Homework for today is to do some general research on a religion you are not deeply familiar with. Please find 5-7 moral values or commandments that are central to this religion's beliefs. Bring this list to class next week, June 3rd, for further discussion.
If you would like to have a look at the earliest existing pieces of homework(!), go to:
http://www.schoyencollection.com/scribes.html#4481
Scroll down to the second tablet (MS 4481)with writing exercises that say:
WHERE DID YOU GO IN OLDEN DAYS? I WENT TO SCHOOL, WHAT DID YOU DO IN SCHOOL? I READ MY TABLET, AND COPIED MY TABLET. THEY PREPARED FOR ME MY PREPARED LINES - LET ME TELL YOU WHAT MY TEACHER TOLD ME - EVEN A FOOL COULD EASILY FOLLOW HIS INSTRUCTIONS, TABLETS OF SUMERIAN AND AKKADIAN, TABLETS OF THE SCRIBAL ART - I AM SCRIBE AND KNOW HOW TO INSCRIBE A STELA.
Have a good weekend ; )
The thought that; “we are not truly ethical people if we don’t understand the theory behind the practice”, really stuck with me from last night’s class. It made me examine why I do some of the things I do. Do I buy fair trade coffee because it is a more ethical choice or because that’s what my peers do and I don’t want to be seen as uncaring? Do I attend church on Sunday out of duty to my parents, or due to a true devotion and observance of religious praise? Do I make choices at times to please others rather than acting on my own beliefs? It will be a statement that I will continue to challenge myself with, as well as bring to the classroom in my future profession. My goal is to contribute towards educating the future generation to be socially involved and caring individuals. Understanding the theory behind the practice will help accomplish this goal.
ReplyDeleteIts interesting to think of mans function in the sense of a carpenter's function, then to think of man's function when he holds himself to high ethical standards same as the carpenter who holds himself to a high standard of craftsmanship. I would like to think about a teacher’s function and the function of a teacher that holds himself to a high ethical standard. Much like Aristotle’s harp player, the harp player who strives for excellence is said to have the function of an excellent harp player. So a teacher who strives for excellence is by definition an excellent teacher but a teacher who’s function is merely to teach, fulfills their function by simply teaching; all ability or quality aside.
ReplyDeleteSo if we take Aristotle’s idea of virtue ethics and look back at our conversation in regards to a teachers action’s outside of the classroom we can see the flaw in the argument that a personal life is totally separate from our professional life. According to the theory of virtue ethics a dual persona where on one hand you present yourself as a champion of ethics worthy of emulation by your many students but on the other you break the law on a regular basis you become by function a bad person. To be a good person and develop a moral character worthy of the title of teacher one must act according to reason and virtue at all times and consciously.
Hey Laurel,
ReplyDeleteI like that you buy fair trade coffee for the environmental views that I have. Big industry has had too big a hand in changing the face of the earth for long enough. Really enjoyed class on Thursday and how the questions made me think.
There are many ways that schools and religious centers are alike. One of the results of going through theses schools teaches people how they should act on the world to achieve happiness. The architectural features they both share include elements that are conducive to higher learning. These are high ceilings, neutral color tones, and inspirational artwork. Schools are staffed by people who are educated at a high level. Teachers resemble religious leaders in that they have educated themselves and they are ready to pass on what they know to those who are ready to receive it. As it said in the text ,under professionalism, the job of the school is to educate students. So its design should not interfere or distract from that goal. There are many facets that encompass an ideal school. Surely the design and construction of the school acts as a foundation for the other parts of the school to be successful. Could this be a reason also why most religious centers are architectural masterpieces? I like the way the topic of schools is moving into the topic of religion in this class.
Question 1:h. from Thursday states that all classes of children have the same opportunity to advance in schools regardless of their social order. I would imagine that this was a controversial topic for schools at this time. When social order and hierarchies was the norm for determining succession in most walks of society. Currently there is much less bias in society when it comes to political or professional advancement. With access to student loans and other government programs it is the accepted norm that all people have equal access to higher education.
One of the questions that stuck with me from last class was the question, “Is it fair to hold all teachers to the standards of Plato (or something along those lines)? This made me realize how beneficial not only for students, but for teachers, it is that there is an awareness that there are different teaching styles and that different teaching styles can be equally successful. One of the largest concerns I had in going into teaching was that I wouldn’t be outgoing enough. I remembered back to my favorite teacher in highschool and he was the funniest, most outgoing guy. I knew I couldn’t be him. It would not be authentic and students would know that. In doing my practicum’s and observing various teacher’s it quickly became clear that there is not a formula to teach well. There is room for all types of personalities in teaching; it is the work you do and the relationships you make (among other things) that make you an effective teacher. Furthermore, it is to the benefit of the students that they encounter various personalities throughout their schooling, as their lives will be filled with learning, collaborating, and teaching with countless people.
