A. Study the article “Promoting Reflection in Professional Courses: The challenges of context” in the link provided below and discuss the following: (150w)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247281411_Promoting_Reflection_in_Professional_Courses_The_Challenge_of_Context
B. Select one of the theorists discussed in the material for this week and provide your opinion and ideas behind their arguments and approaches. For example, why did you choose the specific one? Why does he inspire you? See attached on application (150 w)
C. Discuss the importance of having personal and cultural values and answer the questions(See Personal and cultural values attached): (100 w)
D. Answer the question do one’s values reflect one’s culture’s values by discussing your own experience. Use the two links provided below. (100w)
a. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om3INBWfoxY&ab_channel=ClickView
b. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6764102_Congruence_and_Functions_of_Personal_and_Cultural_Values_Do_My_Values_Reflect_My_Culture%27s_Values
1
Week 2 – Application and critique of theories
and models in educational contexts
TOPIC GOALS
Understand the different reflective theories and models in
education
Distinguish the arguments and critique of these theories
2
1. Introduction
“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to
think.”
(Albert Einstein, 1947)
2. Reflective Theories in Education
There are 4 major theories in education in relation to reflection and
reflexivity developed by John Dewey (1859-1952) who was an American
philosopher, Donald Schon (1930-1997) again a philosopher, David A. Kolb
(1939-present) who is an American educational theorist, David Boud a professor
in Education and Paulo Freire (1921 – 1997) an educator and philosopher.
Dewey is considered to be the founder of reflection in learning and Schon
developed the concept of reflective practice and contributed to the theory of
organizational learning and professional development. Kolb on the other hand
created the experiential learning cycle and Boud combined the theory of
reflection with experience and learning.
3
John Dewey (1859-1952)
According to Seifert and Sutton (2009) ‘He argued, for example, that if
students indeed learn primarily by building their own knowledge, then teachers
should adjust the curriculum to fit students’ prior knowledge and interests as fully
as possible. He also argued that a curriculum could only be justified if it related
as fully as possible to the activities and responsibilities that students will probably
have later, after leaving school.’ Dewey mostly believed that students learn
through a hands-on approach. He supported the need to learn by doing. This was
also his belief about teachers as well as he supported that students and teachers
must learn together.
Dewey retired in 1930 but was immediately appointed professor emeritus
of philosophy in residence at Columbia and held that post until his
eightieth birthday in 1939. The previous year he had published his last
major educational work, Experience and Education (1938). In this series
of lectures, he clearly restated his basic philosophy of education and
recognized and rebuked the many excesses he thought the Progressive
education movement had committed. He chastised the Progressives for
casting out traditional educational practices and content without offering
something positive and worthwhile to take their place. He offered a
reformulation of his views on the intimate connection between learning
and experience and challenged those who would call themselves
Progressives to work toward the realization of the educational program
he had carefully outlined a generation before. (Soltis, 2020)
Dewey ‘defined the educational process as a “continual reorganization,
reconstruction and transformation of experience” (1916, p. 50), for he believed that
it is only through experience that man learns about the world and only by the use
of his experience that man can maintain and better himself in the world’ (Soltis,
2020).
4
According to Soltis (2020) some of Dewey’s arguments are ‘Thus, Dewey
argued, the schools did not provide genuine learning experiences but only an
endless amassing of facts, which were fed to the students, who gave them back
and soon forgot them.’
Donald Schon (1930-1997)
Donald Schon mostly believed in three basic elements: Learning systems
and learning societies and institutions, double-loop (explained below) and
organizational learning and the relationship of reflection-in-action to
professional activity.
In his book Beyond the Stable State, (1973, 28-9) Donald Schon raises 4 very
important questions.
What is the nature of the process by which organizations, institutions and
societies transform themselves?
What are the characteristics of effective learning systems?
What are the forms and limits of knowledge that can operate within
processes of social learning?
What demands are made on a person who engages in this kind of learning?
