{"id":290,"date":"2009-04-26T16:17:26","date_gmt":"2009-04-26T16:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/?page_id=290"},"modified":"2012-07-16T23:28:51","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T13:28:51","slug":"4-the-pupil-in-the-middle-of-your-eye","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/?page_id=290","title":{"rendered":"4. The Pupil in the Middle of Your Eye"},"content":{"rendered":"

“In schools, the continuity of development of children’s conceptual and existential knowledge is paramount. It should ignore, as far as possible, any age\/grade year classifications and any arrangement that infers block\/part development. The school program should be based on holistic, pupiparous modes that maintain correlative and interactive processes of teaching and learning for students in their vital years of compulsory schooling.<\/em><\/p>\n

There needs to be a development of aspects of associative, replicative and interpretive knowledge in a non-graded, seamless fashion through the use of motivational strategies that range from the didactic modes to the maieutic.”<\/em><\/p>\n

How about that ?<\/p>\n

These words constitute an\u00a0 only-slightly-altered group of words originally composed for a public document by a successful non-educated educator, who was anxious to be promoted.\u00a0 He was.<\/p>\n

Such meadow mayonnaise doesn’t have the fertilising qualities that the author intended. Little wonder!\u00a0 Mushiness has its limits. If he had said what he intended to say – that schools need to provide the kind of spirited teaching that suits the learning styles of the unique individuals within – we would have understood him. We would have agreed with him; for the questions that we ask ourselves are about how to provide such teaching and, especially how to adjust our\u00a0 own attitudes<\/strong><\/span> so that we can feel satisfied that we are helping our clients in the best way possible.<\/p>\n

As practising teachers, we do review our personal philosophies. We have changed our attitudes over the years, and we hold on to our\u00a0 more precious commitments no matter how severe external pressures would have us return to the drastics of former\u00a0 years. Society is slow, sometimes, to understand what we do and why we do it, but it slowly becomes accepting.<\/p>\n

We know the content of the present day messages from industry, for example.Industry’s support becomes more heartening each year. The near disappearance of employment from the rural industries, the sharp overall decline in most secondary industries and the startling increases in the information and service industries means that the world is now appreciating the different kinds of brain power it needs to exploit. (The way you say this last sentence is important)<\/p>\n

The world undoubtedly needs citizens who can think..<\/span> <\/strong>The education fraternity has been trying to provide these for a long time, and it is getting better and better at doing so. It could do even better if it was able to sort itself out from its present base instead of trying to copy inadequate models of organisation from inappropriate sources.<\/p>\n

Restructuring a human enterprise on business lines has been a disastrous intrusion.<\/p>\n

The education industry will eventually receive big blessings from the profit-oriented industries and from the general public when it universally undertakes activities that far-sighted practitioners have been doing for years.\u00a0 Nevertheless there are still some of our colleagues who have yet to take notice of those who have held to a vision of the true role of schools in a society that keeps changing over the years. By ‘true role’, I mean to infer that the school’s role is seen as part of the life process itself….a school is a place of beauty, challenge, pride and joy wrapped around the pleasures of learning<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In contemporary society, schooling is conducted in an artificial setting – in the sense that it attempts to actualise learning processes in a more rapid way than they would if children were not forced to go to school. Compulsory, institutionalised learning is a factor of modern society.<\/p>\n

Attendance at school is a modern day, industrial economic imperative. Schools have been established to secure the continuous development of the kind of society that we live in at the time. Crash-bang-wallop techniques were in vogue through the thirties and forties., and, as they faded through the period of ‘Biggles…long division and multiplication tables’ (Steinle), didactic teacher-dominated techniques changed to the sponsorship of active self-motivated learning. Proudly, one can state that my generation of teachers took the greatest step ever undertaken in the history of schooling.\u00a0 We unscrewed the desks….but let me not dwell on the implications of what we did..<\/p>\n

Schools have always been centres of learning<\/span> <\/strong>– and we have been re-discovering the real purpose of them.\u00a0 Confused ? Let me illustrate this, first by reference to some of the terms that we use.<\/p>\n

PUPIL TO STUDENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Whilst we often use the word ‘pupil’ to refer to primary school attenders and ‘students’ to post-primary, the words have far deeper meaning – real life meanings. A pupil is not <\/strong>a young student<\/p>\n

The word ‘pupil’ has no age relationship at all.\u00a0 Melba was a pupil of Madame Marchesi.; Michelangelo a pupil of Bertoldi; Greg Norman of Charlie Earp. The relationships were based on the understanding : ‘I will teach. You will learn.’ This important contract establishes a close relationship based, first and foremost on learning and teaching. Two people are involved.\u00a0 Whereas the pupil may have greater potential than the teacher, the teacher is clearly the authority figure, the leader, the curriculum determiner – expertly guiding the learning experiences of the pupil.\u00a0 It is a very, very serious contract.<\/p>\n

So…since learning is institutionalised in schools, pupils need to know why<\/strong> they are at school and what sort of relationship is intended during the schooling efforts. Too often do we overlook this. Children believe that they go to school only because someone says that they have to go. The excitement of learning has been understated. We are in the schools because we are more expert at the teaching act than other people in the community and we want to honour the contract of helping children to learn how to learn.<\/p>\n

Of supreme importance is the classroom message that says,’ We are here as a group to learn how to learn <\/strong>about Science or Art or…..’ whatever\u00a0 words we use to describe a subject<\/em> that deserves our combined attention. We are not <\/strong>here to ‘learn science’. The teacher is not here to provide fish, but to teach pupils how to catch them.. This is the real purpose of schooling <\/strong>, which slips from our focus at odd times, but undoubtedly the world depends on our ability to get it right. Of course there are schools whose narrow focus centres on providing for yesterday’s clients. “Within such mechanistic organisations, ” says Doug Ogilvie, “people are socialised to behave normally (rather than uniquely), to accept authoritarian directions and authoritative interpretations (rather\u00a0 than being self-responsible), to seek extrinsic rewards (rather than intrinsic pleasures), to value institutionalised status (rather than personal development) and to be ignorant of the alternatives that are disguised from them in the process.” (Doug Ogilvie:’The Purpose of Schooling’ Unicorn<\/span>,Vol.14 No.2, May ’88, P.103).\u00a0 Doug describes such schools as ‘Schools for Retardation’.<\/p>\n

Schools of today need to accept clients, quite sincerely, as pupils<\/span> , <\/strong>and endeavour to maintain the pupilling for as long as possible during the twelve years or so that they are involved in institutionalised learning. We can come to grips with real personal development by assisting pupils to develop their learning potential so that they become self-motivated human beings<\/span>students<\/span> of those aspects of\u00a0 our civilisation (perfect or imperfect as it may be) that they find most interesting<\/span> who become –<\/strong> whether these aspects be vocational or recreational or academic.<\/p>\n

PRIMARY TO SECONDARY<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Primary schools are essentially pupilling institutions. They are usually organised for a teaching-learning relationship that lasts for a full school year or more. It is an extremely difficult and highly responsible arrangement.\u00a0 The pupilling role extends into secondary schooling for the pupils do not suddenly become self-propelled students from their first day of entry.\u00a0 But there are difficulties\u00a0 – for an increasing emphasis on some fondly regarded subjects-for-discourse, demands new organisational arrangements. Teachers and pupils have to tolerate …..<\/p>\n