Self-Awareness of One’s Educational Philosophy Can Optimize Vocational Success

      Seventy percent of the time, people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQ (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009).  Emotional intelligence (EI) seems to be a critical factor explaining this anomaly.  EI is comprised of four core skills paired under two primary competencies: personal competence and social competence.  Personal competence includes one’s self-awareness and self-management skills. Highly developed self-awareness skills allow accurate perception of your emotions and the ability to remain aware of them as they happen. Since emotional reactions to events occur before rational thought is able to engage, developing emotional intelligence, especially increasing self-awareness skills, results in more effective interaction between the rational and emotional areas of one’s brain. 

            Freedom is a blessed inalienable right! Yet, that right never ensures equity in fairness. At best, participants within a defined system can look to the system’s mission statement to determine whether that system OR its leader walks the walk or simply talks the talk in relation to its mission. 

            Often, when a teacher is unaware of his or her educational philosophy and how it may fit with a defined system, the result is the teacher becomes more like a struggling tenant farmer than a successful entrepreneur. The love of sowing seeds of knowledge inspires the novice teacher’s hope for a bountiful yield. Yet, results often depend on a combination of forces beyond the teacher’s full control. One variable is the philosophical underpinning of the system in which the novice teacher can endeavor to promote the learning for all mission. Self-awareness of one’s educational philosophy increases understanding of the potential for a successful fit within the defined system.

            Early in their professional development, teacher candidates are encouraged to name and claim their philosophy of education. While most candidates view the first-year task of naming and claiming their personal educational philosophy a burdensome assignment, this early connection to one or more schools of educational philosophy can help the candidate later match her passions and beliefs with a system that will nurture rather than corrupt these passions and beliefs. When this connection is encouraged through explicit mentorship, the experienced educator passes on a great gift: Freedom for the teacher candidate to act like an entrepreneur and wisely choose the best system for utilizing and implementing the passions and beliefs that promote best practices!   

            ‎An effective educator/mentor within an innovative teacher preparation program seeks to own this wonderful opportunity. The lessons presented during a program of professional development facilitated by such effective educators then fan the flames of freedom rather than the mere pursuit of licensure and acceptance of any available job. Thus, by actively encouraging ownership of one's educational philosophy the teacher preparation program ensures the teacher candidate’s philosophical foundation girds other leading indicators of success. There is then greater likelihood that the trailing indicator of success will shift from the number of candidates earning licensure to the quality of teachers empowered to promote the learning for all mission within a system that will invite the novice teacher’s success!

 

To Cite:

Anderson, C.J. (May 31, 2017) Self-Awareness of One’s Educational Philosophy Can Optimize

                Vocational Success. [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

 

Resources:

 Bradberry, T. R, & Greaves, J., (2009) Emotional intelligence 2.0. San Diego, CA.

                TalentSmart. ISBN: 1441842233

Cohen, L.M. (1999) Educational philosophies self-assessment. Retrieved from:

                http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/ed416/selfassessment.html

Cohen, L.M. (1999) Educational philosophies self-assessment scoring guide. Retrieved from

                http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/ed416/scoringguide.html

 Reform Support network (2015) Leading indicators for school improvement. Retrieved

                from: https://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/implementation-support-unit/tech-assist/leadingindforschoolimprov.pdf

US Department of Education (2016) Improving teacher preparation: Building on innovation.

                Retrieved from: https://www.ed.gov/teacherprep

 

 

Invitational Theory and Practice: In the pursuit of fairness in educational equity

The theoretical foundations for Invitational Education (Purkey, 1992) include “the democratic ethos” (Dewey, 1916), the perceptual tradition (Combs, Richards, & Richards, 1988), and self-concept theory (Rogers, 1969).  These foundations rest upon core principles.  As an effective educational theory, Invitational Education (IE) utilizes assumptions requiring people, places, policies, programs, processes to interdependently transcend from the present organizational culture to the desired ideal.  Thus, IE theory rests upon:

• The 5 basic assumptions: optimism, trust, respect, care, intentionality;
• The 5 P’s: people, places, policies, programs, processes;
• The ladder: intentionally disinviting, unintentionally disinviting, unintentionally inviting, intentionally inviting, and;
•  The 4 corner press: being personally inviting with oneself, being personally inviting with others, being professionally inviting with oneself, being professionally inviting with others (Welch & Smith, 2014).

