My Educational Philosophy

Below is my an essay describing my educational philosophy entitled "Why We Need Inquiry to Lead to Reason and Knowledge".

This was completed during the spring of 2016 in order to complete a class at Augsburg University entitled EDC580: School and Society. You can view the paper in its original form with this link: https://docs.google.com/document/eduphilos

Abstract

An inquiry-experientialist approach to learning naturally allows students to be motivated to learn because students then learn about topics and concepts that they are genuinely interested in. However, it is not certain that students will always be genuinely interested in positive things. Therefore students likely need to be guided towards experiences that allow them to grow. If a teacher has a clear narrative, or reason for schooling, then the teacher will understand what types of experiences he/she could present to the students in order to achieve the goals of that narrative. That humans are caretakers of Earth could is a narrative that requires to use the lessons that science teaches. We need to use critical thinking, creativity, and search for objective truths in order to solve the Earth’s biggest problems.

Why We Need Inquiry to Lead to Reason and Knowledge

Introduction

In preparing to write this paper, I thought of an enormous range of topics that I could in my educational philosophy. It was difficult to whittle down, but I settled on trying to answer two questions: Why should I teach? and How should I teach? Of course, I believe the answers to those questions are related to each other. I also found that I focused much more on the how as opposed to the why. Therefore I wrote more about the how than the why. This is because I think that teaching is mostly a means to an end. It easy to think about what the objective to teaching should be. It is hard to figure out how to achieve that objective. First I will explain why I should teach: students should learn how to differentiate truth from falsehoods. Doing so improves one’s life and also sets us on the right track in order to solve our planet’s biggest problems. Then I will explain the how: in order for students to learn, they have to be intrinsically motivated to do so. While there are limitations, an inquiry or experientialist approach naturally allows students to be intrinsically motivated.

Why Should I Teach?

In 10th grade, I remember speaking to friend of mine about the classes we were going to take our junior year. He told me that he was going to take all standard courses instead of accelerated or honors like he had during 10th grade. My friend was a very smart student; he regularly got A’s or B’s in honors classes. However, he was opting out of those classes his junior year so that he could get easy A’s. In other words, he had no intrinsic motivation to grow intellectually. Apparently all that motivated him in school was to get a good GPA so that he could go to a good college. I tried pointing out to him that perhaps he would not be as well prepared for college by taking the easy road in high school. He seemed unphased by this logic. Presumably he thought he could take the easy route through college as well, just do well enough to get a degree perhaps. How about once he has a job? Could he just do the bare minimum at work as well?

In my experiences in classrooms as an adult, I have seen similar attitudes. I have never taken a formal poll, but I would wager that the majority of students are motivated to perform well in school mostly, if not completely, by grades. The two most common question I hear from students are “is this graded?” and “will this be on the test?” On the other end of the spectrum are students who are so cynical about school that they simply do not care about grades at all. These are the students that willingly “not-learn” (Kohl, 1991). They see no point in doing school work because they see no reward in doing school work. What will the school work get me, they ask. Good grades? And what will those do for me?

I will leave the reasons why this grade driven motivation is so pervasive in students for another paper. I think it is suffice to say that this type of external motivation is not ideal, and we should not promote it. For some it leads to doing school work solely for the reward of getting a good grade. For others it leads to a rejection of the idea of an education entirely.

Instead, students should be motivated to learn because they are genuinely curious about something. As a teacher and commentator on education describes, “it just feels good to know things and to use what you know. And knowledge of something… heightens your appreciation for it” (Rose, 2014, p 39). Students should also be motivated to learn something because it is useful. Indeed, a good education can give the power to reason, advocate, and articulate for oneself (Rose, 2014 p 40). This in essence is what I believe school is for. Learning leads to knowledge which leads to power which leads to freedom which leads to happiness and life fulfillment.

But again, students need to see the value in learning themselves. External motivations to learn may work to some extent but it is never a long term solution. Students need to be motivated to learn because they see the value that it gives their lives. In a way this is just a more profound external motivation: to improve one’s life is the motivation to learn.

How Should I Teach?

The Role of the Teacher

How then, do we foster an environment where students become intrinsically motivated to learn? Glasser (1990) argues if we can satisfy students’ five basic needs, then they will be intrinsically motivated to learn. The first need is survival (safety, nourishment, shelter, etc). This need goes without saying; a student that is not properly nourished will have a hard time learning. There is likely much to say about how we should be providing the survival need for our students, but I will not be going into more detail about it here. Glasser (1990) explains that students also need freedom, power, and fun. In other words, students need to be able to make their own choices, have a voice in how the classroom operates, and enjoy what it is they study. A student needs love: to feel welcome and cared about as well as care about the teacher (Glasser, 1990). A feeling of welcome can be provided by the teacher no matter how she teaches. She just has to be a caring person. However, students can be provided with freedom, power, and fun within what it is they are actually learning. In other words, these needs can and should be satisfied by the way a teacher constructs her curriculum.

