, overall I think the system that is currently in place in America does a decent job of being fair to people.  If someone does something wrong, they should be punished accordingly.  More importantly, the system can change in the face of well founded arguments (again, this can be argued).

Ornstein’s third question is, “How can schools and their curriculum exemplify what is true and valuable?”  This I see as somewhat of a silly question.  Since the school and the curriculum is created from the collection of both teachers and a general framework given by the community, state, and nation, this seems to be a self answering question.  Since schools and curriculum are created by people with their own views on that is true and valuable, implied in what is required to be taught are lessons on what is true and valuable.  For example a community that believes that history is written in stone and is unchangeable will reflect that in the school and curriculum, as the history classes will mainly be discussion-less, stereotypical classes with a teacher lecturing for hours on end.

The final question is, “How do[es] teaching and learning reflect one’s beliefs about truth and value?”  I believe that each person, regardless of the fact that the person might be a teacher or student, well translate the information into something that coincides with their learning structure.   For example, a student, who believes, as I do, that history changes with the times and effectively is alive, has a History professor that relates all the information in a drab, monotone voice, that consists of no-nonsense, facts.  That student will raise questions based on the historiography and other disputes in the evidence that might turn the emotionless classroom into something more lively and fruitful.  However, if the roles are reversed, the student might resent the teacher for not teaching the ‘facts’ and distrust the teacher for complicating everything.

Overall, I am not completely sure if I do or do not fall into one of the categories defined by Ornstein.  The fact that I did not completely relate to what the text’s descriptions, could relate to a lack of thorough reading or a lack of understanding.

Work sited:

Ornstein, A. C., & Levine, D. U. (2000). Philosophical roots of education. In Foundations of education (7th ed., pp. 388-420). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006 at 4:19 pm and is filed under Class Readings and You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.