Recontructionism Essay

The eccentric of the assimilator in a Reconstructionist percolateing environment. The role of the student in the reconstructionist withdrawing environment is to be an active participant. Students are professionalmote to think criti augury just about the world in which they live in and how it bath be changed for the better. Students find how to be problem solvers and conclusiveness makers. It is frequent for students to be challenged on their thoughts and feelings regarding topics. Acquisition of strong moral values are also encouraged through teaching.Reconstructionist encourages societal activism among its students. It is non uncommon for students to learn while doing, such as organizing a pabulum drive for the local home little shelter. Progressivism With the acquaintance laboratoryoratory instilldays set the stage for the progressive education movement. prove on the view that educators, like scientists, need a place to test their ideas, Deweys research laborato ry School eventually became the most famous experimental educate in the history of U. S. education, a place where thousands discover Deweys innovations in inculcate design, methods, and curriculum.Although the initiate remained under Deweys control for only eight long time and never enrolled much than 140 students (ages 3 to 13) in a single year, its influence was enormous. Dewey designed the Lab School with only one classroom plainly with several facilities for experiential learning a experience laboratory, an . Progressivism organizes teachs around the concerns, curiosity, and objective-world experiences of students. The progressive instructor facilitates learning by helping students formulate meaningful questions and devise strategies to process those questions.Answers are non drawn from lists or even Great contains they are discovered through real world experience. Progressivism is the educational application of a philosophy called pragmatism. According to pragmati sm, the way to determine if an idea has moral excellence is simple test it. If the idea works in the real world, then it has merit. Both pragmatism and progressivism originated in America, the home of a very practical and pragmatic pot. John Dewey refined and applied pragmatism to education, establishing what became cognise as progressivism.John Dewey was a reformer with a background in philosophy and psychology who taught that people learn best through sociable interaction in the real world. Dewey believed that because social learning had meaning, it endured. Book learning, on the previous(predicate)(a) hand, was no substitute for actually doing things. Progressivisms do not believe that the mind batch be disciplined through entering Great Books, rather that the mind should be trained to crumple experience thoughtfully and draw conclusions objectively. Dewey saw education as an opportunity to learn how to apply preliminary experiences in new ways.Dewey believed that studen ts, facing an ever-changing world, should master the scientific method (1) Become aware of a problem (2) define it (3) propose various hypotheses to solve it (4) experience the consequences of each hypothesis in the get off of previous experience and (5) test the most likely solution. (For a biography of John Dewey, see the lobby of Fame Profiles in Education in Chapter 4. ) Dewey regarded democracy and freedom as far superior to the political ideas of sooner times. Dewey saw traditional, autocratic, teacher- overhaul the gatetered crops as the antithesis of democratic ideals.He viewed progressive schools as a functional model of democracy. Dewey wrote To duplicity from above is opposed ex compression and cultivation of individuality to external discipline is opposed free natural process to learning from texts and teachers, learning through experience to encyclopaedism of isolated skills and techniques by drill is opposed acquisition of them as means of attaining ends which make direct vital appeal to preparation for a more or less remote prospective is op-posed making the most of the opportunities of present life to statistics and materials is opposed acquaintance with a changing world.The Progressive classroom Walk into a progressivism classroom, and you exit not find a teacher standing at the front of the room confabulationing to rows of seated students. Rather, you will likely see children working in small groups, moving about and talking freely. Some children efficacy be discussing a science experiment, while some other group works on a model volcano, and a third pre-pares for a presentation. Interest unions would be located throughout the room, filled with books, materials, software, and projects designed to attract student interest on a wide array of topics.Finally you notice the teacher, walking around the room, bending over to talk with individual students and small groups, asking questions and making suggestions. You sense that the las t thing on her mind is the standardised arouse test scheduled for next week. Progressivisms build the curriculum around the experiences, interests, and abilities of students, and encourage students to work together cooperatively. Teachers feel no compulsion to focus their students attention on one discrete discipline at a time, and students integrate several subjects in their studies.Thought-provoking activities augment reading, and a game like Monopoly might be used to illustrate the principles of capitalism versus socialism. Computer simulations, field trips, and interactive websites on the Internet