ReplyDeleteMy second comment reflects exactly what Christian commented on. After spending some time in China, I really gained appreciation for an education system that allowed all people access to equal education. This is something that I definitely took for granted as a school aged person. While I think that it is important to have appreciation for the advances in education since the times of Plato, I also think it is very important as educators and students to understand how much further we could go. Free access to education should not stop at the age of 18.
Some of the questions we looked at on Thursday made me think about the current education system and the notion of equal access to it. Christian comments that there is much less bias today, and I have to agree. In comparing Canada’s system to that of China, Kristen mentioned that she had gained an appreciation for a system such as Canada’s that allows equal access. Today (at least on a philosophical level) our schools attempt to treat all students equally. We integrate students with special needs into our classes, and we try to support them with assistants and technology. From my limited perspective it appears that support services may be better in the elementary system than in the secondary system, and I am certain that they vary depending on the district. I know there’s no perfect system, and Canada is doing a pretty great job of offering education to all, but here’s an example for how the system is failing some students and therefore access is not equal. When I was in my 402/1 secondary practicum, my SA had a grade 8 English class with approximately thirty children. These children had the usual mix of abilities. At least six were exceptional and at least six had IEP’s. The others fell somewhere in the middle range. There was no SEA on hand to support the special needs children in that class. My SA with many years experience and skills under her belt had immense difficulty meeting the diverse needs of the children in this class. I know this story isn’t unique. Equal access really does come down to a question of funding and money. I’m unsure how accurate the media is, so I have a critical ear when I hear the news stories about funding cuts, but it does appear that the children with the highest needs are the ones who suffer the most when cutbacks are made. This makes me think about whether our current system is elitist especially when students leave elementary and move into secondary.
ReplyDeleteI found it insightful to review last class some of Plato’s contributions to the world. In particular, I completely agree with his notion that “being good is its own reward”. One does not need to gain an extra reward after doing something good to make it worthwhile; the pleasant feeling that results from knowing that you have acted ethically is sufficient. I think that our conscience is a good guide for our behaviour, and it ‘rewards’ or ‘punishes’ us appropriately. I have discovered this to be true for me, and I believe it to be an essential characteristic of what it means to be human. When I do something unselfish that benefits others, as cheesy as it sounds, I do get a good feeling. When I cheat or lie or act in a way that is harmful to others, guilt, anxiety, or simply an empty feeling is the end result. This notion is also incorporated in various religious doctrines as the golden rule, or doing unto others as you’d like them to do to you. When you do good, you feel good. It’s really quite simple. It has taken me far too many years to discover this ridiculously basic truth, but I am glad to say that I have come to agree with Plato’s concept that being ‘good’ is indeed its own reward.
ReplyDeleteHearing Plato’s allegory of the cave the other night was the first time that I’d been exposed to this particular metaphor. I can see how many teachers would choose the profession based on this idea that they can help lead students from ignorance to knowledge. After all, teachers obviously have more formal education and life experiences from which they can draw from to help shed some light on those learners who remain in the dark. It is only natural that as we have grown on our own journey through life, we come to a point at which we feel ready to share what we have learned with young people who are just starting out. I know that I have personally come to this realization in my life, not to say that I don’t need to continue to grow and learn until the day I die. As my FA likes to say, as teachers we are learners too; we are just a little older. We don’t have all the answers, but we do know more than (most of) our students, and I find the idea of helping to lead students to greater awareness quite appealing. I guess I have to count myself amongst those who subscribe to this idea from Plato.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting discussion about motivation came up in our group and I have been really thinking about it ever since. As a student, I have always been motivated intrinsically; I enjoy being rewarded for my efforts, but that is never why I made them. I have this drive, academically, to give my best effort and have always been something of an over-achiever or perfectionist. This is a part of me that I actually have had to overcome to some extent in that I have had to let go in some cases and say “good enough”. I have seen similar behaviours in students in my practicum classes and have had fantastic opportunities to talk to them about these motivations and how to reconcile being proud of what you do and giving your best effort with maintaining a balance between work and play. At some point in re-working a project, it stops being about the learning and starts being about obtaining the unobtainable – actual perfection.
ReplyDeleteIt seems I was alone in this academic motivation however. It seemed that the more typical experience involved wanting to make the grades for a future gain, be it financial or otherwise, or simply doing the minimum required to move along to the next level. It was amazing to see the range and to discuss these motivations as well as the impact this might have on academic experience as well as life outside of school.
I think that examining our motivations is important in order to be authentic and consistent in our actions and words. Not to say that it’s bad to do the right thing for the wrong reasons (although Plato would likely take issue with that); simply that it’s good to be aware of our motivations and to examine them from time to time. It is easy to fall into habit and to act in certain ways because that is how we act rather than seeing our actions as a reflection of our beliefs and morals. How we act is a representation of who we are and while we all may fall victim to moments of insincerity or have days where we just aren’t accurately reflecting who we are, generally I believe this to be true. Thus, understanding our motivations can give us insight into our core beliefs which may be otherwise subconscious, indoctrinated, or simply in need of revision.