‘Donald Schon argues that social systems must learn to become capable of
transforming themselves without intolerable disruption. In this ‘dynamic
conservatism’ has an important place […] Two key themes arise out of Donald
Schon’s discussion of learning systems: the emergence of functional systems as
the units around which institutions define themselves; and the decline of centre-
5
periphery models of institutional activity (ibid.: 168). He contrasts classical
models of diffusing innovation with a learning system model’ (Smith, 2001).
(Smith,
2001)
‘When the error detected and corrected permits the organization to carry
on its present policies or achieve its presents objectives, then that error-and-
correction process is single-loop learning. Single-loop learning is like a
thermostat that learns when it is too hot of too cold and turns the heat on or off.
Classical models for the diffusion
of innovations
Learning systems’ models around the
diffusion of innovation
The unit of innovation is a product or
technique.
The unit of innovation is a functional system.
The pattern of diffusion is centre-
periphery.
The pattern of diffusion is systems transformation.
Relatively fixed centre and leadership. Shifting centre, ad hoc leadership.
Relatively stable message; pattern of
replication of a central message.
Evolving message; family resemblance of
messages.
Scope limited by resource and energy at
the centre and by capacity of ‘spokes’.
Scope limited by infrastructure technology.
‘Feedback’ loop moves from secondary
to primary centre and back to all
secondary centres.
‘Feedback’ loops operate local and universally
throughout the systems network.
6
The thermostat can perform this task because it can receive information
(the temperature of the room) and take corrective action. Double-loop learning
occurs when error is detected and corrected in ways that involve the modification
of an organization’s underlying norms, policies and objectives’ (Argyris and
Schön, 1978).
‘The notions of reflection-in-action, and reflection-on-action were
central to Donald Schon’s efforts in this area. The former is sometimes described
as ‘thinking on our feet’. It involves looking to our experiences, connecting with
our feelings, and attending to our theories in use. It entails building new
understandings to inform our actions in the situation that is unfolding’ (Smith,
2001)
David A. Kolb (1939-present)
Kolb’s theory is mostly related to a specific learning style which
contributed to creating the experiential learning cycle. It mostly involves the
learner’s internal cognitive processes and how they function.
Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle, 1984
(Association for Experiential Education, 2019)
7
Kolb argues that these 4 different learning styles involve the attainment of
abstract concepts that can be adapted in a number of situations. ‘Learning is the
process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience’
(Kolb, 1984).
1. Concrete Experience – a new experience or situation is encountered, or a reinterpretation
of existing experience.
2. Reflective Observation of the New Experience – of particular importance are any
inconsistencies between experience and understanding.
3. Abstract Conceptualization reflection gives rise to a new idea, or a modification of an
existing abstract concept (the person has learned from their experience).
4. Active Experimentation – the learner applies their idea(s) to the world around them to see
what happens.
(Mcleod,
2017)
‘Effective learning is seen when a person progresses through a cycle of
four stages: of (1) having a concrete experience followed by (2) observation of
and reflection on that experience which leads to (3) the formation of abstract
concepts (analysis) and generalizations (conclusions) which are then (4) used to
test a hypothesis in future situations, resulting in new experiences’ (Mcleod,
2017)
(University of Leicester, 2019)
8
David Boud
David Boud’s model of reflection deals with Experience-Based Learning,
depicting that the foundation for learning is through the learner’s experience. He
supports that the major stimulus for learning is experience and his ideas are based
on Dewey’s, Schon’s and Kolb’s theories. His major belief is that learning cannot
occur if the learner does not reflect on the experience and supports that reflection
is often overlooked in the learning process.
There are three phases to Boud’s theory related to learning through
reflection and these are:
Phase 1: Before Learning Experience
Phase 2: During Learning Experience and,
Phase 3: After Learning Experience
Phase 1: Before Students reflect as a way to explore and prepare
for what is coming
Phase 2: During Reflecting and collecting events in the midst of
experience helps students to connect theory to practice
Phase 3: After Post-experience reports performed, both formally
and informally, assist students in improved learning
(Boud, Keogh and Walker, 1985)
9
Paulo Freire (1921 – 1997)
Born September 19, 1921 to a middle-class family in Brazil
Poverty and hunger during the Great Depression of the 1930s
Father died when he was 13 years old / struggled in school / social life
playing football with other poor children
Poverty and hunger severely affected his ability to learn and influenced his
decision to dedicate his life to improving the lives of the poor:
“I didn’t understand anything because of my hunger. I wasn’t dumb. It wasn’t lack
of interest. My social condition didn’t allow me to have an education. Experience
showed me once again the relationship between social class and knowledge”.