Undeniably, a humanist approach to education guides Invitational Education (IE).  Richards and Combs (1993) advocated for the implementation of positive aspects of humanist approaches in education.  These aspects embraced the human being’s uniqueness, the importance of self-concept, development of methodologies that encouraged group work, increased the involvement of students in decision-making, and sought to create more pleasant and inviting schools (pp. 266–67). 

However, the dawn of the new millennium brought new critics to the humanistic approach in education. Educational psychologists: Duchesne and McMaugh (2016), blame humanist approaches to education for promoting a structure that led to weaker academic outcomes, unprepared teachers implementing ineffective approaches, and ineffective measures of success.  Such criticism was not new to IE.  As recalled by Welch & Smith (2014), in 1986, McLaren complained that Purkey and Novak (1984) failed “to situate their pedagogical concerns within a broader problematic, one that understands how classrooms can be truly humanized only when there exists greater social justice and economic equality in the larger society” (p. 91).

While Purkey and Novak (1996) believed education to be “fundamentally an imagination of hope” (p. 1), as an effective humanistic approach to education, IE must consider “engagement with the broader social and political context” (Welch & Smith, 2014, p. 9).  In this endeavor, IE continues to evolve beyond simple re-branding.  Now widely cited in research as Invitational Theory and Practice (Shaw, Siegel, & Schoenlein, 2013), IE’s humanistic approach still embraces its theoretical foundation while seeking to extend moral responsibility and political commitment to ensure the democratic ethos, the perceptual tradition, and self-concept theory is utilized to provide fairness in equity to promote the learning for all mission.

As cited by Butler (2005), Duetsch (1975) provided three distinctive definitions of fairness based on equality, equity, and need. 

•  Equality, by definition, is treating everyone the same.  For example, after a certain age, everyone gets to vote. 
•   Equity suggests consequences: both rewards and punishment, are proportionate to product. For  example, all children are taught to write but the gifted poet is celebrated. 
•   Need was defined by Duetsch based on provision or availability of accommodations and supports.  For example, “accommodations and supports will not be provided to everyone (equality) or to only the best (equity), but to those that need them to be successful” (Butler, 2005, para 2).

         Of course, practitioners of Invitational Theory and Practice (ITP) will continue to embrace the theoretical foundation of IE (Purkey & Novak, 2008).  However, ITP practitioners must also fully understand the issues of fairness in equity.  Thereafter, ITP practitioners could more effectively consider the social and political context  in which ITP should be integrated with principles of cognitive, social, and behavioral learning theories.  

 To Cite:

Anderson, C.J. (February 28, 2017) Invitational theory and practice: In pursuit of fairness in

educational equity.  [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

References:

Butler, C. J. (2005) Equal and fair are not the same: Classroom issues of fairness. Retrieved

from: http://www.ttac.odu.edu/newsletter/PDF/OLD/Nov_Dec_2004_Jan_2005/Page2.pdf

Combs, A., Richards, A., & Richards, F. (1988). Perceptual psychology: A humanistic approach

to the study of persons. New York: Harper & Row.

Deutsch, M. (1975). Equity, equality, and need: What determines which value will be used

as the basis of distributive justice? Journal of Social Issues, 31, 137-149

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education.

New York, NY: Macmillan.

Duchesne, S., McMaugh, A. (2016). Educational psychology for learning and teaching (5th ed.).

Melbourne: Cengage Learning.

McLaren, P. (1986). Interrogating the conceptual roots of invitational education: A review of Purkey

and Novak's inviting school success. Interchange, 17, 90-95.

Purkey, W. (1992). An invitation to invitational theory. Journal of Invitational Theory and

Practice, 1(1), 5-15.

Purkey, W., & Novak, J. (1984). Inviting school success: A self-concept approach to teaching,

learning, and democratic practice. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Richards, A., & Combs, A. (1993). Education and the humanist challenge. In F. J. Wertz (Ed.),

The humanist movement: Recovering the person in psychology (pp. 256–73). Lake Worth,

FL: Gardner Press.

Rogers, C. (1969). Freedom to learn. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill.

Shaw, D., Siegel, B., & Schoenlein, A. (2013). The basic tenets of invitational theory and

practice: An invitational glossary. Journal of Invitational Theory and Practice, 19, 30-42

Welch, G. & Smith, K. (2014) From theory to praxis: Applying invitational education beyond

schools. Journal of Invitational Theory and Practice, 20, 5-10