poke out realistic learning challenges for students, and build on students multiple intelligences. Progressivism in Action The Laboratory School In 1896, while a professor at the University of Chicago, Dewey founded the Laboratory School as a testing ground for his educational ideas.Deweys writings and his work art room, a wood-working shop, and a kitchen. Children were likely to m ake their ingest weights and measures in the laboratory, illustrate their knowledge stories in the art room, build a boat in the shop, and learn chemistry in the kitchen. They were unlikely to learn through isolated exercises or drills, which, according to Dewey, students consider irrelevant. Since Dewey believed that students learn from social interaction, the school used many group methods such as cooperative model-making, field trips, role playing, and dramatizations.Dewey maintained that group techniques make the students better citizens, developing, for example, their willingness to share responsibilities. Children in the Laboratory School were not promoted from one grade to another after mastering certain material. Rather, they were grouped according to their individual interests and abilities. For all its child-cantered orientation, however, the Laboratory School remained hierarchical in the sense that the students were never given a role comparable to that of the module i n determining the schools educational practices. brotherly ReconstructionismSocial reconstructionism encourages schools, teachers, and students to focus their studies and energies on alleviating permeating social inequities, and as the name implies, reconstruct society into a new and more just social order. Al-though social reconstructionist agree with progressivists that schools should concentrate on the needs of students, they split from progressivism in the 1920s after development impatient with the slow pace of change in schools and in society. George Counts, a student of Dewey, published his sheer book, Dare the Schools Build a New Social Order? in which he outlined a more ambitious, and clearly more radical, approach to education. Countss book, written in 1932, was no doubt influenced by the human cost of the Great Depression. He proposed that schools focus on reforming society, an idea that caught the imagination and sparked the ideals of educators both in this country and abroad. Social challenges and problems provide a natural (and moral) direction for curricular and instructional activities. Racism, sexism, environmental pollution, homelessness, poverty, core group aversion, homophobia, AIDS and violence are rooted in misinformation and thrive in ignorance.Therefore, social reconstructionists believe that school is the ideal place to begin ameliorating social problems. The teachers role is to explore social problems, suggest alternate perspectives, and facilitate student analysis of these problems. While convincing, cajoling, or moralizing about the vastness of addressing human tragedy would be a natural teacher response, such adult-led decision-making flies in the pillowcase of reconstructionist philosophy. A social reconstructionist teacher must model democratic principles.Students and teachers are expected to live and learn in a democratic culture the students themselves must select educational objectives and social priorities. The Social R econstructionist Classroom A social reconstructionist teacher manufactures lessons that both intellectually inform and emotionally stir students about the inequities that call them. A class might read a book and visit a photojournalists register portraying violent acts of racism. If the book, exhibit and the class discussion that follows move the students, the class might choose to rent a long-term project to habilitateigate the problem.One group of students might analyse news reporting of racial and ethnic groups in the community. Another student group might conduct a stack analysing community perceptions of racial groups and race relations. Students might visit city hall and examine arrest and audition records in order to determine the role race plays in differential application of the law. Students might examine government records for information about housing patterns, income levels, graduation rates and other relevant statistics.The teachers role would be as facilitator assisting students in focusing their questions, developing a strategy, helping to organize visits, and ensuring that the info collected and analysed ensure standards of objectivity. Throughout, the teacher would be instructing students on research techniques, statistical evaluation, writing skills, and public communications. In a social reconstructionist class, a research project is more than an academic exercise the class is diligent in a genuine effort to improve society.In this case, the class might arrange to meet with political leaders, encouraging them to create programs or legislation to respond to issues the students uncovered. The students might seek a pro bono attorney to initiate legal action to remedy a social injustice they unmasked. Or by chance the students might take their findings directly to the media by holding a press conference. They might also create a Web page to share their findings and research methods with students in other parts of the country, or othe r parts of the world.How would the teacher decide if the students watch met the educational goals? In this example, an objective, well-prepared report would be one criterion, and trim back or eliminating a racist