Pedagogue Blog

These educational philosophies believe that students should be educated according to the need, requirements, and ideals of society so that once they are fully educated, they can contribute meaningfully to the growth and preservation of society. Thus, society-centered philosophies go beyond focusing on the student. Their emphasis is on a group or a population instead. Such educational philosophies focus on educating a group of people, which could be a minority group or the entire world, rather than a solitary student. Critical theory and globalization are two types of society-centered philosophies.

Critical theory is an educational philosophy that examines organizations, institutions, and instructions with respect to power relationships. Proponents of critical theory say that schools are controlled by the wealthy and powerful upper-class, which marginalizes the lower classes by using their power to uphold or reproduce their favored position on a subject. In contrast, the supporters of critical theory focus on empowering the subordinate classes by evaluating educational and social circumstances in schools and society. They highlight exploitative power relationships, like marginalization or determination to promote change.

Advocates of critical theory maintain that the existing curriculum in schools has two components – an official curriculum and a hidden curriculum. The latter is the unspoken, yet apparently widespread inclusion of views, which is likely to support the continued dominance of the upper class. To prevent the spread of the hidden curriculum to the disadvantage of the lower-class, critical theory proponents believe that schools should use officially sanctioned textbooks that are based on unbiased views and won’t promote or help maintain the dominance of the upper-class. Additionally, teachers are expected to persuade students to voice their ideas about their own values instead of those that are popular. 

The scope of globalization is much broader than the educational landscape, as it involves processes that encourage global participation and relationships between people of different cultures, countries, and languages. Four key processes that encourage globalization are economic, communication, educational, and political processes.

In the domain of education, an example of globalization can be the familiarity of teachers with technology. Though teachers in developed countries with reasonably priced access to technology are expected to integrate technology into every aspect of their teaching, the same won’t essentially be expected of a teacher in an underdeveloped country’s rural school. But irrespective of expectations or where they live, all students will come into contact with technology at some point and start dialogues on an international level. This makes it important for teachers from all countries to make their students aware of technological advancements, at the least, if not familiar with them.

These philosophies are based on the conviction that students play the most important role in education, and teachers and society serve as support systems to help students develop their individuality through education. These philosophies believe that students should work together with teachers to decide what should be learned and taught, and how these can best be achieved.

The emphasis of student-centered philosophies is on training individual students. These philosophies focus on the individuality of students and help them to realize their potential. A student-centered classroom is likely to be less structured or rigid. It may also be less concerned about drilling academics and past teaching practices while focusing more on getting the students trained for success in a rapidly changing world. Student-centered philosophies don’t see the school as an institution to control and direct the students, or one that functions to transmit and preserve the core culture. Rather, it’s viewed as an institution that functions with the students to help them realize their individuality or improve society. Progressivism and existentialism are two good examples of student-centered philosophies.

Progressivism organizes schools around the curiosity, concerns, abilities, interests, and real-world experiences of students.  Progressive educators are focused on the outcomes and don’t just impart learned facts. They are less concerned with passing on the existing culture and do their best to let students develop an individual approach to handle tasks allotted to them. Thus, they facilitate learning by helping students create meaningful questions and work out strategies to answer those questions. In a progressivist classroom, educators feel no compulsion to focus their students’ attention on a solitary discrete discipline at a time. Instead, they encourage students to work in groups on a wide array of topics that ignite their interest.

Existentialism puts the primary focus on students’ directing their own learning. The goal of this educational philosophy is to train students to develop their own exclusive understanding of life. Thus, students search for their own direction in and meaning of life, and define what’s accurate and what’s false, what’s satisfying and what’s disagreeable, and what’s enjoyable and what’s unpleasant, among others. In an existentialist classroom, the teachers typically outline what they feel is important and let the students select what they study. All students work on diverse, self-selected assignments at a pace of their own. The teachers play the role of facilitators, as they guide students in finding the most suitable methods, resources, or materials of study. 

