FYBA CH2
PEDAGOGY OF EDUCATION
OBJECTIVES
After studying this unit, you will be able to: • understand the term pedagogy • derive the meaning and importance of pedagogy • explain the meaning and need of critical pedagogy • understand the idea of education from different Western philosophers • understand the idea of education from different Indian philosophers
INTRODUCTION
In the previous unit we have seen the definition of education by John Dewey, Swami Vivekananda, Dr. Maria Montessori and several other educationists. We have seen that some educationists have defined only one aspect of education whereas the others emphasize its other phases. The reason of this difference of opinions is that different educationists, most of whom are philosophers, have different views about the concept of education. In this unit, we will see their meaning of education and understand its importance and need of pedagogy in education. Later in this unit, we will understand critical pedagogy and its need.
PEDAGOGY: MEANING AND IMPORTANCE
Pedagogy: most commonly understood as the approach to teaching refers more broadly to the theory and practice of education, and how this influences the growth of learners. Pedagogy, taken as an academic discipline, is the study of how knowledge and skills are imparted in an educational context, and it considers the interactions that take place during learning. Pedagogies vary greatly, as they reflect the different social, political, cultural contexts from which they emerge. Pedagogy is the act of teaching children as against andragogy which aims at teaching adults.
MEANING OF PEDAGOGY
• Pedagogy, study of teaching methods, including the aims of education and the ways in which such goals may be achieved. The field relies heavily on educational psychology, which encompasses scientific theories of learning, and to some extent on the philosophy of education, which considers the aims and value of education from a philosophical perspective. • The pedagogy adopted by teachers shape their actions, judgments, and other teaching strategies by taking into consideration theories of learning, understandings of students and their needs, and the backgrounds and interests of individual students. Its aims may include furthering liberal education (the general development of human potential) to the narrower specifics of vocational education (the imparting and acquisition of specific skills). • Instructive strategies are governed by the pupil's background knowledge and experience, situation, and environment, as well as learning goals set by the student and teacher.
IMPORTANCE OF PEDAGOGY
Following are the importance of Pedagogy in teaching learning process of education: • A deeper understanding of the subject by students • Less misunderstanding of key concepts • Accessible approaches to specialized content • More interesting and diverse approaches to the teaching • A more integrated laboratory element • Increased use of investigative vs. lecture-based approaches • A deeper understanding of science and engineering practices • Greater use of authentic assessment approaches
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS 1) Discuss the importance of pedagogy.
2) What is pedagogy in education?
CRITICAL PEDAGOGY: MEANING AND NEED
Critical pedagogy is both a pedagogical approach and a broader social movement. Critical pedagogy acknowledges that educational practices are contested and shaped by history, schools are politically neutral spaces and teaching is politically not influenced. Decisions regarding the curriculum, disciplinary practices, student testing, textbook selection, the language used by the teacher, and more can empower or disempower students.
MEANING OF CRITICAL PEDAGOGY
Critical Pedagogy recognises that educational practices favour some students over others and some practices harm other students. It also recognises that educational practices often favour some voices and perspectives while marginalising or ignoring others. Another aspect examined is the power the teacher holds over students and the implications of this. Its aims include empowering students to become active and engaged citizens, who are able to actively improve their own lives and their communities. Critical pedagogical practices may include, listening to and including students’ knowledge and perspectives in class, making connections between school and the broader community, and posing problems to students that encourage them to question assumed knowledge and understandings. The goal of problem posing to students is to enable them to begin to pose their own problems. Teachers acknowledge their position of authority and exhibit this authority through their actions that support students.
NEED OF CRITICAL PEDAGOGY
Critical pedagogy is a progressive teaching philosophy that challenges students to examine power structures and patterns of inequality within the status quo. By questioning authority, students can take control of their own learning and critically evaluate the opinions they have been taught to have. Too often, critical pedagogy has been misunderstood as the imposition of a political ideology onto students. Instructors state that students need to learn the basics of writing first before we start having them write on political topics. Instructors also feel they are in the classroom to teach writing, not to preach about politics. Further, instructors worry that exposing students to the overwhelming obstacles in front of them, those obstacles that reveal themselves in political discussions concerning ideology and economics, will discourage the students from learning to write and achieving their goals. Critical pedagogy is not about forcing politics on students. It is not pro and con debates on current social issues. It is not about criticizing opposing political parties. Rather, critical pedagogy authorizes students to explore the ideologies surrounding them, especially as those ideologies influence, often unknowingly, decisions they make and the culture around them. It embeds the personal into the social. It helps students examine and re-examine the ordinary in society, sometimes to show just how extraordinary it is. But the teaching is handled with an ethic of care, one that sees students as knowledge-makers, not as passive recipients of teaching.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS 1) Discuss the need of critical pedagogy in education. 2) What is Critical Pedagogy in Education?
