schools as moral organizations

Teaching and Schooling Teaching and Schooling AsAs

Moral EnterprisesMoral Enterprises

Prespared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty Prespared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawaof Education, University of Ottawa

Teaching and Schooling are Teaching and Schooling are necessarilynecessarily moral enterprises moral enterprises

“To put it bluntly, inherent in any act of teaching, however removed, are moral judgments about what kind of persons we should be.”- Dwight Boyd, “The Teacher as Moral Agent…Or, Doing What Comes Necessarily,” p. 7

Prespared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

Schooling as a moral claimSchooling as a moral claim“education itself is a moral claim, extended performatively through time via the activities and role of teachers.”

“Education…is a particular kind of moral instrument for the shaping of human persons.”- Dwight Boyd, “The Teacher as Moral Agent…Or, Doing What Comes Necessarily,” pp. 12 & 17


From the PED 3102 course From the PED 3102 course outline:outline:

“In Ontario, teacher candidates are associate members of the Ontario Teachers Federation and subject to its standards of professional ethics during their practicum. Under the Ethical Standards for the Teaching Profession of the Ontario College of Teachers, teachers must also demonstrate care, integrity, respect and trust in all of their interactions with students, parents, other teachers, school personnel and with members of the public.”http://www.oct.ca/standards/ethical_standards.aspx Prespared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

““The best laid schemes o' mice The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley." an' men / Gang aft agley."


Pressure on educators no excuse for cheating, Ontario Premier says

McGuinty reacts to reports that 10 public schools are under investigation for cheating and irregularities on standardized testsKaren Howlett St. Thomas, Ont. — Globe and Mail Update Published on Tuesday, Sep. 21, 2010 3:43PM EDT Last updated on Tuesday, Sep. 21, 2010 6:19PM EDT

And so the moral And so the moral life of schools life of schools remains an remains an

unresolved and unresolved and volatile realityvolatile reality

andanda continuing a continuing

concernconcernfor educatorsfor educators



Understanding Canadian Schools:Understanding Canadian Schools:An Organizational & A Moral An Organizational & A Moral

PerspectivePerspective

An epistemological ethos:An epistemological ethos:“people must play an

active and critical role in creating their knowledge.”

-Jon Young & Benjamin Levin, Understanding Canadian Schools, Reader p. 13


The Value of Questioning The Value of Questioning AssumptionsAssumptions

“Because schools have the potential to be much better places, for both teachers and students, we regard it as very important for everyone involved with education to understand the way in which our schools are organized and operated so that they can ask questions about, and propose changes to, current practices.”

- Jon Young & Benjamin Levin, Understanding Canadian Schools, Reader p.10


Schooling: Power, Practices, and Schooling: Power, Practices, and StructuresStructures

“no one who is to be involved in schooling can afford to ignore the power exercised through these structures and processes.”

- Jon Young & Benjamin Levin, Understanding Canadian Schools, Reader p. 10


Understanding What Schools Understanding What Schools Are and Can BeAre and Can Be

“Rather than viewing current practice as somehow natural or obvious, we want to examine why things are the way they are, how they came to be the way they are, who benefits most from them, and how they might be otherwise.”

- Jon Young & Benjamin Levin, Understanding Canadian Schools, Reader p. 11

Koren, New Yorker 22 March 1999


educationeducation and and schoolingschooling – – Two Very Different WordsTwo Very Different Words

“In everyday language, people slip easily from ‘education’ to ‘schooling’ as though the two words, if not synonymous, were at least mutually supportive…this blurring of concepts is not always helpful.”-Benjamin Levin and Jon Young, Understanding

Canadian Schools (Third Edition, 2002), Reader p. 12 (emphasis added)


Learning Out of SchoolLearning Out of School

“Indeed, the great bulk of what people know, believe, and can do is not learned in schools.”

-Jon Young and Benjamin Levin, Understanding Canadian Schools: An Introduction to Educational Administration, Reader p. 13


Goals of SchoolingGoals of Schooling

“We tend to take the goals of schooling as being relatively self-evident, but they are actually quite problematic… Schools have purposes that are rarely talked about in the official statements.”-Benjamin Levin and Jon Young, Understanding Canadian

Schools (Third Edition, 2002), Reader p. 13


“This rhetoric masks the multiple functions that have been assigned to public schools since their establishment as compulsory institutions in Canadian society.”