Inquiry and Sharing Authority

A few years ago a roommate of mine and I bought ourselves a knock-off RoombaⓇ during a bout of lazy indulgence. The product was essentially a robotic duster on wheels. Very minimally programmed, when it ran into a wall, (or table leg or whatever else) it would simply continue moving but in the opposite direction. At one point it got stuck on a throw rug, so I got up to untangle it. My roommate immediately scolded me, “Let it free itself! It will never learn otherwise!” This comment was obviously and hilariously ridiculous. The robot had no capabilities of learning. But it reminded me of other situations throughout my life when I had been quick to correct someone. I began to reflect on how perhaps it is better to allow someone to learn something instead of immediately instruct him or her.

Allowing students to learn, as opposed to directly teaching them, probably is not the most direct route. However, perhaps it results in more meaningful learning. For example, a New England high school biology teacher, Dan O'Connell, allowed his students to discover why and how seedlings appeared to have grown while in the complete dark (O’Connell, 2008). The students were genuinely interested in solving this mystery so they were then encouraged to develop hypotheses. From there they tested their designed experiments to test their hypotheses. While students were designing their experiments, O’Connell noted that his role was not to provide “quick solutions to the design problems.” Instead he suggested that “the teacher should prompt the class with questions like: Are you sure this design isolates the variable you wish to test? Are these really the best controls?”, and so on. He even encouraged that students pursue poorly conceived hypotheses since doing so would cause students to reject poor hypotheses and focus on alternative ones. In other words, he knew that his students would find more meaning in this lesson if they were allowed to unravel the mystery themselves. This is what Glasser (1990) means when he suggests that students have a need for freedom and power. Similarly, Brian Schultz, a middle school teacher on the southside of Chicago, found that sharing authority with his students dramatically increased the quality and quantity of student engagement (Schultz & Oyler, 2006). His class took on a semester long project with the aim of improving the school building and community at large. The students in many ways directed how the class operated and what it was that they would learn. For instance, at one point the students realized they should make pie charts in order to communicate their findings from a survey. Schultz then provided them with lessons and practice on pie charts. The result was that students were eagerly learning about a math topic because they could see the value in it.

If ideally students will actively seek out and learn things that they are genuinely curious about, then what are teachers for? Is the only aspect of teaching to create an environment of inquiry? As Schultz demonstrated, a good teacher still needs to know how to instruct students. When the students wanted to know more about pie charts, he had to actually teach them the concept (Schultz & Oyler, 2006). In contrary to what Glasser (1990) argues, teaching is not just managing people. It will always involve instruction as well. Teaching someone how to do something is a skill - one that requires patience and practice.

Therefore it is not enough that teachers simply motivate students, or even create a learning environment that fosters an intrinsic motivation to learn. If I walked into a classroom with highly motivated students, there is no guarantee that they will learn anything. If I have no knowledge of a topic or, at the very least, have no knowledge of how to obtain knowledge of that topic, then I would presumably be no different than the students who sit before me. Therefore, along with allowing her students to learn, it must be the role of the teacher to guide and instruct the students when necessary. The teacher must have an idea of what she wants her students to be able to do and know. In other words, there are certainly paths of inquiry that are not worth going down.

It is possible to think of this as a limitation to the “inquiry”, or “experientialist”, paradigm of teaching. The limitation is mainly due to a lack of resources. As I said before, inquiry can be a circuitous path, and in many instances there is simply not enough time for students to discover how, say, photosynthesis works on their own. Even though O’Connell allowed his students to pursue their own hypotheses, he guided them away from the worst type of hypotheses in order to avoid that the students became frustrated (O’Connell, 2008). He had to consider that this project got done in a timely matter. Frustrated students would have made that more difficult. Time is not the only limiting resource. There may not be enough astronomy equipment for students to discover that the universe is expanding. There may not be enough money for the students to travel to Lake Superior to test the effects of nitrogen pollution on the lake’s fish population.

There is also a more profound reason why the inquiry-experientialist approach is limited. It rests on the assumption that students’ genuine interests are always of value. In fact, experientialists explicitly state that whatever is relevant to the student is worth knowing (Schubert, 1994). Whatever the student finds relevant may be worth knowing to that student, but how do we know that it is something that is valuable to our society? For example, consider how many students would, if given the choice, choose to spend all day learning better strategies or techniques for their favorite video game. As another example, there may be students who are interested in how to build a bomb. We obviously would not believe that it would be beneficial to teach students how to build a bomb.