WESTERN AND INDIAN THINKERS’ IDEA OF EDUCATION
WESTERN THINKERS’ IDEA OF EDUCATION
I. DR. MARIA MONTESSORI Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori (August 31, 1870 – May 6, 1952) was an Italian physician and educator best known for the philosophy of education that bears her name, and her writing on scientific pedagogy. At an early age, Montessori broke gender barriers and expectations when she enrolled in classes at an all-boys technical school, with hopes of becoming an engineer. She soon had a change of heart and began medical school at the Sapienza University of Rome, where she graduated – with honors – in 1896. Her educational method is still in use today in many public and private schools throughout the world.
Montessori Education Montessori is a method of education named after Dr. Maria Montessori. Dr. Maria Montessori looked at education from a scientific level. She believed that education should prepare a person for all aspects of life. She designed materials and techniques that would promote a natural growth of learning in students. They are common to all Montessori classrooms. Working with these materials and techniques forms a pattern that children carry over naturally to reading, writing, and mathematics. Each skill is developed to interlock with another.
Montessori Philosophy The Montessori philosophy is based on supporting the complete development of the child as they progress from birth to adulthood. It takes the broad vision of education as an aid for life. As a way of teaching, Montessori offers the view that knowledge isn’t passively gained by listening to words. Rather, it is gained through experiences in the surrounding environment. Therefore, the Montessori approach uses a prepared classroom to inspire children towards a life-long love of learning. Qualities of the prepared classroom include: structure, order, freedom of movement, and freedom of choice.
Within this structured space, children learn through hands-on experiences. Especially relevant are the beautifully made Montessori learning materials that children work with to make independent learning discoveries. The children are guided in their learning by the Montessori teachers, who act as the link between the children, and the prepared environment.
The teacher’s role is to prepare the classroom, and observe and guide their students in their learning. As a result, children progress at their own pace, according to their own abilities. Through work in the Montessori environment, children learn to develop concentration, self-discipline, and a love of learning. Montessori Academy’s Early Years Learning Program applies the Montessori way of teaching to help children achieve their full potential.
Finally, by valuing each child as an individual, we empower our students to become confident, independent learners. Montessori education is applied throughout the world and it offers children opportunities to develop their potential as they step out into the world as engaged, competent, responsible, and respectful citizens with an understanding and appreciation that learning is for life. Each child is valued as a unique individual. Montessori education recognizes that children learn in different ways, and accommodates all learning styles.
Students are also free to learn at their own pace, each advancing through the curriculum as he is ready, guided by the teacher and an individualized learning plan. Beginning at an early age, Montessori students develop order, coordination, concentration, and independence. Classroom design, materials, and daily routines support the individual’s emerging “self-regulation” (ability to educate one ’s self and to think about what one is learning), toddlers through adolescents.
Students are part of a close, caring community. The multi-age classroom—typically spanning 3 years—re-creates a family structure. Older students enjoy stature as mentors and role models; younger children feel supported and gain confidence about the challenges ahead. Teachers model respect, loving kindness, and a belief in peaceful conflict resolution.
Montessori students enjoy freedom within limits. Working within parameters set by their teachers, students are active participants in deciding what their focus of learning will be. Montessorians understand that internal satisfaction drives the child’s curiosity and interest and results in joyous learning that is sustainable over a lifetime.
Students are supported in becoming active seekers of knowledge. Teachers provide environments where students have the freedom and the tools to pursue answers to their own questions.
Self-correction and self-assessment are an integral part of the Montessori classroom approach. As they mature, students learn to look critically at their work, and become adept at recognizing, correcting, and learning from their errors.
II. JOHN DEWEY
John Dewey (1819-1952) was a famous American philosopher, psychologist and educator. Being brought up in rural environments, he realized from the very beginning that traditional methods of instruction were not at all effective and that social contacts of everyday life provided effective, dynamic and unlimited learning situations. These very ideas formed the foundation of the educational theory, formulated later by him.