-Benjamin Levin and Jon Young, Understanding Canadian Schools (Third Edition, 2002), Reader p. 13

Rhethoric – vs. – PracticeRhethoric – vs. – Practice


Mark HolmesMark Holmes**::Six Functions of Canadian SchoolsSix Functions of Canadian Schools

1. Intellectual-Vocational2. Aesthetic3. Physical4. Custodial5. Socialization6. Allocative

*M. Holmes (1986), Curriculum Inquiry 15(1): 7-36


Mary Metz on the allocative Mary Metz on the allocative purpose of schooling…purpose of schooling…

“Imagine what would happen if…the goals that educators and reformers officially seek were actually accomplished. All students would become top performers. All of them would make…perfect A records throughout their schooling. Chaos would ensue…”


“Colleges would not have room for all, but would have little ground on which to accept some and reject others. Employers looking for secretaries, retail salespersons, waiters, busdrivers, and factory workers would have jobs unfilled as every student considered such work beneath his or her accomplishment…”


“As long as education is used to rank young people and sort them into occupational futures that differ substantially in the money, status, power, and intrinsic rewards they can yield, good education, or students’ success at education, must remain a scarce commodity.”-Mary Metz, “Real School,” in Education Politics for a New Century, p. 85.


1. What is it that Metz is trying to tell us about schools and society? Is she right?

2. What are the implications of her remarks for current school and classroom practices?

3. Is there any way for classroom teachers to circumvent the educational dilemma that Metz depicts?

3 Questions to Consider3 Questions to Consider


Focault’s Epistemological Focault’s Epistemological ConundrumConundrum“People know what they do; they frequently know why they do

what they do;

but what they don’t know is what but what they don’t know is what they do [their doing] doesthey do [their doing] does.”.”-Michel Foucault, Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Dreyfus & Rabinow (Eds.), p. 187

Jean AnyonJean Anyonnot all schools are equalnot all schools are equal

“the ‘hidden curriculum’ of school work is tacit preparation for relating to the process of production in a particular way.”(J. Anyon, “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” pp. 89-90)


Schools & the reproduction of Schools & the reproduction of inequityinequity

“In the contribution to the reproduction of unequal social relations lies a theoretical meaning, and social consequence, of classroom practice…the…complex but not readily apparent connections between everyday activity in schools and classrooms and the unequal structure of economic relationships in which we work and live.”(J. Anyon, “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” p. 90)


Lisa Delpit: Racisms of KindnessLisa Delpit: Racisms of Kindness

“Good liberal intentions are not enough.”(L. Delpit, Other People’s Children, p. 45)


From “Racism without Racists: From “Racism without Racists: Institutional Racism in Urban Institutional Racism in Urban

Schools”Schools”“Massey, Scott, and Dornbusch found that under the pressures of teaching, and with all intentions of ‘being nice,’ teachers had essentially stopped attempting to teach black children. In their words: ‘We have shown that oppression can arise out of warmth, friendliness, and concern. Paternalism and a lack of challenging standards are creating a distorted system of evaluation in the schools.’”(L. Delpit, Other People’s Children, p. 45-6)


Geoffrey Canada Geoffrey Canada The Harlem Children’s ZoneThe Harlem Children’s Zone

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5914322n


Willard WallerWillard Waller

Ideas and Organizations

A Perennial Paradox and a Recurring Dilemma for Schools

A reading from Waller’s 1932 seminal classic The Sociology of Teaching


Christopher Christopher HodgkinsonHodgkinson

An examination of the moral hazards of institutional life

Organizations as moral primitives…


“This does not necessarily mean that organizations are of necessity corrupting or degrading to the moral or value life of their members, but that they can work this subtly negative influence if their primitive imperatives are allowed to impose themselves, achieve dominance, or go unexamined.”-C. Hodgkinson, Educational Leadership: The Moral Art, p. 109


J. K. Rowling:J. K. Rowling:A Reassessment of “Failure” A Reassessment of “Failure”

andandDeveloping Moral EmpathyDeveloping Moral Empathy

Harvard University 2008 Commencement

Address

http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination
