The changing position of a headmaster

Abstract

This paper is a philosophically informed contribution to debate about the values that might inform and be communicated by a further education. It includes a historical review of the concern of colleges of further education with economic and personal development that was reflected in the distinction between vocational and liberal studies. This distinction is seen to arise out of a mistaken epistemology which attempts to distinguish once and for all as it were, objective facts from subjective values. As instrumentalism came to dominate the further education sector, the idea of liberal studies became obsolete and the sector might now appear to some commentators to be little concerned with values other than those of a monetary kind. The paper is focused on a traditional conception of further education colleges as places where people learn practices such as plumbing, joinery and hairdressing. It is argued that the distinction between academic and vocational practices is not based on the logic of the practices, but on the primary purpose of the person who is making the distinction. Practices such as plumbing, joinery and hairdressing are value laden as, more obviously, are other practices such as literary criticism and feminist pedagogy. The idea that the former type of practices are somehow value free and in need of additional study in moral competence or life skills is mistaken. Instead it is argued that all practices are evaluative and that an induction into any practice is bound to be a form of values education.     

Metaphysics and methods in moral enquiry and education: Some old philosophical wine for new theoretical bottles

If we reject sentimentalist accounts of the nature of moral motivation and education, then we may regard some form of reason as intrinsic to any genuine moral response. The large question for moral education is therefore that of the nature of such reason—perhaps more especially of its status as knowledge. In this regard, there is evidence of some recent drift in both ethics and theory of moral educational theory towards more instrumental pro-social skill acquisition conceptions of moral reason as more methodologically amenable to the empirical research methods of contemporary social science. This article sets out to show that the work of three great philosophers—all of whom have continued to exercise significant influence on modern and contemporary moral educational theorising and research—points in various ways to more epistemically robust conceptions of moral reason as meaningful personally formative knowledge that is not so readily amenable to natural or social scientific understanding and explanation.     

当代大学生社会责任感培养的德育视角

一代大学生的社会责任感和价值取向将孕育出一个新社会。从德育视角看,培养大学生社会责任感,在理路上需要树立大学生与社会和谐发展有机统一的目标;坚持紧迫感与常态心理相结合;做到由具体到抽象、由个人到社会、价值引导与自主建构相结合。在方略上,需把握整体性;彰显层次性;扣准结合点。在路径上,需融入课堂、诸科并进;走进经典、体悟真谛;典型引领,榜样示范;潜心实践,增强体验。     

大学教师关系伦理的理性思考

大学教师的关系伦理存在于教育与社会、教学与科研、师生交往以及专业化发展过程中。而当前社会责任感缺失、教学与科研关系失衡、师生关系异化及学术道德失范等大学教师关系伦理错位问题的存在,必然要求我们重建和谐的大学教师关系伦理。这就需要大学教师形成独立的人格,教学与科研并重,建立和谐的师生伦理关系,同时要完善伦理规范,进一步加强师德建设。     

Equitable Classroom Assessment: Promoting Self-Development and Self-Determination

Assessment of students’ learning in school is deeply implicated in teaching for social justice. Yet classroom assessment is neglected relative to other aspects of curriculum and pedagogy in the literature on teaching for social justice. Some books have a relatively clear theory of anti-oppression education at their core but do not provide details about the links between assessment and their anti-oppression theory, while others provide a more detailed view of assessment practices but do not specify precisely how particular assessment strategies either promote or hinder anti-oppression education. This article provides a theoretical framework that spotlights key links between teaching for social justice and classroom assessment. To illustrate these connections, we draw on guided group discussions with ten high school social studies and English teachers, interested in pursuing professional development in this area. We conceptualize assessment as a set of institutional processes with the potential either to inhibit or nurture the development of young people as well as their capacity for self-determination. We analyze: (a) how teachers, through various assessment practices, can attempt to enable equitable relations within and beyond the classroom; and (b) performance standards aimed at helping teachers assess their students’ progress toward becoming more socially responsible and, ultimately, more self-determining. We conclude that even as teachers struggle to enact more socially just assessment practices, they need to communicate clearly with students and parents about what constitutes equitable assessment and what institutional practices, by contrast, sow seeds of self-doubt and lead to destructive labeling, ranking, and gate keeping.     