Certainly though, most young people do not have nefarious interests. So how come more teachers do not allow for students to pursue their genuine interests? For one they could be worried that the necessary skills and body of knowledge will not get covered in this manner (Schubert, 1994). The experientialist would counter by saying that objectively there is no such thing as a necessary skill or body of knowledge with the exception of learning how to learn. But if that is true, then all that is worth learning is relative. The experientialist would have to admit that it is just as worthy to learn how to build a bomb as to learn how to build a home.

Therefore, we as teachers must have some sense of what is inherently good and worth knowing. The difficulty, again, is teachers agreeing on what is good and worth knowing. In addressing this issue, Postman (1996) suggests that public schools adopt a universal narrative, a set of principles and goals that the whole system can agree upon and be guided by. In particular I identify with “The Spaceship Earth” narrative, which suggests that the humans are all “caretakers” of the planet. This narrative demands that anything we do to harm ourselves or the planet is inherently bad (Postman, 1996). It demands that humans work together, setting aside tribalistic identities, to solve its biggest problems. It is a narrative where critical thinking, objective truths, and creativity are valued. Postman identifies Steven Spielberg’s E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind as works of fiction that embody this narrative. I would add Carl Sagan’s Contact and Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life (adapted to the 2016 movie, Arrival) to that list.

Filling the Gaps of Inquiry by Encouraging Critical Thinking

If the teacher has a clear idea of the reason for schools (its narrative) then he can be confident about how to fill in the gaps left by the limitations of the inquiry-experientialist approach. The teacher can then guide his students towards achieving the goals of that narrative. For me, this means that I should present my students with practice on how to think critically. I should teach them how to observe and test for objective facts. For instance O’Connell presented his students with the classic van Helmont experiment, which forces students to think about where do plants obtain all of their mass. Does it come from the soil? The air? The point is that thinking critically is a skill that often has to be taught; it may not be something that students will naturally learn on their own.

I should also demonstrate that the knowledge that these two skills combined can result in a more meaningful, productive, and effective life. One example is how thinking skeptically can allow you to counteract the forces of consumerism (Rose, 2014; Postman, 1996). The same can be said about counteracting pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is especially prevalent in the realm of health/wellness. Unfortunately, many people have been fooled by pseudoscientific claims and have suffered financially, emotionally, and even physically. In 2016, a boy died of meningitis when his parents tried to treat him with herbal remedies (Worley, 2016).

Critical Reconstructionism, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, and the Subjective Nature of Truth

Finally, I will address some educational points of view that I tend not to agree with. There are many teachers who believe the primary objective of schools is to provide social justice in the community or society at large. Furthermore, these teachers often believe that this is naturally the genuine interest of students and therefore what they should be learning (Schubert, 1994). There is a big problem with this “critical reconstructionist” paradigm, made evident by O’Connell’s students. Instead of being concerned with social injustices, they were actually genuinely concerned about photosynthesis and cellular respiration. So what happens when a classroom is genuinely interested in a bland old science topic? What’s more important to study: social justice or science?

Are there science topics that are simultaneously social justice topics? Perhaps there are some that are proximate. A discussion on climate change, for instance, could encompass the social issues that go with it. A class might look at how climate change may disproportionately affect historically disenfranchised communities - certainly a worthy inquiry. However, there is no social justice aspect of the physical effects and causes of climate change; there are only the scientific, objective facts. Similarly, Ayers (2010) describes how teacher Danny Morales-Doyle encouraged his students to research blood diamonds in their unit on the periodic table. Again, this is certainly an excellent inquiry assignment with a social justice angle, but it is not strictly science. My point is not that science class should only involve “strictly science”; it is just that not all science topics can be about righting the wrongs of injustices. If the class at some point decided to learn about the chemistry of diamonds, then they no doubt learned about plain-old-boring-elemental carbon.

I should point out that the social justice narrative does not necessarily have to conflict with the Spaceship Earth narrative. However, I am concerned with how close this narrative comes to what Postman calls the “multiculturalism” narrative. The multiculturalism narrative has been known to bend the truth in order to fit its narrative (Postman, 1996). I should say that, of course, so has the “eurocentric” narrative. I would oppose such a narrative as well. Once again, I am in favor of a global narrative, one where we constantly search for the objective truth. We should never bend the truth to satisfy the story we want to tell ourselves.

Another, potentially problematic concept is the currently en vogue term “culturally relevant pedagogy.” Culturally relevant pedagogy suggests that in order for students to experience academic success, they must “develop cultural competence”, and “develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order” (Ladson-Billings, 2014). To put it very simply, culturally relevant pedagogy means to create lessons that are relevant. Teachers should put lessons into a context that makes the learning more meaningful, important, or useful to their specific students. So far so good.