~b
Sadly, I will likely be absent next class so I will post my religious findings on Taoism below, see you all soon!
Five Core Beliefs of Taoism
1) Ch’I (also spelled Chi or Qi) refers to the energy flow or life force believed to be in all things.
2) Life and Death are two aspects of reality, not something to be feared or desired.
3) There are eight immortals who have complete physical freedom. They are seen as “perfect persons” and some try to live up to their standards while others try to actually locate these immortals in order to learn the secret of immortality.
4) Taoists believe that all opposites are relative and interdependent and that the best way to live is in harmony with the natural course of things. Taoists do not struggle, oppose, or strive.
5) The Tao is everything and encompasses both being and not-being. It is difficult to discuss as it has no characteristics, but rather contains all potential characteristics.
I have always been intrigued by the differences between Plato and Aristotle. My understanding is that Plato (in the Academy) was interested in ideals, while Aristotle (in the Lycee) was more interested in objective facts. Aristotle looked at ethics in the context of the actual issues of the times--he also studied biology and literature.
ReplyDeleteContra Plato, Aristotle (as is well known) posited the idea of catharsis. Therefore, watching a horror movie (which I think would be anathema to Plato) could be a cathartic experience for Aristotle: if they existed in our era that is!
Aristotle's POETICS is a fascinating work. Ironically, the volume on tragedy remains while the volume on comedy has disappeared into the sands of time.
Although I think that teachers should attempt to be the best possible teacher (re: Lorn's comment about the harp player), I think we must also be realistic that teachers are going to make mistakes. Plato rarely admitted to error. Aristotle (as was his nature) is somewhat more pragmatic in this regard.
Final note: I was always amused by the Monty Python skit that begins, "Aristotle loved the bottle..." :)
Hi Everyone,
ReplyDeleteSadly I was not in class on Thursday due to illness, and after reading your posts I am even more saddened by the fact that I didn't make it. It seems like you had some really interesting discussions about what ethics really are and how the ideas of people like Plato (whose thoughts are from many hundreds of years ago) play into our daily lives today. For me this is not a question to be asked only in education, although that is the scope of this class, but in every aspect of our lives.
I agree with Greg that teachers are going to make mistakes and not always be perfect but I think that this is true of everyone. What we must show our students is that we are willing to learn from our mistakes and that we can become better people from it. I tell my students about four of my friends from high school who died in a drinking and driving accident, and about the effect that incident had on the entire community in which I lived. I think that it is important for them to see us as real people so that they do not hold us up to a standard that no one can realistically attain.
I look forward to seeing you all again as I really missed the discussion and feeling of our class last week.
I'd like to comment on one strand of the discussion so far. Kevin, Brittany, and Laurel all mentioned (or at least alluded to) motivation.
ReplyDeleteI read an interesting article on the idea of basically luring students in with extrinsic rewards with the hope that they will then realize the intrinsic rewards. I can definitely see the benefits of this. How will students ever get to the point where they actually enjoy reading a poem and unpacking its metaphors if they can’t be motivated to read the poem in the first place? Intrinsic motivation seems to be something we strive for in our students, but is it wrong to get there through means that seem not to fit our goal?
Also, I was interested in this idea that is it really doing good if I’m doing it for my own reward? I guess from the Utilitarian stance, it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s producing the largest amount of good for the larges number of people. This kind of relates to what I said before about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Perhaps at first you are motivated to open the door for someone because it’s a nice thing to do and it makes you feel good. Then, over time, it just becomes automatic—you open doors for people. You are now what is ubiquitously referred to as a “good person.” (Side note: is the term "good person" in fact so ubiquitous that it's lost its meaning all together?) I suppose it’s hard to say if we are morally obligated to open door for people, though it could fall under the umbrella of helping others out whenever we can.
