Assessment Task 2

Instruction:
Write a research-based reflection paper on the given reading articles in your
LMS. Kindly observe proper APA in-text citation. Below is the format of your written work.

1. 1.SUMMARY
2. 2.REFLECTION

(Mao ni ang article dong. Pulihi lang nya sa answer dong. Patakae lang)

Why Philosophy in Public Schools Matters

© Kristina Pelletier 2008

For better or worse, school administrators and teachers bring their own educational
experiences into schools and classrooms. For most, philosophy had little to do
with their education, so why should it matter? Simply put, it would mean a better
education for young people, and ultimately a better society for everyone. However, the
question needs more unpacking, so let’s consider three questions: (1) How does public
education affect individuals and society? (2) What are the primary means and ends of
public education? and finally, (3) What is philosophy?
How does public education affect individuals and society? John Dewey said society
largely determines its future by how it educates young people. Few would disagree with
his claim; even the ancient Athenians and Spartans understood this. Although they took
vastly different approaches, both used education to socialize young citizens into the
cultural status quo. Sparta used it to produce soldiers and to maintain an authoritarian-
militaristic social order. Athens used education to teach the arts and prepare its pupils
for citizenship, peace, and war.
How strong is socialization in education? Around 400 BC a funny-looking man named
Socrates irritated Athenian society by challenging its approaches to education. He
prodded the sensibilities, knowledge, beliefs, and values of citizens and young people.
Socrates beseeched them to question and reflect upon their fossilized knowledge,
prejudices, religious assumptions, and social illusions. Standing in the public square, he
beckoned them to break the chains of blind allegiance to unquestioned dogma.
Socrates’ approach to ‘public education’ was unappreciated, to say the least. Many saw
him as a threat to the interests of the city, and he became a marked scapegoat for the
turbulent times. Socrates had faith that if individuals learned to think for themselves they
would naturally seek the highest good for themselves, others, and society.
Unfortunately, Athens had little faith in his ways and sentenced him to death for
‘corrupting the youth’ –essentially for teaching the young how to philosophize.
Over 2,400 years later, the relationship between education and philosophy is not much
better. Societies still use education to socialize young people while resisting philosophy.
In schools, young citizens learn socially-accepted ways of knowing, thinking, acting, and
relating. These lessons are transferred, often uncritically, through
the formal, hidden and null curricula in schools.
The formal curriculum is the blueprint. It explicitly states what students are to learn, and
sometimes how they are to learn it. The hidden curriculum includes everything in
education outside the formal curriculum. For example, ‘hidden lessons’ are given to
students through school rules, grading policies, teacher attitudes, class sizes, and
instructional practices. It also includes the lessons from the unintentional positive and
negative learning outcomes when students are taught the formal curriculum. The null
curriculum is what is not taught, addressed, or even mentioned in education. This is
where philosophy usually falls. What gets ignored in schools – like what is taught –
ultimately affects how the students live their lives.
Let me offer an example to illustrate the relationship between formal, hidden, and null
curricula. A second-grade teacher is required by her school district to teach about
America’s Founding Fathers. The formal curriculum includes lesson plans to teach
children about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. The
lessons portray the character of each ‘Founding Father’ in rosy hues, verging on divine
attributes. However, the teacher is unaware of the hidden curriculum for a young
African-American girl in her class. The girl is learning something additional. For her, it
suggests at an impressionable young age that America was founded by and for people
vastly different from herself – in particular, white men. Moreover, the teacher is
unwittingly also fostering a null curriculum by leaving out the role of women, minorities,
and slaves in the founding of America.
The purpose of my example is to suggest the intricate interplay between learners and
formal, hidden, and null curricula. This dance contributes greatly to the socialization of
young people, unquestionably impressing upon them socially-accepted ways of
knowing, thinking, acting, and relating. Students receive millions of lessons from twelve
years of formal, hidden, and null curricula. But by examining the current means and
ends of public education we can consider what kind of future we may be creating for
ourselves and others. We can then ask ourselves if we are on a good path, or if we can
do better.
Many believe the primary goal of schools and colleges is to prepare people for work.
This conventional belief renders education nothing more than an extremely long and
expensive job training program. This goal is achieved by ensuring students learn
specific knowledge through systematic transference. In seeking high levels of
transference, where teachers give students knowledge, schools depend greatly on
games of carrots and sticks. A complex system of standards, assessment, and
accountability has now become the foundation of education in most schools. The goal is
to ensure that all students meet all the standards by meeting assessment requirements.
These ends are to be achieved by 1) codifying and defining all learning standards
that all students are to meet, 2) focusing primarily on technical reading, mathematics,
and science, which are conducive to objective knowledge and assessments, 3)
establishing assessments to measure if students have met the learning standards, and
4) enforcing accountability through a system of rewards and punishments for students,
teachers, districts, and states, based on aggregated and disaggregated assessment
scores.
But evidence suggests public schools are not working well for most students or teachers
in America. Nearly a third of all new teachers leave the classroom within three years,
and nearly fifty percent within five. (See National Commission on Teaching and
America’s Future No Dream Denied: A Pledge to America’s Children, 2003.)
Approximately one in three students who enter 9th grade do not graduate from high
school. (United States Department of Education, ‘Prepared Remarks for Secretary
Spellings at the National Governors Association’s National Education Summit on High
Schools’, February 27, 2005.) Studies suggest teachers and students tend to leave for
similar reasons: poor relationships, work overload, numbing boredom, meaningless
experiences, trivial activities, and dreadful routines. (See Margaret Diane LeCompte
and Anthony Dworkin, Giving Up on School: Student Dropouts and Teacher Burnouts,
1991.)