The problem is that many education academics claim that science class privileges “Western” science over “other ways of knowing” (Boutte, Kelly-Jackson, & Johnson, 2010; Mazzocchi, 2006; Nam, Roehrig, Kern, & Reynolds, 2012). As an example, some education academics would suggest that science teachers should not privilege Gregor Mendel’s genetic experiments over Native Americans practice of agriculture (Boutte et al, 2010). Apparently the authors do not understand the fundamental difference in knowledge that these two events gave humanity. One changed the way we understand how organisms inherit characteristics, the other did not.

By promoting the idea that science is biased, racist, or subjective, we are simply reinforcing feelings of distrust and disinterest of science in marginalized populations who already are underrepresented in scientific institutions. While the institution of science (i.e. those who practice it) may be skewed, biased, or even racist, the fundamental method of science is not. Good science is good science no matter who practices it. Likewise, bad science is bad science; poor reasoning is poor reasoning.

That being said, culturally relevant science pedagogy is completely compatible with other forms of science teaching. In fact, approaches such as inquiry-based curriculum often promote or bring forward cultural relevance. One great example is how teachers how teachers encouraged their American Indian students to explore renewable sources of energy (Roehrig, Campbell, Dalbotten, & Varma, 2012). However, some education academics and practicing teachers misunderstand science and therefore misinterpret what culturally relevant science teaching should look like. While different cultures may have acquired and passed down knowledge in different ways (through generations by the masses vs individuals or research teams, orally vs peer-review), this is not to say that people fundamentally use reason differently.

Conclusion

One of the reasons I love science is due to the sense of wonder and amazement that it gives me. This, however, is not an underlying reason why I want to teach others science. Perhaps better stated, I do not wish to explicitly convey this to my students. I hope that instead this sense of wonder will be a side-effect of the more practical reason for teaching science: to convey to others how to think critically. Science and reason is what people use to sort out true things from false things. If my students are able to reason sufficiently, then they will be equipped to fight off all sorts of troubling misconceptions and snake-oil salesmen in their futures.

Finally, I want to teach because I want students to see the inherent quality of science, or more broadly, of knowledge. I said earlier that knowledge can improve one’s own life. But, if we accept Spaceship Earth narrative, it can be motivating to learn and practicing science in order to help others. More than ever, we need to continue using reason, and therefore developing the skill in our students. We need to use it in order to solve the biggest problems of our society and planet. Science, when done correctly, is never biased. It simply provides us with facts. We need facts in order to navigate on Spaceship Earth.

References

Ayers, W., & Alexander-Tanner, R. (2010). To Teach: The Journey, in Comics. New York: Teachers College Press.

Boutte, G., Kelly-Jackson, C., & Johnson, G. L. (2010). Culturally Relevant Teaching in Science Classrooms: Addressing Academic Achievement, Cultural Competence, and Critical Consciousness. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 12(2). doi:10.18251/ijme.v12i2.343

Glasser, W. (1990). The quality school: managing students without coercion. New York: HarperPerennial.

Kohl, H. (1995). 'I won't learn from you!': And other thoughts on creative maladjustment. New York: The New Press.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 2.0: A.k.a. the Remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74-84. doi:10.17763/haer.84.1.p2rj131485484751

Mazzocchi, F. (2006). Western science and traditional knowledge: Despite their variations, different forms of knowledge can learn from each other. EMBO Reports, 7(5), 463-466. doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400693

Nam, Y., Roehrig, G., Kern, A., & Reynolds, B. (2012). Perceptions And Practices Of Culturally Relevant Science Teaching In American Indian Classrooms. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 11(1), 143-167. doi:10.1007/s10763-012-9372-x

O'Connell, D. (2008). An inquiry-based approach to teaching photosynthesis & cellular respiration. The American Biology Teacher, 70(6), 350-356. doi:10.2307/30163295

Postman, N. (1996). The end of education. New York: Knopf, pp. 3-87

Roehrig, G., Campbell, K., Dalbotten, D., & Varma, K. (2012). CYCLES: A Culturally-relevant Approach to Climate Change Education in Native Communities. Journal of Curriculum and Instruction, 6(1). doi:10.3776/joci.2012.v6n1p73-89

Rose, M. (2014). Why school?: reclaiming education for all of us. New York: The New Press.

Schubert, W. (1996, Summer). Perspectives on four curriculum traditions. Educational Horizons, 169-176.

Schultz, B. D., & Oyler, C. (2006). We make this road as we walk together: sharing teacher authority in a social action curriculum project. Curriculum Inquiry, 36(4), 423-451. doi:10.1111/j.1467-873x.2006.00365.x

Worley, W. (2016, March 9). Baby died of meningitis 'after parents tried to treat him with herbal remedies' The Independent. Retrieved March 30, 2017, from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/canada-couple-treated-meningitis-infected-baby-natural-remedies-syrup-berries-court-a6920636.html