Teacher-driven philosophies include philosophies about education that emphasize and support the teacher’s role in education as being the most important one. They are vital for the longevity of education and the sustained influence of teachers in the classroom. Such philosophies involve the transfer of knowledge from one generation of teachers to the next. In teacher-centered philosophies, the teacher’s responsibility is to impart determination, compassion for others, respect for authority, a strong work ethic, and sensibility. Teachers and schools are successful when students prove, usually by taking tests, that they have mastered the intended learning objectives.

Essentialism and perennialism are two good examples of teacher-centered philosophies. Essentialism stresses core knowledge in writing, reading, science, math, technology, foreign language, and history. The tools include memorization, lecturing, practice, repetition, and assessment. Today, U.S. public schools have essentialism as a standard model. In an essentialist school, a typical day might have seven periods, where every period makes the students attend a different class. The teachers teach primarily by conducting lectures, during which students are likely to take notes. Then, the students are given practice worksheets or provided with hands-on projects. This is followed by an evaluation of the learning material covered during the entire process. This routine continues for a semester or a year. When the students’ test results show adequate competence, they are promoted to the next class or grade to learn more complex material.

Perennialism is called “culturally conservative,” at times, because it doesn’t integrate multiculturalism, challenge gender stereotypes, or advocate and expose students to technology, as would be expected of contemporary literature. According to perennialists, education should symbolize a prepared effort to make ideas available to students that encourage them to think critically and rationally. It should also direct their thought processes toward the understanding and appreciation of the great works by history’s finest thinkers that surpass time and never become obsolete.

Perennialism is mainly concerned with the significance of mastery of the content and the development of reasoning skills. The perennialists’ viewpoint on education is aptly reflected by the adage that says the more things alter, the more they remain the same. In a perennilaist classroom, skills are developed in a sequential way. For instance, reading, speaking, listening, and writing are focused upon in the early grades to get students in later grades ready to study history, literature, and philosophy.

For teachers, understanding essentialism will help them know and improve their basic teaching skills, while perennialism will let them continue operating in the success of concepts, methods, and best practices that have been used in education over time.

This is a set of beliefs and ideologies commonly held by educators concerning the construction and application of educational systems. Educational philosophies are usually sourced from philosophies from the past that are still valuable in the present day. The information sourced from the past then goes through a process, where it is filtered through reality in order to produce theories and philosophies that are most appropriate for education today. These philosophies can be categorized into three groups, student-driven, society-driven, and teacher-driven philosophies.

There’s another type of classification, according to which four main types of educational philosophies are:

·         Perennialism: This subject-centered philosophy focuses on knowledge that surpasses time. A perennialist educator teaches students to think reasonably and critically while helping them master the content taught. The goal of a perennialist classroom is to develop a well-disciplined and closely organized setting, which helps encourage a lifelong quest for the truth in students.

·         Essentialism: Though this too is a subject-centered philosophy, it’s concerned with teaching basic skills. This philosophy is all about training the mind. The focus of essentialist educators is on teaching a series of progressively complex topics and helping the students move onto the next level. In an essentialist classroom, subjects are focused on the historical perspective of the material world and culture, and move in sequence to help students acquire a solid understanding of contemporary times.

·         Romanticism: This student-centered philosophy’s focus is on differentiation to meet the students’ learning readiness needs. Its five essential characteristics are intuition, imagination, individuality, inspiration, and idealism. Since this philosophy believes knowledge is acquired through intuition rather than deduction, schools founded on romanticism don’t have any set curricula, formal classes, or tests. Instead, students are allowed to decide what they desire to learn. In some cases, they are even expected to take complete responsibility for their learning.

·         Progressivism: According to progressivists, education should focus on the whole student rather than the teacher or content. Progressivism stresses that students should examine ideas by active experimentation. This educational philosophy promotes active learning and believes it to be rooted in the learners’ questions that crop up through their experiences with the world. In a progressive classroom, the students are thinkers and problem-solvers who find meaning through their individual experiences in the physical and cultural context. The content for such classes is based on and derived from students’ questions and interests. Progressive teachers in these classes provide experiences to help their students learn by doing. 

This refers to a silent agreement of views that enables the prevalence and growth of the dominant class. The hidden curriculum starts early in a student’s life, as the little ones often unintentionally pick up perspectives, behaviors, and attitudes while they are is at school. Additionally, students learn to form ideas and opinions about their classmates and their surrounding settings. For instance, students learn ‘suitable’ ways to act at school, which means they take up actions and behaviors that will make them popular with their peers and teachers. They also learn what’s expected of them. This could mean, for example, understanding the fact that test scores at the end of the year are what really matter. Though these ideas and attitudes aren’t taught in any formal way, the students take them up and internalize them through normal observation and participation in classroom and social activities.

In schools, hidden curriculum molds the perspectives of students dealing with a wide variety of issues. These include morals, gender, stereotypes, politics, social class, language, and cultural expectations. Gender roles, for instance, become very evident in early grades when socializing becomes segregated into girls and boys. Several books at this young age also support the concept of gender separation, which, in turn, promotes these norms in the early years. A clear example of hidden curriculum was the importance given to boys’ athletics before Title IX came into existence, after which several school districts strived to have a greater balance for boys’ and  girls’ teams.

Even within a school’s formal curriculum, one can often spot the hidden curriculum. Suppose, if an English class just assigns stories set in the United States or reading materials with Caucasian main characters, it may teach students that their school systems don’t welcome other cultures and languages. This can give rise to a dislike for reading or a negative self-image.

Typically, hidden curriculum is one-sided and reflects the beliefs and attitudes of the dominant class. Perhaps that’s why the critical theory proposes that in order to reduce the effect of the hidden curriculum and its effects on the subordinate classes, schools should use textbooks that have an objective perspective concerning views that maintain the hold of the dominant class.

It also suggests that teachers should not just force-feed children with views that are popularly accepted. Instead, they should allow the children to have their own interpretation of political, economic, and social matters based on their knowledge.

Marxism is an ideology that believes the class system has an unfair influence over the realms of politics, education, and society. Marxism believes that to understand the world, one must study the economic consequences of the existence of the class system.  The Marxist movement suggests that an educational system is a tool that’s used by the dominant classes to maintain their control over the oppressed classes.

Today, it’s the capitalist class that primarily determines what’s taught, to whom, and how. This is in line with what Marx once said about the ruling class that rules the society and even its intellectual force.

According to traditional Marxists, the education system works in favor of the interests of ruling class elites. These people believe the education system executes three functions for these elites, namely:

·         replicating class inequality

·         legitimizing class inequality

·         working to meet the interests of capitalist employers

In today’s education system, class inequalities are replicated or carried from one generation to the next. By using their material and cultural capital, middle-class parents make sure to enroll their children in the best schools. Consequently, the wealthier students are likely to get the best education and then get recruited into middle-class jobs. In contrast, working-class students tend to get a poorer standard of education. As a result, they end up doing menial working-class jobs. Thus, class inequality gets reproduced.

According to Marxism, it’s money that decides how good an education an individual gets. Yet, people don’t recognize this due to the schools spreading the ‘myth of meritocracy,’ where every student is touted to have an equal chance to succeed, and it’s said that grades depend on the students’ ability and effort. This way, failure is typically attributed to a student’s fault, which legitimizes or justifies the system because people consider it fair, though it isn’t. The myth of a fair system helps control the working classes. Since the students grow up thinking they were given a fair chance, they’re less prone to rebel and attempt to change society.  