Studied Law and Philosophy (phenomenology, and the psychology of
language)
Worked as a teacher in secondary schools teaching Portuguese.
1944, married Elza Maia Costa de Oliveira
1967, Education as the Practice of Freedom / then Pedagogy of the
Opressed
1969, visiting professorship -Harvard University
Political feuds between Freire (Christian socialist) and authoritarian military
dictatorships, book not published in Brazil until 1974
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Pedagogy of Hope
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Freire worked to help the silent (illiterate) peoples of urban and rural Brazil find
a voice and out of his Pedagogy of the Oppressed came the principles for his
Pedagogy of Hope.
‘Developing consciousness…is understood as having the power to
transform reality’ (Taylor, 1993:52).
Action for social justice and fairness.
In order to think for ourselves, Mac Naughton (2005) notes ‘we have to
make explicit our implicit views about how society works and then
engage in an ‘ideology critique’ that will bring us freedom (p8). In this
way, critical pedagogy can create emancipation so that there is a shift
from changing individual educator’s practice to challenging
oppressive and unequal power relationships in the classroom.
Concientisation
Freire advocated a dialogical approach that involves students’ active
engagement with each other and the world (Jacobs and Murray, 2010).
Learning is then a collaborative, problem-posing process of enquiry which
starts from the experience and knowledge already evident within learners.
It questions assumptions that have been taken for granted and raises
awareness of new perspectives and personal actions that can lead to the
transformation of oppressing professional or political customs (Jacobs
and Murray, 2010).
11
Education should allow the oppressed to regain their
sense of humanity.
….But they must play a role in their liberation
Be willing to rethink their way of life and to examine their own role in the
oppression
” Those who authentically commit themselves to the people must re-
examine themselves constantly”.
Paulo Freire’s last public interview, given to Literacy organisation in 1996.
A Conversation with Paulo Freire
Seeing Through Paulo Freire’s glasses
Stop and critically reflect…
On the relevance of Freire in relation to your experience of life / teaching
3. Critique of the Reflective Theories
‘Boud and Walker’s theorization on reflection partially addresses the
concern regarding the separation of ‘experience’ and ‘reflection’ in Kolb’s model
as two mutually independent processes. Donald Schon’s (1983; 1987) work
helped to integrate experience and reflection one step further with the concepts
of reflection-in-action, reflection-on-action and critical reflection. In both
concept and practice, Schon’s idea of critical reflection can help to ameliorate the
stop-motion nature of Kolb’s cycle’ (Academic Success, 2010).
As Dewey argued learning based on reflection can only happen when the learner
actively reflects on the experience otherwise not all experiences are equally
educative.
12
‘Ethical concerns are exacerbated in situations where participation is, in
effect, mandatory. In some situations, employers’ or teachers’ strong expectations
of participation by individuals in training events or formally assessed courses can
lead to outcomes counter to what are desired and antagonise those who
participate’ (Andresen, Boud and Cohen, 1995).
(Fenwick, 2001)
Further reading from the Weekly EBooks:
Book: Dewey, Russell, Whitehead, (1986) Philosophers As Educators,
Chapter: Two / John Dewey and the Laboratory School, pages 14 – 42
Additional Reading:
Boud, D. and Walker, D. (1998). Promoting Reflection in Professional Courses:
The Challenge of Context. [online] ResearchGate.
Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247281411_Promoting_Reflection_in
_Professional_Courses_The_Challenge_of_Context [Accessed 6 Oct. 2020].
13
References:
Academic Success (2010). Reflective Observation | ASC Experiential Learning. [online]
University of Toronto. Available at: http://experiential.asc.utoronto.ca/reflective-
observation/
[Accessed 3 Sep. 2020].