高职院校青年教师职业道德失范现象分析

高职院校青年教师职业道德的失范表现为集体意识淡薄、敬业奉献意识不强、为人师表意识欠缺。究其原因在于受不良社会思潮的影响、高职院校思想政治工作和道德教育失衡以及评价与激励机制不合理。加强高职院校青年教师职业道德建设的对策为：加强理论教育,切实提高思想认识;加强领导,注重青年教师职业道德建设;加强制度建设,依法治教。     

Epistemic beliefs and beliefs about teaching practices for moral learning in the early years of school: relationships and complexities

While investment in young children is recognised as important for the development of moral values for a cohesive society, little is known about early years teaching practices that promote learning of moral values. This paper reports on observations and interviews with 11 Australian teachers, focusing on their epistemic beliefs and beliefs about teaching practices for moral education with children aged 5–8 years. The analysis revealed three main patterns of thinking about moral education: following others, reflecting on points of view, and informing reflection for action. These patterns suggest a relationship between epistemic beliefs and beliefs about teaching practices for moral learning which have implications for teacher professional development concerning experiences in moral education.     

Education as a Moral Practice

The interest in moral education has focused largely on the teaching of morality or on nurturing moral qualities and virtues or on the "moral atmosphere" of the school; but little, comparatively speaking, has been written about education itself as essentially a moral practice. Failure, in this respect, has damaging results. First, the practice of education goes adrift from its moral roots — and serves particular ends such as economic well-being or citizenship as conceived by those in power. Secondly, the programmes of moral or personal and social education are isolated from the moral context in which they make sense. These issues are addressed in the lecture.     

Revisiting the Task/Achievement Analysis of Teaching in Neo-Liberal Times

In 1975 I published an article on Gilbert Ryle's task/achievement analysis of teaching ( Marshall, 1975 ), arguing that teaching was in Ryle's sense of the distinction a task verb. Philosophers of education were appealing to a distinction between tasks and achievements in their discussions of teaching, but they were often also appealing to Ryle's work on the analysis of task and achievement verbs. Many philosophers of education misunderstood Ryle's distinction as teaching was often claimed to be a term with both an achievement sense and a task sense. In terms of Ryle's distinction a verb could not have both a task and an achievement sense.
  It will be argued that in recent (neo-liberal) discussions of education, teaching is treated more as an achievement verb than as a task verb, contrary to my original claim that teaching was a task verb. 'Teaching' then would appear to have changed its meaning. If that is so, it is a function of altered approaches to teaching (and its teaching in Teacher Education), whereby unless something of value has been added then the teaching was not successful, or appropriate.     

The Professional Approach to Moral Education

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to offer a definition of the professional approach to moral education and to contrast it with what will here be called the commonsense approach. The labels ‘professional’ and ‘commonsense’ are to be taken as evaluatively neutral. They are chosen simply for convenience; what is important is the two conceptually distinct ways of approaching moral education to which they refer. As will be emphasized later, they are not alternative conceptions of moral education. The commonsense approach, in some form, is necessarily part of moral education in any context; the question is whether, in schools, we move beyond it and become professional as well..     

基于建构主义的高职院校课程思政建设探析

为了培养既拥有扎实的专业功底、又具有较高思想素质的综合型人才,需要高职院校教师在课程思政教育过程中,积极运用建构主义理论,将建构主义理论与本校课程建设和教学实际紧密结合,同时也要为学生创设教学情景,引导学生在已有的专业课程的基础上获取思政教育知识,明确思政育人与课程育人目标。然而现阶段,在实际课程思政教育过程中,部分高职院校还存在师资力量薄弱、方式方法创新不足,以及课程思政建设与建构主义理念不相符合等问题,从而在一定程度上制约了我国高职院校课程思政教育活动的开展,不利于培养综合型人才。对此,在今后课程思政建设过程中,需要高职院校以建构主义为基础教育原则,组建强大的师资团队,创建健全的课程思政教育规划体系,促进我国高职院校课程思政建设工作的顺利开展。     

Internal quality assurance: A new culture or added bureaucracy?

This paper analyses teaching and non-teaching staff perceptions on the implementation of internal quality assurance (QA) practices at their higher education institutions. The aim is to understand how far different perspectives on quality – as culture, as compliance or as consistency – are reflected in the views of these two groups on such practices. Data from a survey sent to all Portuguese institutions show that, to some extent, the perspectives of quality as culture and quality as compliance seem to permeate both groups’ views. This is evident in regard to the factors identified as supporting the development of internal QA, the main features underlying the implementation of such practices and their main effects. As the study allows for a better understanding on how these practices are perceived by teaching and non-teaching staff, it can contribute to promoting the critical reflection of institutions about QA and the way it can be both more effective and aligned with academia’s needs and expectations, contributing to influencing institutional practices.     

