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rusmeister · Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 867 Location: Russia

Actually, that is an unsurprising conclusion and because it states the obvious, is not what I was trying to say. No one is going to be surprised if I say a radical Christian or Muslim teacher's beliefs may show up in their teaching.

What I find of much greater interest is that those who believe they are objective and have no religion have been nevertheless thoroughly influenced by public ideology and that their equally imposed beliefs, which they take for granted and assume to be correct, are also brought into their teaching.

It is inevitable that your worldview will enter your teaching. The main point where I would disagree with some of you would be in the idea that those without a clear conscious set of beliefs somehow do not bring a worldview into the classroom.

Gaijina, I have seen and therefore do believe that public education has an ideology. Many posters here are public school graduates who may believe that they have no ideology, yet they were raised in and inundated in one without being aware of it. This actually leaves religion and theology out of the picture. Soviet children were victims of an overt ideology. MOD EDIT

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

gaijinalways · Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 2279

Rusmeister,

Whether some of the ideology is overtly taught or not was not my main point. Whether religion is a central core or not is not relevant either; obviously you were talking about the whole of the education received, and for me that would include the cultural 'education' received outside of school as well as in.

I think what some of the main posters are 'disagreeing' with you about is the clarity of your original topic. We have been also discussing along side you how much of our 'philosophy' we should try to share. Of course some of it will be passed along somewhat consciously or not, but it will be shared.

I doubt most of the posters truly believe they have no idelogical values. They may or may not have considered the matter as deeply or as much as you have, but that doesn't mean that they haven't thought about it.

As an example of my own, I personally don't like teaching classes where I have to control or have overriding authority. I didn't like it when I was on the receiving end as a student, so I try to avoid giving it in my own classes as a teacher Very Happy

. It's a difficult balance to strike, that of allowing students to freely learn, while not having total chaos in the classroom.

carnac

Hi, all. Interesting thread.
I teach EFL both to civilians and the military, from Beginner to Intermediate levels, and one could say that I use philosophy in my Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate classes, but in a specific way which I believe enhances language learning: I use proverbs, taken from widely disparate international sources, and facilitate class discussions of meaning. What I do:
I have a small deck of cards with five numbered proverbs on each side. The opposite side has the country of origin. I pre-teach by from time-to-time writing a proverb on the whiteboard -of the "If you teach a man to fish" variety. It is, in a specific way, philosophy. We talk about "What does this mean?" "Do you think it is true?" "Why?" "Are we REALLY talking about fish?", any discussions having to be in English, the students first being given time to discuss the proverb in L1 before responding. After the concept of this sort of thinking is settled in, we do something different, each student choosing a card at random, selecting a proverb they believe they understand, and taking my place at the whiteboard to write the proverb and lead a class discussion. What does this do?
In my view, several things.
- They have to use an actual thinking/understanding process, not an ordinary thing in a country where education usually involves rote memorization.
- They are exposed to ideas from other places, often discovering that people in other places throughout time have thought the same ideas as their own culture.
- They are in a situation where they are in the front of the room, unable to hide, using English. (Everyone, including me, is kind during this difficult exercise, and I "help" a lot.
They must understand and discuss abstract concepts, so pre-presentation discussion is not limited to English, but the actual presentation and discussion must be in English.
The arguments! The discussions! In English!(as they gain courage).
This moves us out of Headway (poor Headway) for a bit, and gets them thinking and talking and using English.
Well or poorly, I don't care during the exercise: I want two things:
I want them to learn to not be afraid to speak English.
I want them to be exposed to other cultures and their thoughts through time.
Hey, it's philosophy, thinking about abstractions (which many have never done) and expressing their thoughts about these abstractions in a foreign language. Which brings their learning of English to a different level from the Student Book ("When I walked intothe room, Jack and Miranda were drinking champagne".)(Puh-leeze!")
And no, I never run these proverbs through a cultural filter aforehand. If they don't like it, they don't choose it.
For what it's worth, I have run many tests on these students, some classes with no abstraction/public speaking, some with this exercise on a once-a-week one-period level. The oral scores went up markedly in the "public-speaking, discussion" classes. My guess: Practice, increase in confidence, loss of fear of making mistakes, abstract thinking.
There are plenty of web proverbs if you wish to teach philosophy and remain objective while encouraging the use of English in a practical way.
Or maybe my self-diagnosed success with this is somehow flawed. If it is,I'd welcome any critical comments.
But it is using, not teaching, philosophy.
(Yes, I realise this post is perhaps not in keeping with some directions of the thread, but I thought perhaps a note about actual use of philosophy in education, rather than ideology, might be useful)

Mr. Kalgukshi · Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 12:30 pm Post subject: ASAP

I've just edited one posting and deleted another.