Andresen, L., Boud, D. and Cohen, R. (1995). EXPERIENCE-BASED LEARNING.
[online] Complex World, Australia: Allen & Unwin, pp.225–239. Available at:
http://complexworld.pbworks.com/f/Experience-based%2520learning [Accessed
5 Sep. 2020].
Argyris, C. and Schön, D.A. (1978). Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective.
II ed. University of Michigan: Addison-Wesley, pp.1–344.
Association for Experiential Education (2019). What is Experiential Learning? | Queen’s
Experiential Learning Hub. [online] Queensu.ca. Available at:
https://www.queensu.ca/experientiallearninghub/about/what-experiential-learning
[Accessed 3 Sep. 2020].
Boud, D., Keogh, R. and Walker, D. (1985). Reflection, turning experience into learning.
London: Kogan Page ; New York.
Engward, H. and Davis, G. (2015). Being reflexive in qualitative grounded theory: discussion
and application of a model of reflexivity. Journal of Advanced Nursing, [online] 71(7),
pp.1530–1538. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274318694
_Being_reflexive_in_qualitative_grounded_theory_Discussion_and_application_of_a
_model_of_reflexivity [Accessed 27 Aug. 2020].
Fenwick, T.J. (2001). Experiential Learning: A theoretical critique from five perspectives.
[online] ERIC, Columbus, OH: Center on Education and Training for Employment,
pp.2– 76. Available at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED454418 [Accessed 8
Sep. 2020].
http://experiential.asc.utoronto.ca/reflective-
http://experiential.asc.utoronto.ca/reflective-
http://complexworld.pbworks.com/f/Experience-based%2520learning
https://www.queensu.ca/experientiallearninghub/about/what-experiential-learning
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274318694
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED454418
14
Harvey, M., Coulson, D. and McMaugh, A., 2016. Towards a theory of the Ecology of
Reflection: Reflective practice for experiential learning in higher education. Journal of
University Teaching & Learning Practice, [online] 13(2), pp.1-20. Available at:
https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1650&context=jutlp [Accessed
24
August 2020].
Healey, M. and Jenkins, A., 2000. Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory and Its Application in
Geography in Higher Education. Journal of Geography, [online] 99(5), pp.185-195.
Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221340008978967
[Accessed 24 August 2020].
Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experimental learning: experience as the source of learning and
development. 2 illustrated ed. Englewood Cliffs; London: Prentice-Hall, pp.1–256.
Lea, M. and Street, B., 2006. The “Academic Literacies” Model: Theory and
Applications. Theory Into Practice, [online] 45(4), pp.368-377. Available at:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15430421tip4504_11 [Accessed 24
August 2020].
Mcleod, S. (2017). Kolb’s Learning Styles and Experiential Learning Cycle. [online]
Simplypsychology.org. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-
kolb.html [Accessed 3 Sep. 2020].
Schön, D.A. (1973). Beyond the stable state. illustrated, reprint ed. University of Michigan:
New York, Norton, pp.1–254.
Seifert, K. and Sutton, R. (2009). Major theories and models of learning | Educational
Psychology. [online] Lumenlearning.com. Available at:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-educationalpsychology/chapter/major-
theories-and-models-of-learning/ [Accessed 27 Aug. 2020].
https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1650&context=jutlp
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221340008978967
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15430421tip4504_11
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-educationalpsychology/chapter/major-
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-educationalpsychology/chapter/major-
15
Smith, M.K. (2001). Donald Schon (Schön): learning, reflection and change–
infed.org: [online] The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education.
Available at: https://infed.org/donald-schon-learning-reflection-change/
[Accessed 3 Sep. 2020].
Smith, M.K. (2013). Reflection, learning and education – infed.org: [online] The encyclopedia
of pedagogy and informal education. Available at: https://infed.org/mobi/reflection-
learning-and-education/#Boud [Accessed 3 Sep. 2020].
Smith, T., (2003). Connecting Theory And Reflective Practice Through The Use Of Personal
Theories. International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. [online]
Honolulu, pp.215-222. Available at:
https://eric.ed.gov/?q=CONNECTING+THEORY+AND+REFLECTIVE+PRACTIC
E+THRO UGH+THE+USE+OF+PERSONAL+THEORIES&id=ED501125
[Accessed 24 August 2020].
Soltis, J. (2020). John Dewey (1859–1952) – Experience and Reflective Thinking, Learning,
School and Life, Democracy and Education. [online] Stateuniversity.com. Available at:
https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1914/Dewey-John-1859-1952.html
[Accessed 1 Sep. 2020].
University of Leicester (2019). David Kolb — University of Leicester. [online] Le.ac.uk.
Available at:
https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/doctoralcollege/training/eresources/teaching/t
heories/kolb [Accessed 3 Sep. 2020].
Watts, L., 2018. Reflective Practice, Reflexivity, and Critical Reflection in Social Work
Education in Australia. Australian Social Work, [online] 72(1), pp.8-20. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1080/0312407X.2018.1521856 [Accessed 24 August 2020].
https://infed.org/donald-schon-learning-reflection-change/
https://infed.org/mobi/reflection-
https://infed.org/mobi/reflection-
https://eric.ed.gov/?q=CONNECTING+THEORY+AND+REFLECTIVE+PRACTIC
https://eric.ed.gov/?q=CONNECTING+THEORY+AND+REFLECTIVE+PRACTIC
https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1914/Dewey-John-1859-1952.html
https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/doctoralcollege/training/eresources/teaching/t
https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/doctoralcollege/training/eresources/teaching/t
https://doi.org/10.1080/0312407X.2018.1521856
1
Week 3 – The impact of personal and cultural
values in educational contexts
TOPIC GOALS
Explore personal and cultural values in education for educators and
students
2
1. Introduction
“Great people have great values and great ethics.”
(Jeffrey Gitomer, 1993)
2. Educators Personal and Cultural Values
Our values as educators play a significant role to how we portray ourselves
in action, what we do and what we say. Most of the times you find educators
asking themselves the same question. What kind of an educator am I? Educators
always need to justify themselves through their teaching practices and that can
only be done when we reflect on what we do and why we teach in a particular
way. That involves the values of any educator to be questioned.
‘Throughout our teaching careers we think and behave in certain ways and
believe in certain things, such as how far our teaching can be called ‘educational’,
about what we can offer children and what our capabilities are. What we do, think,
and feel about teaching constitute our sense of professional identity. We can
reveal and communicate this identity when we address and articulate an answer
to the question’ (Ghaye, 2011).
3
If we reflect on these descriptions of practice, we give
ourselves the chance to learn from our experiences of
teaching. This can help to move our practice forward.
(Ghaye, 2011)
‘While a case could be made that there are some universally accepted
values, values in education are culturally bound. No aspect of curriculum is taught
in a cultural void, and the relationship of values education to cultural context
throws up particular challenges in attempting an international study’ (Stephenson,
1998).
Educators usually do not stay in an unchanged set of values as they develop
more practice and experience the reflection on these shifts and changes happen
depending on the setting and context they work in. To be called a professional
implies that educators need to reflect on their teaching constantly and be
responsive to what is happening around them. ‘A teacher’s values should be
derived from the nature of what constitutes effective and ethical practice. To
reach this position, we have to understand and question the purposes of education’
(Ghaye, 2011)
4
Cultural values on the other hand are the particular concepts of interest of
each individual when asked about their beliefs, personality, values and identity.
That way you can distinguish their cultural views and behaviours in their personal
lives which then reflect in their practices as well. This also reflects specific
characteristics and certain practices on a larger nationwide scale that constitutes
each educational context. However, ‘Individuals are expected to cultivate and
express their own preferences, feelings, ideas, and abilities. Schwartz (1994)
distinguishes two types of autonomy: intellectual autonomy encourages
individuals to pursue their own ideas and intellectual directions independently,
and affective autonomy entails a pursuit of affectively positive experience by
individuals for themselves. In cultures with an emphasis on embeddedness,
people are viewed as entities embedded in the larger group. Meaning in life is
provided largely through social relationships, group identification, participation
in the group’s shared way of life, and striving toward shared goals of the group’
(Fischer, 2006).