Finally, I too think we should always be cognizant of why we do what we do--the theory behind our practice--especially in relation to teaching. For me, I think it comes down to believing in what we do and having a clear idea of our teaching philosophies, which should then govern our practice. If you think your students should study _Macbeth_, be prepared to field the question, “But why do we have to study this?” If you can’t answer the question, you probably shouldn’t be teaching it. Of the two examples Laurel provided, the church example interested me more than the fair trade coffee. I can see buying fair trade coffee as a good thing, regardless of motivation. I cannot, however, see going to church as good regardless of motivation. If people don’t really know why they're going, maybe they shouldn’t be. Or at least maybe they should re-examine why they’re going, which Laurel seems to already be on top of! : )
In reading a portion of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: Book III, I paused to examine his statement in regards to emotions and actions. He stated that, “when these are voluntary we receive praise and blame; when involuntary, we are pardoned and sometimes even pitied”. He later gave an example of someone who committed an infraction while drunk. He felt that because the person had it within their power not to get drunk, that the consequences for his actions should be twice as high. Reading this, it echoes the feelings that some people have about the crime and other anti-social actions people are experiencing in East Vancouver. Some believe that addiction is a mental health issue, that it is not something a person chooses, but rather happens due to brain and body chemistry. Thus, the actions perpetrated by those people should be viewed as involuntary. Other citizens view the excessive use of drugs and alcohol as a choice, and any resulting actions by the users should be viewed as voluntary and thus the consequences should have criminal repercussions. Where does one define drunk by choice, or due to addiction? Currently this issue will be decided in the court system with the impaired driving trial of Carol Berner whose drunk driving caused the death of young Alexa Middelaer. Ms. Berner is pleading not guilty despite being over the legal alcohol limit to drive. The students that we will teach will present us with challenging behaviours which we will need to decide if they are “voluntary or involuntary”, as Aristotle defines. Using this blog as a sounding board to discuss theses ideas will certainly broaden my thinking in how to handle the challenging situations future students present.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been thinking a lot about “ideals” this past week. What makes for an ideal educational setting, teacher or student? In the early 1970’s, I was in the first mixed grade classroom in our county. We had a teaching team (Mrs. Dorney and Mrs. Denby), and they played to their individual strengths. Mrs. Denby would later become a pioneer in the use of computers in the classroom. I still consider her to be an ideal educator, because she pushed the limits and reached for a higher ideal. Today, mixed classrooms and computers are commonplace on our schools.
ReplyDeleteIn the late 70’s my eldest brother attended a secondary school with open-concept architecture (large windows with natural light, high ceilings, spacious social areas, and classrooms with no walls dividing one class from another). This was considered an ideal educational setting at the time. In the mid 80’s, when I started Grade 9 at that same school, many new walls had been constructed and the open-concept was slowly fading. When I completed a practice teaching round at my former high school in 1990, all the open classrooms had disappeared and the school looked like all the others. Styles change. Our concepts of an “ideal education” will also hopefully change over time. How exciting to reach for new ideals, to change things up and try new things.
I agree with Greg when he suggests that we should attempt to be the best we can be while acknowledging that we are going to make mistakes along the way. If I am growing as a teacher, I am guaranteed to make mistakes (to tear down walls only to have to rebuild them at some later date). If we don’t strive to expand our ideals, if we play things safe and never attempt to try new ideas, we have already failed.
June 1 2010
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking all week about the four components of Socrates and Plato’s ethics and how we might apply these to modern life. I have found myself trying to apply the idea of always acting in our own self-interest, because this will lead to inner peace and happiness, to everything I am reading or hearing about in the news. Two items have especially caught my attention.
1) The first is the issue of the flotilla of ships carrying cargo, which were trying to break through the line of defense set up by the Israeli government to protect their embargo on goods reaching Gaza. What interested me was the story about the Canadian, Kevin Neish, who was there as a peace activist on one of the ships. According to a friend of his Kevin could not turn away from the situation but went ‘to bear witness, the principles of justice being much more important to him than his own safety’. Here is a person attempting to live through a set of ideals, which reminded me of Socrates. Interestingly, on speaking to others about this, I find that Kevin Neish’s behavior is viewed as a little extreme.
2) My second item relates to the ideas presented in a book I am reading called The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. This is a book about why major changes in our society so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly. One of the three influences he mentions as being critical he labels The Power of Context. Gladwell cites many psychological studies that support the theory that, regardless of upbringing and underlying ethics, we are all much more influenced by social context than we think. People may cheat, lie, judge others or even step over someone in need based on the availability of materials, work situation, lighting or just a perceived need for haste.
We have probably all read about abuse in work places (there was a case of hazing in a municipal government on the news today) and the blindness of the German populace under Hitler’s regime (lack of locus of control?).
It is a little disheartening to realize how easily one’s actions can be swayed by charismatic figures, peer pressure or by the influence of the media.
As teachers it is our job to do our best to inculcate the idea in our students that it is in their best interest to make themselves as good as possible. This means trying to encourage students to exercise self-control and always consider others. Given Gladwell’s discussion of various social experiments and phenomena, I am wondering what would be the best way to try to encourage ideals in children that would withstand at least some of the negative environments they will encounter.
Unconscious Ethical Behaviour
ReplyDeleteSo far there has been a repeated theme of “it is not good enough to be good due to habit or personality. We need to have knowledge of the principles behind right action and be aware of how to act with them in mind”.
To me this seems a bit unreasonable. I can understand this being the thinking of people who are deeply immersed in the study of morals and ethics, but for the average person, I think it would quite tedious and unrealistic to expect people to analyze the ethics of every decision they make.
I would suggest that it is more achievable for people to understand their overarching morals, values, beliefs and assumptions and do periodic “re-thinks” rather than agonize over the morality of mundane or repetitive decisions.