Marxism also suggests a link between the values students learn at school and the way the workplace functions. The values are taught through the ‘hidden curriculum.’ Such curriculum involves those things that students learn through the experience of attending school rather than the core curriculum subjects the school teaches. This way, students are made to learn those values that are essential for them to toe the line in tedious manual jobs.

American exceptionalism is a type of nationalism that is unique to the United States. This is based on the idea that the United States’ success and dominance in the international system is proof of its exceptionality. This has the effect of instilling national pride in the hearts of the citizens, and the primary agent for instilling the concept of American exceptionalism into students is the school. This belief that the United States has qualities that make it different, unique, and special has been ingrained into the country’s school system – right from elementary to high school and even beyond – all the way to college.

Supporters of American exceptionalism argue that the country is outstanding because it was established on a set of ideals. They say America was founded on defeating tyrants, or as put forward by Lincoln, was conceived in liberty, and founded on the basis of all men being created equal. But the reality is that America wasn’t founded on equality for all. Opponents of American exceptionalism say that the nation’s founding fathers took the responsibility upon themselves to dish out “selective freedom.” They say the country dictated a hierarchy on freedom, and that assumption of power and difference of race, class, and gender remain the primary cause of several issues plaguing modern society today.

According to the opponents of American exceptionalism, American ideals didn’t include equality for women. They had to fight for suffrage, but it was only in 1920 that they got the right to vote. American ideals neither included equality for the Native Americans nor Black people who’re fighting to this day to be recognized as equals. Though these people have been granted equal protection in name, the country is still miles away from universally accepting Black people, along with people of color, as equal. Though Americans love to picture themselves and their country as the world’s moral compass, they seldom acknowledge their own failures and shortcomings.

Proponents of American exceptionalism believe that taking a unilateralist or arrogant approach to world leadership isn’t the right way to make the country exceptional again. Even denying America’s international obligations won’t help. Instead, the country should take up its former role as a benevolent leader, whose international supremacy is legitimated by its verifiable commitment to spreading democracy, peace, and shared prosperity.

Though America has unique and redeeming qualities that need to be praised, teaching just them won’t be patriotism. Rather, it’ll be sheer ignorance if other aspects like the tremendous injustices that have occurred throughout American history are ignored.

This is the ruling by the Supreme Court concerning the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in the year 1954. This ruling decision transformed education in America forever. This ruling dismantled segregation of African American and European American children in public schools and declared it unconstitutional.    

The court’s ruling was based on its decision that any form of separation was unequal and in direct opposition to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. States were instructed to assimilate all ethnic backgrounds into public schools and removed laws that enforced segregation in other facilities.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka discarded the “separate but equal” policy as advanced by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). According to this ruling, laws mandating separate public facilities for African Americans and whites don’t defy the equal protection clause if the amenities are just about equal. But the 1954 decision made the law inapplicable to public education. Although the ruling strictly applied just to public schools, it meant that segregation wasn’t permissible in other public facilities. Regarded as one of the most significant rulings in the court’s history, the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case helped motivate the American civil rights movement of the late 1950s and ‘60s. 

The consequence of Brown v. Board of Education cannot be exaggerated. The case was sponsored by the NAACP, with heavy influence from Du Bois. The case was brought up because of the complaint of an African American father whose daughter was forced to travel a mile and a half every day to get to school when there was an all-white school available a couple of blocks away from her home.

There were four other cases presented along with the Brown hearing. The counsel of the plaintiff was none other than Thurgood Marshall, a man who would eventually become a Supreme Court justice. The decision to outlaw segregation shocked the entire country, and it was largely due to the influence of Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Since the Supreme Court expected opposition to its ruling, particularly in the southern states, it didn’t give directions for the immediate implementation. Instead, it asked all the attorney generals of those states that had laws allowing segregation in their public schools to submit plans for ways to proceed with desegregation. It was on May 31, 1955, when the Justices finally handed down a plan for desegregation.