Dewey's Educational Theory and Aims • About the importance of education, John Dewey writes, "What nutrition and reproduction are to physiological life, education is to social life. Education is a social necessity. It is a means of social continuity of life. • It is a means by which a person is helped to have useful and helpful experience." All this he said in the light of the rapid changes in social and economic life of his own time. • Defining education, Dewey says, "Education is development of all those capacities in the individual which will enable him to control his environment and fulfill his responsibilities." It means that education extends the limits of human possibilities. It is progressive both for the individual and the society. Thus education, to John Dewey, is a bipolar process. It has two sides, the psychological and the sociological; neither of the two can be subordinated or neglected. • The psychological side is the study of the child, with all his inclinations, instincts, endowments and interests. It forms the very basis of education. The sociological side is the social environment in which the child is born, lives and grows for society. On a further analysis of his educational theory, we find the following four fundamentals:
(i) Education as Growth • Growth is the real function of education. It, therefore, must lead to growth. But growth is not directed towards any pre-determined goal or end. The end of growth is more growth and so the end of education, more education. • An individual is a changing and growing personality and education is to facilitate that growth. It is, therefore, the duty of the teacher to provide opportunities for proper growth by arousing the instincts and capacities of children and by providing to them the solution of those problems which make the children think.
(ii) Education as Life • Dewey believes that education is not a preparation for life. It is life itself. "Life is a by-product of activities and education is born out of these activities." School is now taken as a miniature society which faces problems, similar to those faced in life outside. • For education, pupils should be made active participants in the social and community life of the school and thus trained in co-operative and mutually helpful living. They should be encouraged to face actual life problems in the school and gain varied experiences as our children are required to live in a democratic society when adults, they must experience same life in the school.
(iii) Education as Social Efficiency • Man is a social animal who continuously draws energy, strength, knowledge, experience and attitudes in a social medium. As a social being, he is a citizen, growing and thinking in a vast complex of interactions and relations. • He owns character and mind, habits and manners, language and vocabulary, good taste and aesthetic appreciation, to his interaction with the social consciousness of his community. • When as an individual he shares such rich resources of a good society, he should also be ready to give back to that society and thus help other members to develop. It is the function of education to teach him this give-and-take process and make him aware of his social obligations. • Education must transform the immature child into a social human being. It is in this sense that education becomes a social process and social efficiency becomes the aim of all education.
(iv) Education as Reconstruction of Experiences • According to John Dewey, experience is the only source of true knowledge. One experience leads to further experiences and each new experience calls for the revision, modification or rejection of the previous experiences. In this way the old pattern yields place to a new pattern. Dewey says, "We should so regulate the learning and experiencing activities of the young that a newer and better society will arise in the end." • Therefore, there is a need of continuity of experiences, helping man to grow physically, mentally, socially and morally. Education must create environments for the promotion of continuity of experiences. Dewey, therefore, conceived of education as a process, involving continuous reconstruction and reorganization of experience. He says that education is by experience, for experience and of experience.
(v) No Fixed Aims of Education • However, being a pragmatic education, John Dewey has no fixed aims of education. He believes that since physical and social environments are always changing, aims of education must also change. • They cannot be fixed for all times to come. Thus, he revolted against the traditional aims of education-namely: the moral aim, the disciplinary aim and the knowledge aim etc. of the nineteenth century. • He rejected the very idea of education as preparation for future life and said that education must cater to the present needs of the child rather than the future because the child is not interested in the unknown future. He therefore, said that educational aims must be restated and re-formulated in the light of the rapid social and economic changes in present day life.
INDIAN THINKERS’ IDEA OF EDUCATION
I. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA Amongst the contemporary Indian philosophers of education, Swami Vivekananda (1863 – 1902) was one of those who revolted against the imposition of British system of education in India.Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one's own feet.
Aim of Education According to Swami Vivekananda the following should be the main aims of education:
• The Aim of Reaching Perfection The prime aim of education is to achieve fullness of perfection already present in a child. According to Swamiji all material and spiritual knowledge is already present in man covered by a curtain of ignorance.Education should tear off that veil so that the knowledge shines forth as an illuminating torch to enliven all the corners. This is meant by achieving fullness of the latent perfection.
• Physical and Mental Development Aim The second aim of education is the physical and mental development of the child so that the child of today is able to promote national growth and advancement as a fearless and physically well developed citizen of tomorrow. Stressing the mental development of the child, Swamiji, wished education to enable the child to stand on his own legs economically rather than becoming a parasite on others.
• Moral and Spiritual Development According to Swami Vivekananda, a nation's greatness is not only measured by its parliamentary institutions and activities, but also by the greatness of its citizens. But the greatness of citizens is possible only through their moral and spiritual development whicheducation should foster.
• Character Development Aim According to Swamiji character development is a very important aim of any education. For this, he emphasized the practice of Brahmacharya which fosters development of mental, moral and spiritual powers leading to purity of thoughts, words and deeds.
