Education Philosophy, October 3, 2009

Three points stand out to me as, once again, I reflect on my educational philosophy. First, education is served best by hook and least by crook. Next, educators must know-now the details of the population of learners they serve, and finally, pedantry is not mastery. Teach students a new rule as soon and as well as possible: Use General Thinking Skills All Day Long!

Our American society, the civilized world community, and any careful, broad examination of the way to go all promote the necessity and benefit for individuals to pursue and receive a post-high school degree. This argument can be formed soundly. In practice, though, at the on-set, day-by-day, and year-by-year, the logical argument to pursue education requires a boost to be effective and motivating within the context of learning. Learners and communities need to see some recognizable substance to hook into in order to participate. As Keller’s ARCS Model promotes, each specific educational settings must gain the attention of the learner. It must establish and maintain relevance in the learner’s point-of-view. It must offer the learner reasons for confidence, and it must, in the end, be satisfying. The specific path to fulfill these requirements varies with the diversity of learners each educational setting serves. So some learners come willingly, initially spurred by a prevailing logic or an inner wonder while other learners need to be gathered and re-gathered by crook, and offered worthwhile hooks to connect delicately and with dignity.

In order to meet the specific needs of all specific learners, the importance of a front-end learner analysis cannot be ignored. Within an ever-increasing variety of instructional delivery systems of technologies, ideologies, educational theories and best practices, institutions, to the point of teachers, must exhort the effort to broaden its scope within the confines of its mission and goals to meet the specific needs of any student within its scope. The call is to find ways to include students who, at one time, were not included, and to continually improve instruction for students who are presently being served. As Thomas Edison once announced, “There must be a better way. Fine it!”

Learners need the opportunity to make decisions despite a lack of experience. To fill-in a lack of decision-making prowess, learners commonly memorize short lists of examples to cover their understanding of concepts and they often act on rules whether the procedures apply or not. This expression of knowledge does not count as mastery because, “Mastery is not Pedantry.” Students must be able to determine when new examples of concepts and when rules and procedures apply beyond simply knowing that the concepts and rules exist. The Seventh Perspective is a method of instruction I have crafted to offer students the opportunity to develop skills to make decisions within the continuum of teacher-directed to student-lead times of learning. The way to teaching habitual decision-making is an essential and difficult path. To the learner, it often includes the decision to defer leading thoughts and accept directions from others. To the instructor, it includes a detailed effort to incorporate instruction that gives learners the opportunity to listen, model, negotiate, problem solve, and present all within the normal course of instruction. As A. E. Housman once quoted, “Three minutes’ thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.”

Scott J. Dodd

Wilmington, NC