As Higgins (2011) argues, that ethical reflection is ‘Such reflection will
often touch on moral considerations—impartial deliberations about duty, right
action, and the needs of others—but it begins and ends with first-personal
questioning, in thick evaluative terms, about the shape of one’s life as a whole.
Ethics is rooted in the perpetual practical question ‘What should I do next?’ and
flowers, in our more contemplative moments, into questions like ‘what do I want
to become?’, ‘what does it mean to be fully human?’, and ‘what would make my
life meaningful, excellent, or rich?’
5
Professional ethics, then, should be distinguished from what I call ‘moral
professionalism’, which deals with codes of professional conduct and our role-
specific obligations to others. In contrast, the ethics of teaching, as I propose it
here, will probe the relation between the teaching life and the good life,
connecting the question ‘why teach?’ with the question ‘how should I live?’ It
considers what draws us to the practice of teaching and what sustains us there in
the face of difficulty’.
‘At meso-level, disciplinary differences and academic cultures are highly
influential in academic practices (Fanghanel 2009; Becher 2001; Trowler et
al. 2012). Epistemological differences are evident in varying academic cultures.
They result in divergent disciplinary teaching and learning norms and practices,
where different conceptions of teaching and learning become apparent
(Becher 2001; Neumann et al. 2010; Lee 2007) (…) At macro-level, teachers
operate within structural conditions that can include institutional policies,
regulations, the requirements of external evaluation bodies and the external
political environment (Henkel 2000; Deem and Lucas 2007). These structures
determine the physical and organisational context and can constrain or enable the
choices and opportunities available to individuals and communities within the
organisation (Mathieson 2011; Kaatrakoski et al. 2016)’ (Englund, Olofsson and
Price, 2018).
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-018-0254-1#ref-CR23
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-018-0254-1#ref-CR4
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-018-0254-1#ref-CR57
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-018-0254-1#ref-CR4
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-018-0254-1#ref-CR41
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-018-0254-1#ref-CR36
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-018-0254-1#ref-CR25
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-018-0254-1#ref-CR15
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-018-0254-1#ref-CR39
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-018-0254-1#ref-CR28
6
I wish to raise the question, ‘In what ways can reflective practices enhance human
flourishing?’ Underpinning this question is my assumption that enhancing human
flourishing is important work. So in what ways is it important? How does it
matter? And what do we actually mean by the term human flourishing? In a very
pragmatic sense would reflective practices that enhance human flourishing help
us bounce-back from adverse events in our lives? Would they help us be more
open-minded, have more creative thoughts, enjoy better relationships with
others? Be more resilient?
These, I suggest, are big questions that deserve some serious attention from those
who regard themselves as reflective practitioners, who learn through reflection
and who use various reflective practices for some positive purposes. For those
who believe in practical action for positive purposes, I frame a challenge as a
positive question namely, ‘What would we need to do to (re)cast reflective
practices in the role of enhancing human flourishing?’ I wonder what kind of
uncommon wisdom we would discover if we embraced a question of this kind?
(Ghaye, 2010)
Meso-Level
Disciplinary Differences
Academic Cultures
Macro-Level
Institutional Policies
Regulations
External Evaluation Bodies
External Political Environment
7
Critical Theory / Critical Social Theory
Based on the principles of empowerment and the theories of Paulo Freire
(1970, 1972)
Transformative learning (Mezirow, 1978, 1981, 1990 and 1997)
Transformational Learning (Mezirow, 1978, 1981, 1990, 1997, 2000)
‘A process in which adults change their views and habits – which they have
gained as a result of their experience – according to the current situations
and changes they have encountered’ (Kabakci, Odabasi and Kilicer,
2010:263).
It involves personal awareness and understanding, through true
emancipation from sometimes unquestioning acceptance of life
experience, to active engagement or questioning of how we know what we
know. (Mezirow, 1997)
As Moon (2008) notes, one person cannot make another person reflect,
they can only facilitate or foster a critically reflective approach through
appropriate conditions in relation to the habits already formed by teachers.