This was the first group of black students allowed to gain admission into the Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas, after the Brown ruling. These students enrolled in the school despite the harsh criticism and many threats from the local white community. They were protected by the 101^st Airborne Division, which had been assigned to them by President Eisenhower. This triggered a series of chaotic events, the news of which captured the attention of the country.

The Little Rock Nine became the center of the struggle to desegregate public schools in the U.S., particularly in the South. These students were recruited by Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas branch of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Martin Luther King, who was then the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, wrote to President Eisenhower requesting a speedy resolution to permit these students to attend school.

The initial years that the students spent at Central High were quite tumultuous. This was because the educational standards at white-only schools were much more demanding than what they were accustomed to, and they also faced constant bullying and abuse from their peers and teachers. On the first day of school (September 4, 1957), a white mob assembled in front of the school. In addition, the Arkansas National Guard was deployed by Governor Orval Faubus to prevent the black students from entering the school. To counter Faubus’ action, a team of NAACP lawyers won a federal district court injunction, which prevented the governor from blocking the students’ entry. On September 23, 1957, the students entered the school using a side entrance with the help of police escorts. However, fearing rising mob violence, they were sent home soon afterward. The Little Rock incident was becoming an international embarrassment, which Eisenhower realized. As a result, he reluctantly ordered troops from the 101^st Airborne Division to protect the students. The Little Rock Nine was shielded by federal troops as well as the Arkansas National Guard for the rest of the school year.

Despite all these incidents, the courage of these students did not break. They continued to bear their oppression and faced their education with all diligence and perseverance. Ernest Green, one of the students, became the first African-American to graduate from Central High. He later worked as the Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs under Jimmy Carter. In 1999, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. 

Title IX is a federal legislation that prevents public and private schools that receive federal funds from discriminating based on sex. Though this is commonly brought up during issues of athletic programs and scholarships, it also covers issues concerning academic discrimination. Before 1972, it was common for high schools to discriminate based on sex, as they would usually segregate classes according to sex. Boys were prioritized when it came to advanced courses and courses that were considered more important.

Girls were discouraged from enrolling in these same courses. Title IX was used to significantly influence the participation of girls in athletics as well as in the general academic curriculum. This was so effective that currently, girls have a 50% participation rate in athletics which is a huge leap from a time when they were actively discouraged and prevented from participating in athletics. This also had an affirmative effect on the overall academic experience of girls, enabling them to enroll in any courses they chose to.

Title IX is applicable to schools, state and local educational agencies, and other institutions that get federal financial assistance. These recipients include around 17,600 local school districts, more than 5,000 post-secondary institutions, and for-profit schools, charter schools, museums, and libraries. Vocational rehabilitation agencies, as well as education agencies of 50 states, the territories of the U.S., and the District of Columbia, are also included among recipients of federal funds.

All these recipient institutions must run their education program or activities in a non-discriminatory manner. This means they can’t discriminate based on sex, including gender identity and sexual orientation. Some primary issue areas covered under Title IX obligations are admissions, recruitment, and counseling; athletics; financial assistance; sex-based harassment, which includes sexual assault and other types of sexual violence; single-sex education; discipline; treatment of LGBTQI+ students; treatment of parenting and pregnant students; and employment. Additionally, no recipient or other person may threaten, intimidate, pressurize, or discriminate against any person for the purpose of interfering with any privilege or right protected by Title IX or its implementing regulations, or because the person has made a report or complaint, assisted, testified, participated, or declined to take part in a proceeding under Title IX. If a federal fund recipient acts or retaliates in any way as mentioned above, it’ll be deemed a violation of Title IX.

Earlier, Title IX was a powerful tool to stop sexual harassment and violence in schools. But with the Department’s new Title IX rule that came into effect on August 14, 2020, protections for student survivors have been drastically rolled back. This makes it easier for schools to hide sexual harassment cases.