The authors of our text would warn, however that “unconscious ethical behaviour” “will not offer guidance when the right thing to do is unclear or in conflict with another right thing”. In response to this, I would suggest that when one does face a unique situation, or a situation with competing values, that would be the time to examine the ethics of the situation more deeply.
Socrates
I would be interested to know how Socrates would see our “teaching of virtues” in school as opposed to guiding students to enlightenment.
At my school, we use the “Virtues Program” to teach things like honesty, effort, friendliness, courage etc. to the students. Our motto is REACH for the stars (respect, effort, attitude, cooperation, and honesty) and we focus on these 5 virtues at the beginning of each year.
Towards the end of last year, I had a meeting with the father and the brother of a student. The student was repeatedly getting caught lying. During this meeting, the father told us (through a teacher who was translating) that “we are Indian (Indo Canadian) and we all lie and it is expected in our culture”.
At this point, we realized that the school was coming from a totally different place than the family. Our response? When you realize that someone has an entrenched belief like this, I don’t think you get anywhere (or not anywhere fast) debating the belief. We asked the dad if he thought his son would ever be working with or communicating with people outside the Indian community. He said yes. We said that people outside of the community would expect honesty. That seemed to satisfy the father and we were able to work together.
Response to “Plato worried about the influence of flawed characters on young minds.”
ReplyDeleteI wonder what Plato would think if he saw what some of our young minds are doing nowadays. He seemed so aware of the impact of violence and idealizing violent figures. I doubt he would be impressed by the amount of violence the youth are exposed to today. Western society has even created a virtual high violence lifestyle for young people, including video and computer games where you steal people’s cars after killing the driver and get points for killing innocent citizens. I find it hard to believe that in all this time with all these insights from philosophers in the past we are still so far from being a truly ethical species. In today’s society the business-like sophists still seem to be winning. People with public speaking and persuasive skills still seem to have a stronger hold on the youth. I believe this is revealed in the multi-billion dollar advertizing industry that has learned to find success by targeting a youth audience.
This week in class we have discusssed many different ideas relating to ethics, especially on the theory of the forms from Plato. His idea of being good is its own reward which will lead us to a healthy soul in the end. I agree with many of Plato's philosophy of education. For example, he stated that an individual is able to cultivate reason on its own and students should value reason and clear thinking. Most importantly, he identified one of the contemperary ethics in teaching profession which is to guide children in the pursuit of knowledge and skills. Teachers cannot teach virtue directly, but instead they can prepare the students in ways of cultivating reasons and thinking on their own. When teachers adopt to the code of teaching ethics they will in turn help students learn social responsibility, economic competence and moral strength throughout their live.
ReplyDeleteI feel that there is still much to be disgussed regarding ethics in education. Just as Sue stated in class, ethics is a journey towards a higher morality and no one can obtain a perfect perspective. That is why we need to continue to pursue and learn to bring ethics into education to help our future generations. For example, I think teachers should be concerned about students' stress and emotional problems. Eventhough this is still a controversal topic but I feel that both the short term and long term effects of stress on children will leaad to disease and can trigger both behavioral disorders and increased psychological vulnerability later in life. Also, many research indicates (The book ofGuiding Children's Social Development and Learning) that a student's stress coping responses are learned early in life through watching how their parents, teachers, siblings, peers cope when under pressure. If the teachers are willing to address this issue and demonstrate to the students positive coping patterns they will become a lifelong resources for them.
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ReplyDeleteThis week I want to talk about the idea of “ideal.” The first question is what is it? What is ideal to you maybe not be ideal to me. To me when I think about something being ideal, it seems to be “perfect” in a sense, socially accepted or something that we can all relate to possibly. However, when I thought about ideals in Plato’s way I thought there could be positive and negative ideals. Plato’s big idea, was that through reasoning we can direct our actions towards ideals. I believe this to be true. I think that everything we do has some sort of motive or reason behind it, whether it be negative as “lying” (reason: ashamed of truth) or positive such as, buying someone a present (reason: it was his/her birthday), there is some sort of motive behind it. Essentially, if we have a bad reason to lie we are moving towards a negative ideal, but if we have a positive reasoning then through our actions we will move towards a positive ideal. As teachers we are able to shape society and it is our responsibility to show our student the “ideals” of society, however students must act appropriately based on reasoning. (Kind of works in a backwards way when you think about it with students/education/teachers) ** I hope this made sense.
ReplyDeleteSee you all soon!!