新医科教育背景下社会医学课程思政的思考

社会医学是社会学与医学的交叉和边缘学科,课程从社会学角度研究人类健康与疾病,探究影响健康和疾病的社会因素,以及他们之间的规律,为社会卫生策略的制定提供依据。社会医学对大健康理念的构建有十分重要的作用,已成为医科类专业的重要课程。文章通过分析社会医学课程特点,在社会医学课程教学过程中,提炼课程所蕴含的思政元素,探索新医科教育背景下课程思政育人点与课程专业知识点的衔接、切入,探索各教学环节可实施的途径,为全面提升医科学生的品德修养和职业技能提供可借鉴的思路。     

刍议职业院校德育教学中的责任教育

在职业院校德育教学中,着力培育学生的责任感,把树立和培养学生的责任意识作为德育教学目标之一,以“学会负责、敢于负责”作为衡量学生道德行为的重要标准。     

创新高职德育工作的思考

高职教育培养高素质技能型专门人才的目标决定了高职德育工作的特殊性。高职德育具有内容实用性、形式多样性、方法渐进性等特点。目前,高职德育工作存有社会对高职教育的认识有偏差、学生价值多元化、教师队伍素质不高、德育形式单一、德育评价方法单一等问题。创新高职德育工作可以从树立就业导向的德育观念、创新德育内容、拓展德育渠道、提高教师队伍素质、创新德育评价机制等方面入手。     

Roles of assessment in secondary education: Participant perspectives

Performance pressure at both the institutional and individual level of secondary education has been identified as a pressure that is acknowledged all over Europe and raises questions about the extent to which agents in lower and upper secondary education interpret assessment in terms of either control or learning, or perhaps both. Drawing on empirical findings from two case studies in Denmark, the article focuses on the social roles of educational evaluation and assessment, and discusses the ways in which the local level interpretations of policy demands influence teaching and learning in secondary education. To enable an analysis of the understanding of different agents in the field, the article combines important sociological thinking with the basic distinction between assessment of programmes and assessment of individuals. Presuming that assessment practices bear the traces of the social structure that they both express and reproduce, the aim of this paper is to interrogate how the agents view and interpret such practices.     

加强信息技术教学中的德育渗透

教师在传授知识的同时，必须不失时机地对学生进行道德教育，促使他们健康成长。在信息技术教学中进行德育渗透，要激发学生的爱国热情，增强社会责任感和荣誉感；培养学生从小立志成才的决心；增强学生自觉抵制网络诱惑的能力；培养学生良好的协作精神。     

Institutional Practices and the Cultural Construction of Primary School Teaching in Botswana

This paper is based on a study which explores links between the interactional order of the Botswana primary classroom-frequently dominated by whole-class recitation routines-and the wider social order, which includes highly centralised control of the education system. Drawing on ethnographic observation, I argue that the institutional structures and practices of schools and training colleges are important-but covert-contributors to teachers' understanding of their professional roles. Firstly I describe the internal social structuring of two primary schools, the social hierarchy among those who work and learn there, and the cultural distance between the schools and their communities. Then I discuss the institutional practices of the primary teacher training colleges in Botswana, arguing that these do not challenge concepts of teaching already internalised by trainees. Such concepts include the authority of teachers, the use of English as a symbol of that authority, and the value placed on memorisation of knowledge for display.     

德育队伍问题透视

家长、教师乃至社会其他每一个成员都应该是广义德育队伍的一分子，这支德育队伍的现实问题令人忧虑。许多家长欠缺人与教育素养，大大限制了其对孩子育德的主动性与科学性；专职德育教师队伍人心不稳、积极性不高；学科教师育德意识薄弱，育德技能偏低；其他社会成员中自觉履行育德之职责的更是凤毛麟角。     

Teacher education: Wasteland or watershed?

It is established that the literature presents diverse positions on the impact of teacher education on beginning teacher practices. Teacher education is seen as a wasteland, a watershed for conservatism or progressivism, or a temporary influence quickly washed out by institutional and social conditions of school settings. The literature is unanimous in declaring teacher education inadequate. Data from a small scale interpretive study of entry into secondary school teaching are used to support two major claims. First, teacher education can function as a watershed equipping some beginning teachers with the competence and confidence to attempt reconstruction of existing school conditions. Second, no simple linear relationship exists between teacher education and beginning teacher practices; rather, they exist along with many other personal, institutional and social factors in a complex, interconnected network.