If this thread doesn't return to a "teaching" focus, it will be gone ASAP.

Any further attempts to politicize this thread will insure ASAP is ASAP.

The thread is locked to give everyone time to think over what this means.

Mr. Kalgukshi · Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:44 pm Post subject: Unlocked

The thread is now unlocked.

The next instance requiring it to be locked will result in its deletion.

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Rusmeister, in order to give us all something to chew on, how about a concrete, real-world example of a classroom failure or success with regards to a teacher's self-analysis of their a priori beliefs? Carnac's given us something, and I've tried with the Mexico thread (that no one else seems to want to touch)

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Guy,
I've tried plowing my way through that link. Just don't have enough time right now. Sorry.

Rusmeister,
If my post immediately above falls into the moderator's rank of politically charged questions, let me reword it.

You wrote:

Jizzo T. Clown · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:06 am Post subject:

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

gaijinalways · Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 2279

While we are waiting for Rusmeister's reply, I thought we'd look at the other aspect of philosophy. To go back to the link that Guy provided on page 3;

http://www.eslcafe.com/discussion/dz1/index.cgi?read=1408940893

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

gaijinalways · Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 2279

I guess my nudge wasn't enough, oh well Laughing

!

Sounds possible this being too liberal, though Rusmeister sounded a bit too alarmist about it. Japan is a paradox in that way, liberal in matters about sex (but probably not talking about it) , but quite conservative when it comes to talking about immigration, homosexuality, crime (somewhat, depnds on the type), incest, underage prostitution, etc. Gender issues is one poking its head up here, though slowly, slowly as more women work in 'real' jobs, not temporary posts unitl they get married.

I don't think my main job is to change the world, but it doesn't hurt to get students to think a little outside 'their world' (and me to think outside mine Surprised

).

But hey, maybe I am ready for cosplay and a 'shoganai' attitude!

Henry_Cowell · Joined: 27 May 2005 Posts: 3352 Location: Berkeley

carnac · Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2006 1:12 pm Post subject:

Russmeister commented that "It is inevitable that your worldview will enter your teaching. ".
While this is, in my view, true and unavoidable, I also believe that a teacher learns from the students as well. When they disagree with your culturally-slanted views, they will tell you, sometimes vociferously, and you may be sometimes surprised that you honestly modify your own culturally-fossilised views.
But sometimes, a culturally-specific viewpoint may have to be changed in order to continue with the prime objective which is, as far as my own job is concerned, teaching English.
Some time ago, teaching an Advanced English class, I wrote on the whiteboard for purposes of discussion a quote from Mark Twain saying that Man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to.
Seemed reasonable to me. The class became very uncomfortable. Why?
It seems that going by the Koran, Man is above the "animals", not unsimilar to the Christian Bible, and referring to Man as "animal" was a no-no.
We discussed this for a while, and I changed the whiteboard to say "Man is the only CREATURE..." This was now ok. Is this religion or philosophy?
A few things seem obvious to me:
- The teacher must know and trust the class.
- The class must know and trust the teacher.
- There must be mutual respect, or you are dead.
How do you get to the point where there is this mutual trust in the process? That you can honestly discuss differing viewpoints from cultural and religious points of view and remain ok after the class ends. The point being: What did you learn today?
We have had discussions about whales being fish or mammals; about the evolution of dogs and horses and camels (camels evolved in North America),and about the idea of evolution in general. A combination of science and philosophy.
The point being that all of these discussions were in English, and the students were using REAL English to argue amongst themselves and with me. And I argued also, pushing them. My job.
You cannot do this sort of exercise with every class all the time. But when it is possible, you can try to push then to think, really think, about the world and their place in it. Not their culture? To think?
I always push for thinking.
Philosophy in the classroom? Why not,where appropriate and if judiciously applied?
Caveat: new teachers should not do this. Too dangerous without a serious foundation of trust and a deep personal understanding of the subject at hand. Teach the Past Perfect and let it go.
C