Having previously discussed Plato in previous classes helped me recall many of his conceptions however, some were still a surprise. For instance, when discussing in our groups what Plato looks like in the classroom, I was intrigued by the fact that Plato bases his teachings around teacher-centered classrooms. Currently, educators are taught to teach around students and have them gain and acquire knowledge through research and thought. However, in Plato’s philosophy, teachers invoke a thought process where students are supplied with questions and answers and consequently work out the reasoning behind this. To me, this is a very interesting way of teaching as students are guided towards finding the exact right answer, whereas currently, students are taught to learn and look for answers and encouraged to think for themselves. I also found the statement “every student is seen as having the ability to learn; lower class children have as much opportunity to advance as upper class children” to be very interesting. I disagree with this statement because children, especially lower class and students from different cultures often do not have the same kind of support and abilities as “upper class children”. For this reason, I believe students, especially in the time of Plato, did not have the same opportunities as they do now. I see this as a shortcoming of Plato’s philosophy. Plato does not recognize individuality in his classroom since he views his students as an entire group rather than single people. It is important to appreciate every student’s individuality as every student does have something different to offer to the group. As a result, I believe everyone has their own perception of what it means to have an ideal education. And what is ideal to one may not be to another. For instance, Plato’s philosophy of teaching is not ideal to me but may have been ideal to him!
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ReplyDeleteI have some problems with the idea of Virtue Ethics and its off shoot Ethics of Purpose. According to Aristotle, an ethical person is someone who fulfills their purpose or function. Organization have borrowed from this and creating an ethics of Purpose. A hospital heals, and a business generates profit. There I believe is where the first problem lies. I don't believe ethics can draw a line between purpose and function. What if the hospital was also a business? It is in the business of making money by healing people. If it heals people at the cost of generating profit is it being unethical? What if it was generating profit at the cost of healing people? We seem to naturally lean towards healing people over generating profit but this organization suits both purposes. Another example is the financial collapse partly due to predatory lending practices. They gave people loans who who could not pay them back and took their property when these people could not pay them back. These bankers rationalized ways to generate enormous profits and they did that very well. They excelled in their function, but does that make them ethical? Why do we all lean towards one direction given these scenarios.
ReplyDeleteThere is appears to be a disconnect between what is and what it ought to be. Scottish Philosopher David Hume describes this as the Is-Ought problem. We can not derive how things ought to be from how something is. To have some moral certainty, there needs to be certain presuppositions made. Virtue Ethics states a person's distinct essential function is to reason. The closer a person stays to this function the more ethical they are. It makes sense that this conclusion would be reached by philosophers who strives make sense of the world. Philosophers both live to reason and reason to live. A poet might suggest the essential function be to love, a biologist might say it is to procreate or an artist might say being creative is a person's distinct essential function. It is no surprise these ideas are much less cerebral than the philosopher's.
A group of Harvard business students and professors have created a voluntary ethics oath. This was in partly a reaction to the financial collapse cause by the seemingly unethical practices of many financial institutions headed by their MBA graduates. This is an example of how ethics can be applied in the classroom. More information about that oath can be found here. http://mbaoath.org/
Plato had said that “Good persons cannot be harmed.” We discussed in class whether “Good ‘teachers’ cannot be harmed.” When I initially read these quotations, I immediately thought about an ideal person who always does right and good, and who, regardless of the world’s attacks against his or her person, he or she remains unharmed internally. What matters is that you know that you’ve done right or good. Yet, in our group discussion, we concluded that good teachers can be harmed, and that Plato’s statement may not be necessarily accurate. We discussed the Abbottsford teacher who, while a great teacher, was let go from her position due to her sexual orientation. Nothing that this teacher had done warranted the parents’ actions against her. Thus, a good person can be harmed at the hands of forces that are outside of her or his control. Now, whether the socially hurt person is going to allow that hurt seep into her and damage her internally is up to her. I think the question becomes what do we define as “good” and who gets to provide that definition and decide upon it? For me, what I’ve gained from this discussion, is that everything is about perspective. A socially rejected or harmed person can be good within herself and good towards other beings, but she can be “bad” in the eyes of those who have a different idea of what “good” means – to those that judge her, “good” would mean abiding by social, religious or other “rules”. Carl Jung once said, “I would rather be whole than good,” and with that I think he, perhaps like Plato if I’m not incorrect, means to say that being whole and good within oneself is more important than being ‘good’ in the eyes of those who judge or condemn you.
ReplyDelete“Education is a candle that burns the darkness of ignorance.” This is a quotation, scribbled onto a wall of a school, that I once read when traveling in another country. I think some people do become educators in order to lead students from ignorance to knowledge, to take others out of Plato’s allegorical cave into the sun and real world. While I like this allegory as much as the earlier quotation, I think it should not be the educator’s aim to take students towards knowledge by hammering information into their brains or to try to “enlighten” them without providing proper guidance and expertise. Rather, I believe in gently helping students find their own way towards truth and wisdom – when given the right tools, skills and information, students can see the pictures on the cave walls for what they are and seek and tread their own path “into the sun,” with appropriate teacher facilitation. If the teacher lights the candle, he/she should pass it on to the students to hold, because students can only “go deeper” or become enlightened most effectively for themselves when they are a large part of the learning and discovery process.