community practice would he a second measure of success. Social Reconstructionism in Action Paulo Freire Paulo Freire believed that schools were just another institution perpetuating social inequities while serving the interests of the dominant group. want social reconstructionism itself, Freires beliefs grew during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when he experienced hunger and poverty set downing line-hand.Influenced by red ink and neo-Marxist ideas, Freire accused schools of perpetuating the status quo views of the rich and powerful for the purpose of keeping the masses submerged and content in a culture of silence. Schools were endorsing social Darwinism, the idea that society is an ingenious sorting placement, one in which the more talented rise to the top, while those less deserving find themselves at the bottom of the social and stinting pecking order. The conclusion Those with money de-serve it, those without money deserve their lot in life, and poverty is a normal, preordained part of reality.Freire jilted this conclusion. He did not believe that schools should be viewed as banks, where the privileged deposit ideas like social Darwinism to he spoon fed into the limited minds of the dispossessed. He envisioned schools as a place where the poor can acquire the skills to regain control of their lives and influence the social and economic forces that locked them in poverty in the first place. Freire engaged the poor as equal partners in dialogues that explored their economic and social problems and possible solutions.Freire believed in praxis, the article of belief that when actions are based on sound theory and values, they can make a real contrariety in the world. (It is no accident that the term praxis is also the name given to t he teacher ability tests required by many states. ) Freires ideas took hold not only in his native Brazil, but in poor areas around the globe. As poor farm workers became literate and aware, they organized for their self-improvement, and began to work for change. It is not surprising that the autocratic leaders of his country eventually forced him into exile, for he had turned schooling into a liberating force.For a biography of Paulo Freire, see the Hall of Fame Profiles in Education in Chapter 4. ) How Can Education crucify Crime? A major proposition for solving the crime epidemic has endlessly been a call for more education however does a more educated society mean a legal society? Schools as institutions are merely a microcosm of society and as such must inherently reflect the attitudes and behavior of the public, including stealing from each other beating up on each other, traffic in contraband and sexually violating each other.Students flout school regulations and/or nati onal laws. One can now ponder which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Does the deviant student become the criminal? Or does the criminal modeling within society create the deviant student? Students however are not the only perpetrators of crime in schools. Teachers represent authority figures in the system, and like in wider society, they may abuse their power and break school rules as well. These unfortunate events again raise questions. What causes a teacher to give unsporting advantages to his favorite students?What causes the politician/policeman to pardon his criminal friend or allow him unfair advantages? What causes authority figures to victimize members of a certain groups? In the end, we need to view the issues of crime in school and crime in society as interlinked. Viewed in this context, the solution of increased education on its own to mitigate crime, seems less feasible. A favorable learning environment, coupled with specialized teaching techniques can rase devianc e and increase the rule of law. Students are more likely to succeed when they feel connected to the school and the learning process.This connection reflects students belief that school administrations care about them as individuals. Teachers are central to creating a clear classroom structure. They must build connectedness in the classroom and encourage team-learning exercises to break mountain social isolation by integrating student teams across gender, academic ability, and ethnicity. A supportive school administration must not allow a unripe person to fail, or students will inadvertently believe in winners and losers. This assumption sets up a dysfunctional dichotomy the winners or the academically proficient become nerds and losers.A prescribed, nurturing school culture with students experiencing connectedness to their school will create a positive, nurturing society with citizens experiencing connectedness to their communities and by extension, their country. Studies show a high proportion of students positively connected to their school are likely to increase academic performance and school competition rates and decrease incidents of fighting, bullying, vandalism and absenteeism. There is strong evidence, applicable across racial, ethnic and income groups that students who feel connect to school are less likely to exhibit disruptive behavior.Implementing civic education, particularly education about the rule of law into school curricula is used in Latin America and Asia as a predominant technique to foster knowledge and attitudes that prevent crime and corruption, protect human rights and enrich and enhance formal democracy. In Trinidad and Tobago, the education system has consistently separated schools and students into vocation and