Only then, perhaps, can the internalisation and application of the attitudes
(Dewey, 1933), the lenses (Brookfield, 1995) and the competencies (Pollard et
al., 2008) at the heart of critical reflection transform learning in the way that
Mezirow (1997) refers to.
8
Leitch (2006, p. 551) acknowledges that “many emotional, sensory and
embodied dimensions of experience lie below the threshold of
consciousnesses” and are difficult to tap into or to access.
“embodied knowledge” (p. 552)
Personal Reflection
New Learning?
Challenged your thinking about own ‘position’ and philosophy as an
educator?
3. Student’s Personal and Cultural Values
PUPILS’ MORAL AND CULTURAL EXPERIENCE (Halstead and Taylor, 1996, pp.119)
9
Educators have the responsibility through their sayings and actions to
transfer the values and morals of any educational system to their students through
teaching them the qualities needed to survive the outside world. They need to
possess a set of socially acceptable values and principles to blend in society to be
considered as morally educated people. This should be formed in students by the
educator’s own values through their ability to become competent moral agents.
Any belief, perception or attitude needs to be addressed and cultivated
through the unwritten rules and regulations of any school setting. Family values
and culture play a significant role in the social behaviour of the students and a
more important role in the development of morally appropriate societies. Social
and cultural values in class can shape the personalities of student’s behaviour.
10
4. John Dewey’s Theory on Personal and Cultural Values
For John Dewey the sense of values was especially important as most of
his writings and theories involved around reflection in regard to setting one’s
beliefs and morals. Kompf & Denicolo, (2005) argue in their book Connecting
Policy and Practice: Challenges for Teaching and Learning in Schools and
Universities that ‘One reason why Dewey’s classic contribution to democratic
education is still relevant today, is because of his analysis of the interdependence
between human competence, social organisation, moral agency, education and
democracy understood as a way of life. For Dewey, democracy was education in
a broad sense, and for him schools played an essential role in developing morality
and democracy’ (pp. 222)
‘Dewey denied insurmountable barriers between the descriptive sciences
and the normative sciences, what is and what ought to be, and between rationality
and emotions. In viewing the world from a transactional standpoint, Dewey
rejected all philosophical traditions which held the fundamental world order as
fixed and stable. For Dewey, all talk about eternal truth or absolutistic and
universal theoretical claims was misguiding. In a world constantly changing, all
theories and practices are context dependent with regard to their justification,
interpretation and application. At the same time, not all things were relative to
context. Dewey trusted that human rationality had universal potential but it was
not yet well developed, and the best example so far of systematic and impartial
rationality was to be found in science. Therefore, Dewey was careful not to
confuse universal procedures with the outcome of such procedures. Outcomes
were more context dependent than the rational procedures producing the
outcomes and the distinction between outcome and rational procedure can be
11
recognised in Dewey’s two-level concept of experience (Dewey, 1925a; Hickman
and Alexander, 1998)’ (Kompf & Denicolo, 2005).
‘Values refer to intersubjectively accessible states of affairs, in the real
world, and that opens the possibility for moral knowledge (Dewey, 1925b). The
moral answers cannot be of universal or absolute character, but it is possible to
construct objective values in relation to a specific context, action or society
(Dewey, 1932)’ (Kompf et al., 2005)
For Dewey, occupation or vocation is simply ‘a concrete term for
continuity’ or in another formulation, ‘a continuous activity having a purpose’
(Dewey, 1916, p. 307)’ (Higgins, 2011).
5. Conclusion
Values are central to both the theory of education and the practical
activities of schools in two ways. First, schools and individual teachers within
schools are a major influence, alongside the family, the media and the peer group,
on the developing values of children and young people, and thus of society at
large. Secondly, schools reflect and embody the values of society; indeed, they
owe their existence to the fact that society values education and seeks to exert
influence on the pattern of its own future development through education.
(Halstead and Taylor, 1996)
12
Further reading from the Weekly EBooks:
Book: Higgins, C (2011), The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional
Practice, Chapter: 4 A Question of Experience: Dewey and Gadamer on
Practical Wisdom, pages 111 – 134
Additional Material:
Video: Wellbeing for Children: Identity and Values
13
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