• Aim of Development Faith in One's Own self Shraddha and a Spirit of Renunciation.All through his life Swamiji exhorted the individuals to keep full confidence upon their powers. They should inculcate a spirit of self-surrender, sacrifice and renunciation of material pleasures for the good of others. Education should develop all these qualities in the individual. He gave this call to his countrymen. "Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is achieved."
• The Aim of Searching Unity in Diversity The true aim of education is to develop insight into the individuals so that they are able to search out and realize unity in diversity. Swami Vivekananda has further asserted that physical and spiritual worlds are one; their distinctness is an illusion (Maya). Education should develop this sense which finds unity in diversity.
• Religious Development Aim To Swamiji religious development is an essential aim of education. To him, each individual should be able to search out and develop the religious seed embedded in him and thus find the absolute truth or reality.
Hence, he advocated the training of feelings and emotions so that the whole life is purified and sublimated. Then only the capacities of obedience, social service and submission to the teachings and preaching's of great saints and saviours will develop in the individual. Education should foster this development.
II. SHRI RABINDRANATH TAGORE Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941) was a polymath, poet, musician, and artist from the India. He reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His educational philosophy sprang up from two sources: (a) Hatred towards school. (b) Love of nature.
Concept of Education Education to be real must be of the whole man, of the emotions and the senses as much as of the intellect. Man, in the fullness, said Tagore, is not limited by the individual but overflows in his community. And so, in his school, along with training in individual initiative and self-reliance, equal emphasis was laid on community service, nor is education a plant that can be made to grow as an exotic variety in the hot house. If it does not strike roots in the soil and adapt itself to the natural environments, it has little value for the people as a whole.In short, education according to Tagore meant development of the individual. It meant enrichment of personality and education should be Indian one and not borrowed from the West.
Aims of Education The aims of education according to Shri Rabindranath Tagore are:
1. Emancipation and Perfection of Man About this Tagore says, "The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence." He aims at the emancipation of man from all kinds of bondages.He aims at perfection not only of body or mind but also that of soul. It is the fullest growth and freedom of soul. In order to achieve that aim in his endeavours he makes education as broad based as possible.
• Moral Development This is the second aim of education according to Tagore. He attached a more significance to moral values in education than for mere results of science which produced a system and physical power.
• Unity of Truth Another object of education, according to Tagore, was that of giving man the unity of truth. He says that Physical, intellectual and spiritual life are one and we must give this knowledge to the children. This way harmony will prevail and when we do not do this, there is a break between the intellectual, physical and spiritual life.
• Education should develop international outlook is another aim.
• Education should be Creative Tagore does not want to be mere informative but desires that it should be creative also. He says, "The great use of education is not merely to collect facts, but to know man and to make oneself known to man." Of course, education is to develop one physically. It should be utilitarian too.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1) Discuss the concept of education according to Shri Aurobindo Ghosh.
2) What differences can you observe in the concept of education when seen from Dr. Maria Montessori and John Dewey’s point of view?
SUMMARY
In the above unit we saw the meaning of the term Pedagogy which is an academic discipline, it is the study of how knowledge and skills are imparted in an educational context, and it considers the interactions that take place during learning. Pedagogies vary greatly, as they reflect the different social, political, cultural contexts from which they emerge. Pedagogy is the act of teaching. We later saw a type of pedagogy which is Critical pedagogy that is a progressive teaching philosophy that challenges students to examine power structures and patterns of inequality within the status quo. By questioning authority, students can take control of their own learning and critically evaluate the opinions they have been taught to have. Later in this unit, we saw the educational ideology of three western thinkers: John Dewey and Dr. Maria Montessori along with three Indian thinkers, Swami and Shri Rabindranath Tagore.
EXERCISE
1) Discuss the meaning and importance of pedagogy in education. 2) What is critical pedagogy? According to you, what challenges do the teachers face in implementing critical pedagogy? 3) Discuss the Swami Vivekananda’s idea of education. 4) Write a note on the idea of education of John Dewey.
REFERENCES
Safaya, R N and B. D. Shaida (1998). Development of Educational Theory and Practice. Delhi: Dhanpat Rai and Sons.
Aggarwal J C (2010). Theory and Principles of Education (13th Edition). New Delhi: Vikas Publishing house.
Bhatia, K K and C.L.Narang (1998). Principles of Education. Ludhiana: Prakash Brothers Publishers.
Taneja,V R (1997). Educational Thought and Practice. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers.
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