I absolutely agree that “being good is its own reward.” This statement made me think of the issue of motivation addressed in my previous Education classes; extrinsic motivation vs. intrinsic motivation. In these Education classes, we learned that extrinsic motivation (ex. rewards) works very well with young children, especially when one wants children to behave appropriately or a certain way. However, in my opinion, rewards are just an easy fix for getting children to obey. If rewards are constantly used throughout a child’s childhood, the child will grow up thinking that one should be good in order to get a reward. The previous Education classes that I took illustrated that one could prevent the latter from happening by gradually taking the reward away over time or giving the reward sporadically. However, I still think that the child in the latter case will only continue to behave well because they know that they will eventually get the reward, if not today then probably the next day or later on in the week. I also do not think that one can be told that “being good is its own reward,” and then simply be expected to be good. I think that one must find out and learn that “being good is its own reward,” by actually experiencing the feeling after they do something good.
ReplyDeleteAnother statement that I feel strongly about is that “the teacher does not pour knowledge into the students (indoctrination) but helps them to understand knowledge for themselves.” This statement was at the centre of one of the aspects that my PDP module focused on: student centered lessons and activities. One way to help children “understand knowledge for themselves” is to help them learn how to access the knowledge on their own. Sometimes students get frustrated when they are asked to gather information, even if it is through group work, because they are so used to being given the information and just absorbing the information. Also, I think that it is important to consider the type of opportunities that the students are given to access knowledge on their own. Students often like hands on activities or lessons so much (because they are different from the regular writing activities) that they do not see them as a form of work: after the activity or lesson, students are often surprised to see how much they have learned and discovered. Furthermore, by accessing knowledge on their own and “understand[ing] knowledge for themselves,” students gain valuable skills, such as critical thinking.
This whole week I have been kind of looking at the idea of an "ideal" or as I have been trying to think of as perfect and been considering my actions as I move closer to becoming a teacher. Over the course of my PTEM I have been trying to recognize the ways in which I can improve my teaching and understanding what it is that are simply bad habits like my grammar, or what are bigger underlying personal obstacles I need to strive to overcome to achieve goals of best practices set out in the program. Characteristics that I can't change for example my own aggressiveness and competitiveness that serve me well in some area of life need to be tempered.
ReplyDeleteFor whatever reason this discussion that we had resonated with that for me, for I feel that we all try in varying degrees to reflect those ideal notions of teacher in our work and the outcomes fall within a spectrum or within a hierarchy of achievement giving us very attainable goals of just constantly improving. Even being conscious of the prejudices or deficiencies we have as people is an improvement if it causes us to reflect on our actions and to give our motivations and interpretations to events we are faced with greater weight.
In our group, we spent a lot of time discussing Plato's idea that "good persons cannot be harmed." We went into a deep discussion of whether or not this was true. In my group, a few of us had previously taken philosophy courses and understand the meaning behind Plato's concept that "good persons cannot be harmed". The reason why a good person cannot be harmed would be because "good souls cannot be harmed". Essentially, according to Plato, a human body is just the frame that one lives within. When one passes away, they enter a higher state where all good souls go. Therefore, it would be impossible to harm "a good soul". However, the quote asked about in our class was "good teachers cannot be harmed." This also evoked a long discussion because we could not agree whether or not good teachers could be harmed. However, I was able to find my personal answer to the question when I heard another group speak out in class that a teacher lost her job due to her sexual orientation. This greatly surprised me and clearly showed that a good teacher with good intentions can be harmed. Another one of Plato's concepts we discuss would be his idea of a teacher - centered classroom. Plato believed that educators should begin discussions where students are already provided with questions and answers beforehand, the purpose of this would be to allow students to determine how they can come to reach the correct answer. Although this is Plato's method, I do not agree with it because it does not allow students to be able to think for themselves. This method does not give students the opportunity to express themselves and to be open-minded. In my opinion, an ideal classroom would be a place where students are able to ask questions and develop the skills to think for themselves.
ReplyDeleteYan Xiao wrote:
ReplyDeleteIt's really hard to say what an ideal educational system is as there are so many factors influencing it. For those who would like to know a bit more about the Chinese educational system, I would like share some of my experience with them:
1. I had my elementary schools, junior and high schools (excluding Grade 12) in China. A typical day at schools in China is from 7:30 AM to 5:15PM and there are 2.5 hours as lunch break.
2. The class size in elementary schools is around 45-55 students, even though the Government tries to limit the size to 40. But the number over 50 is pretty normal. Regarding to junior and high schools, the class size could be up to 60, or even 70. A teacher is assigned as the general to each class and he/she manages all the students in the class. Besides, we do have Math, Science teachers as well, but their roles in the class are only limited to the subject they teach.
Class size is a critical issue to us as it's hard for a teacher to pay attention to all 50-70 students instead of only 30. Due to the class size is huge, there are certain odd things recalled:
Academic performance is everything. Well, even though the course grade seems quite important, but education is not only about academics. My teachers would hand out the exams few days after we wrote the exams. Every time when they hand out the exams paper, they simply read out the students’ names and their grades in the descending orders. In other words, you would only hear your names in the very early moment if you do well in the exam. It's every embarrassing for me to hear my names in either the moment or later. If my name is read at very early moment, it means there are many students falling behind me and they do need the privacy and don't want to be laughed.