Assessments function as individual evaluation systems that help teachers and instructors monitor and compare performance across a spectrum and populations. Since there are different types of assessments designed to serve several organizations, they can become ritualistic and monotonous, blurring the instructor, teacher, and organization’s view of the main purpose of the assessment and the reason they’re carried out in the first place. So, what’s the main purpose of these assessments?

The goal of assessment exercises is to get the needed information concerning the performance or progress of a student or group of students in order to determine the strengths and weaknesses of a student, the things they find interesting and boring, and other useful information that can help teachers improve the learning process. Armed with this information, teachers can analyze the achievement level of each student to customize their future learning process.

In learner-centered assessments, the essential elements are:

·         Formulating statements of proposed learning outcomes: This refers to formulating statements that explain the intentions related to what students should understand, know, and be able to do with their knowledge.

·         Choosing or developing assessment measures: The teachers choose or design data-gathering measures to evaluate whether or not their proposed learning outcomes have been achieved. This step typically includes:

Ø  Direct assessments, including products, case studies, projects, exhibitions, papers/theses, performances, portfolios, clinical evaluations, oral exams, and interviews that ask students to show what they can do with their knowledge or the things they know.

Ø  Indirect assessments, which include self-report measures like surveys, where students share their views about what they know or can do with their knowledge.

·         Creating experiences leading to desired learning outcomes: This ensures that students have experiences both within the scope of their courses and outside them, which will help them accomplish the proposed learning outcomes.

·         Discussion on assessment results to improve learning and teaching: This step involves analyzing and discussing the assessment results and using the insights gathered to improve individual student performance and even fine-tune teaching methods to make them more effective.

Typically, an assessment cycle includes four stages, namely planning, doing, checking, and acting. At the planning stage, teachers decide what they want their students to learn. This is followed by choosing or developing assessment measures and creating experiences to teach effectively. The third step is where the teachers check if their planned learning outcomes are met based on the evaluation of assessment data. The last step is reinforcing successful teaching and assessment practices and making revisions to improve student learning.

Formative assessment is the evaluation of a student’s progress towards achieving a specific academic goal. They are typically conducted at regular intervals and are administered by the teacher who studies the feedback and uses the information they get to help their students’ growth and progress towards their academic goals.

Teachers can use different methods to perform the in-process evaluation of student comprehension, academic progress, and learning needs during a unit, lesson, or course. Such methods can include summaries and reflections, charts, lists, exit cards, graphic organizers, visual representation of information, and collaborative activities. Using formative assessments, teachers can recognize concepts that students are finding difficult to understand, skills they’re struggling to gain, or learning standards they haven’t yet achieved. All these will help them adjust their instructional techniques, lesson plans, and academic support to help students improve their learning. Such assessments help students identify their weaknesses and strengths and target areas that they’ll need to work upon. Thus, formative assessment stands for tools that help spot struggles, misconceptions, and learning gaps along the way and evaluate ways to close those gaps. The process includes effective tools that help shape learning. It can even strengthen students’ abilities to take ownership of their learning when they realize that the objective is to improve their knowledge, not just focus on the final marks they receive.

If teachers decide to use a formative assessment, a good idea would be to ask open-ended questions to determine how well their students understand the task. Students will respond to the questions differently, with some providing answers eagerly and others opting for silence. As a result, it is common for specific students to dominate the formative assessment period. To combat this, teachers can organize the test so that everyone participates significantly and can be more committed. Teachers shouldn’t forget that the students’ hesitance to answer questions may stem from shyness, not understanding the topic, lack of confidence, etc. They can mold such a situation by rephrasing the question or asking another student to help out.

Formative assessment can be peer-led, tutor-led, or involve self-assessment. Since such assessments have low stakes and usually carry no or low point value or grade, they may, in some instances, put off the students from performing the task or engaging with it completely. Yet, this mode of assessment can support students to become self-directed learners. Additionally, it enables teachers to get evidence of student learning and make the necessary adjustments to help them achieve the intended learning outcomes.