university tracks and as such, avoided providing all students with the same core curriculum and setting inclusive academic standards.This form of informed prejudice has created, over the past decades, a society of confide nt and humble citizens, professionals and dropouts, favored old-boy graduates and neglected strugglers. Without a significant paradigm shift in the education system, the levels of crime in schools and society will increase or remain constant, students will always steal and teachers will always create as many or more problems than they solve.Higher levels of education do not ensure less crime in society, but indeed a more effective education system that caters to both the students and teachers mental and psychological health, while fostering a greater instinct and appreciation for civic duty and the rule of law, is key for crime reduction. Advocates Early education key to trim down crime The key to eradicating crime and violent behaviour, say organizers with the non-profit conflict Crime Invest in Kids dad, is to invest more resources in early care and child education.That was the theme earlier this week as Fight Crime visited the Penn Alexander School to unveil its findings in the multi-point plan, High-Quality Early Care and Education a recognise To Reducing Crime in Pennsylvania. The plan points to numerous nationwide studies which found that in Michigan, at-risk children not enrolled in high-quality programs were five times more likely to be chronic offenders by the age of 27 another report, this one based on Chicago, found that at-risk kids not participating in the citys child-parent centre programs are 70 per cent more likely to be arrested for a violent crime by the age of 19.And since the School rule of Philadelphias enrolment of at-risk/economically disfavor children currently sits at 80. 6 per cent or 117,749 students it only made sense for Philadelphia to be the first stop in a state-wide mission, said Fight Crime Pennsylvania State Director Bruce face-off. Philadelphia is obviously important because its a big city, and important because so many kids here have unmet needs, Clash said. And thats a extravaganza for them, their families and the community at large. Clashed praised the efforts of District Attorney Seth Williams in embracing the findings and for attending the unveiling, along with regularize superintendent Dr. William Hite Sr. and other elected and appointed officials. Williams and Hite were both unavailable for comment as of Tribune press time. The report illustrates in great detail the correlation between the lack of education and criminality and the positive effects reaped when limited resources are properly utilized, vital when only 17. 6 per cent of eligible 3- and 4-year-olds have access to high-quality publicly funded pre-K programs throughout the commonwealth.The report also shows that Pennsylvania spends more than $2. 3 billion on incarceration, but only $340 million on early childhood education. Law enforcement leaders across Pennsylvania want to make sure more Pennsylvania children receive high-quality care and education in their early years the help they need to succeed in life and avoid la ter crime and violence, read a portion of the findings. Despite strong evidence that high-quality early education can reduce future corrections costs in Pennsylvania and nationally, spending on corrections far surpasses spending on early education. The report further shows that, of criminals labelled chronic offenders by the age of 2, 35 per cent of them did not attend or participate in preschool programs conversely, only 7 per cent of those that did attend such a program went on to be considered chronic offenders.The report suggests several ways to cut off young criminal pipeline, including increasing the number of quality teachers, better funding for federal early care, Pre-K and head start programs, better implementation of the Child Care and Development Block grant and more school districts winning part in the federal Race To The Top program. The thing most criminals have in common is the lack of a high school education. Not everyone who doesnt get a diploma commits a crime, bu t there are more likely to commit a crime and be incarcerated, Clash said. So we targeted early childhood, with 40 years of research showing us that if you reach at-risk and economically disadvantaged children, 44 per cent more were likely to graduate because they have a foundation to build on, develop, turn out from and attain the skills they need in life. Clash said inroads are being made, citing the recent, multi-million dollar funding of the states Pre-K Counts program and the various Head start initiatives.Those two programs are funded through a series of line items in the state budget. Both of these funding streams are used by the School District of Philadelphia and by hundreds of school districts throughout the state, and many other districts use their own money for these programs, Clash said. impetus continues to grow, but the problem is that only 17 per cent of all Pennsylvanian three- and four-year-olds receive publicly-funded, high-quality Pre-K programming. And in Phi ladelphia, its a huge, unmet need, since 3,100 kids are at the poverty line do not have access to pre-K programs because they are on a wait list, Clash continued. So this report makes the case of why law enforcement is so touch on about getting access to pre-K young kids. Long-term arrests come down, and behaviourally, the data shows a reduction in early aggressive behaviour.