Competing at the margin. If full grade is 100/100, there is a huge difference between 100/100, 99/100. Honestly, my teachers only concerns those who got 100, for people who even receive anything above 90, they are still dismissed.
A-students take advantages of everything. If these students violate the school laws and they're not severe, they are umbrellaed by the teachers and school principals. And those C or D students would be blasted even though they didn't do anything really bad. (to be continued)
3. Compared to Plato in western countries, we have Confucius as our role model in education and any other fields. We understand the wording and his theories towards education. However, his influence to us is limited as we're facing a demographic issue in China: 1.3 billion people. There are not too my ways to judge a student based on anything other than the academic performance. Besides, our government urges for more and even more post-secondary –educated students as mean to show that China is civilized. Ironically, the hierarchy of teachers and scholars in China, believe or not, are quite derogatory, because they do not earn so much money. Actually, certain professors in China finished their degree by plagiarizing the work from others, mostly translating the work from professionals in western countries.
While we may truly understand Plato, Confucius or the others based on their theories and talks, the social difference may change everything and swamp the invaluable ethical treasure behind the great thoughts of these educators.
The discussions around Plato led me to try and remember what I could about The Republic (which I read about a long time ago). Between this ethics class and my other designs for learning classes (math and science), I am starting to ask myself questions along a common theme. How important is it that all kids “get it?” If we are limited in time and resources, do we teach to the median, the lower achievers or the higher achievers? If we are going to employ the ideas of Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, are we doing this to reach more students, or attempting to enhance all of the students’ learning? I don’t have the answers to these questions but there are some real compromises being made when we consider our current science and math curricula.
ReplyDeleteThere are widely held beliefs that we don’t spend enough time teaching fundamental science topics to kids. The idea is that most students have deeply rooted misconceptions and only through spending more time on fundamentals will these misconceptions be cleared up. Again, there are significant consequences depending on whether we follow our current classroom model or strive for mastery in all students. I don’t believe this is simply a question of science education, I think it comes back to much larger ethical questions similar to those we explored when discussing what Plato looks like in the classroom.
It has been brought to my attention that I over-simplified my account of our group discussion; of course we all have competing motivations and there is usually more than one motivation for any given action. In no way did I mean my response to be taken as anything other than a personal reflection on the subject matter and I only posted my findings on Taoism so that my group wasn't left without my contribution. Apologies for any misunderstanding, see you Thursday.
ReplyDeleteDiscussing ethics, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle with a group of friends the conversation turned to what each of us thought of as the most important behaviours for ourselves, in our lives, right now. The females had answers that stemmed from their roles as mothers, sisters, wives and friends, while the males were mostly concerned with actions around business, property, and being moral leaders. I have never considered the idea that there are feminine and masculine ethics and it got me thinking about what the differences between them might be.
ReplyDeleteIn thinking about what we have read and discussed in class I realized that traditional morality, as espoused by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, doesn’t really deal with the idea of caring for others. Their male-centered point of view has to do with human (white male) rights, fulfilling their civic duty, conducting business, and building moral character. Women, on the other hand, have traditionally existed in a world where their personal duty comes first – caring for others and facilitating the men. Generally speaking, their world has less to do with rigid rules, personal rights, and building moral character and more to do with nurturance, perception, creativity, and adaptation. Given the above it seems obvious that there are male ethics and female ethics and I look forward to exploring this further in class.
This class reminded me of the story of the half-ham. Here’s the short version:
ReplyDeleteThe Smith’s have a family tradition that they have followed for as long as many of them can remember. The entire family gets together for Thanksgiving and, as the afternoon unfolds, certain things must happen. The children perform the same songs their parents did, the Uncles tell the familiar stories about coming from the Old County and the meal always features a special meal that features an enormous turkey and precisely half of a ham. This year one of the children wonders aloud why there is always just half a ham. “It’s a very special part of our family tradition”, her mother says. But she really can’t say why this is so. The question is passed around from child to parent, to grandparent, to great grandparent - and all anyone knows is that Thanksgiving dinner has always been this way. Finally, someone asks great, great grandmother.
“Oh,” she says, “we have half a ham because when we started these dinners that’s all I could fit into my roaster”.
Like the half-ham, many of the basic tenants and traditions of religion (any religion) come from necessity rather than Divine Command. It is striking to think that there are people who have never thought deeply about why they believe what they believe, but seem ready to fight to the death for their right to believe it. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with fighting for what you think is right, but it might make for fewer wars if some core directives were taken out of the realm of religious imperatives (and rewards in the afterlife) and put back where they belong in the realm of common sense and social mores. Perhaps then, when defending ideas and ideals, the stakes wouldn’t seem so high and words, rather than guns would be used more often.