IMPORTANCE OF PHILOSOPHY TEACHER.pdf

8/14/2019 IMPORTANCE OF PHILOSOPHY TEACHER.pdf

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THERE is a common misconception abroad, it seems to me concerning the nature of philosophy and how itis learned. When I see a school staff setitself the task of drawing up a schoolphilosophy, my interest wavers. I envision the countless hours of committeework and staff meetings devoted to discussions of trivia, all ending in a statement so sanctimonious and so generalthat it threatens no one.

When I see this kind of project proposed my impulse is to suggest quickly:Don't begin with this kind of thing;

instead, start experimenting right nowto improve a practice that offends you.The fact s that a philosophy emerges

from experience. t would be more accurate to say that a philosophy resultsfrom reflection on experience. Once acquired, it constitutes a s

an organic attitude that looks bothtoward the past that nurtured it, and tothe future where tentative actions areto be considered.

There i n inevitability, too, in everyone's present philosophical positionthat is it could not possibly be different. One cannot deliberately take a

rightncss. His attitudes will continue tochange, of course as the impacts of newexperience affect them. Realizing thisfact of inevitability should enjoin usall to tolerance for the present points ofview of others.

Because a philosophy comes from reflection on experience, it seems quitedoubtful whether we can teach a newone indirectly that is theoreticallyin detachment from the learner's reflection on his own questionable acts. W emay be able to teach a hilosophy;we might, for example, be able to teachthe philosophy of Socrates, so that thelearner would be able to tell somethingof what Socrates believed.

This would be quite different, however, from what Dewey spoke of as integration into one's own being that ishaving a built-in, emotion-freightedmemory of one's own actions and theirpersonal and social consequences. Dew-ey's comment on moral training squite apropos here; it is he said, pre-

John Dewey. M ashington, D.C.: National Education Association.


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cisely that which one gets through having to enter into proper relations withothersin a unity of work and thought.t is only during a poignant weighingof

one's own or another's genuine emotional perplexity that such an integration can take place.I draw these thoughts, now for ex

ample, from a reflectionon my own pastinvolvements. When I began toteach,I lacked both practical experience anda dependable philosophy of education.I had already tried to readJohn Deweyand William James for a college coursebut I only understood them dimly because my experiencewas not abreast oftheir ideas.

For my own practical guidance, I hadonly some illusory notions drawn froma primitive folklorebased on force. Theteacher must be a strong dominantfigure I thought, and he must have thestrength, physical and otherwise, tomaintain his control. And so Iacted likea martinet, commanding obedience andanticipatingtroubleeven where it didnot exist. The pupils reacted to thistreatment in a predictable human manner. While they obeyed outwardly,theybegan to practice an underground resistance exactly like that of my owncallow youth. This eventually led tophysical clasheswith suspected leaders,which I won through superior strengthand position.

The community, which of course hadfosteredmy illusions, thought thatI wasa good disciplinarian. Yet looking backfrom my present experience and its ancillary philosophy, I would give a gooddeal if I could live those years over. Iknow, now that had I been kindly, encouraging,helpful person, those fine pupils would have loved me. In every case

of physical violence I now see that Iwas tragically wrong.

Perhaps the most telling experiencein my professional life was my workwith so-called remedial pupils. I beganthis work without any special preparation, and I doubt whether specialtraining given before the real encounterwould have helped me very much unless of course, it had beengenuine laboratory workunder the direction of aperson of better experience than mine.As it was, I fo llowed the stereotypedpractices of the day: testing; assigningremedial exercises many of which Idevised myself; re-testing; and using motivational tricks ofone kind or another.

Myown enlightenment came when Ibegan to observe the habits of the pupils themselves. Trapped in a systemthat was deliberately competitive, theseyoung people were thechronicfailures.Their pitiful defensesagainst their predicament were quite obvious. All ofthem sought to hidetheir inability under various false pretenses.Tests of anykind were in their eyes only methodsof a cruel exposure. If for example, Iwould ask them to report the numberof pages they had read during a classhour, theywould turn in fantastic figures.One boy of large, awkward staturehad developeda skill in making wisecracks. His classmates always rewardedhim with appreciative laughter. Istepped up beside him one day to helphim with his reading before the class.Despite his silly antics, I discoveredthat he was trembling violently, andsweat stood out in drops on his forehead.I remember another boy of small


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CH ILTON BOOK S

provide m ateria ls m ethodsand teacher education fo rfo reign langu age instructionat a ll levels W rite fo r freeC atalo g and H andbook to :

stature often a very significant factorwhose mother was a patient in amental hospital. This boy wouldinvariablycome tomy room late, witha uge pileof textbooks inhis arms. Every day hewould poise this load with maddeningdeliberation and let it come crashingdown upon the desk. One dayitoccurredto methat probablywhat he neededwastobe in the limelight. Billy, Isaid, wouldyou like to helpme takethe roll everyday? He came up besideme andstoodthere facing the class. Ihelped hifln spell the names of the absentpupils.Whenhe had finished, heputtheslip in the slot of thedoor. Thesc hemeworked like magic Hewas always ontimeafter that, and hisannoying manner ceased.

began to askmyself what we hadbeen doing to these young people

of their schooling. Iwas thrown backinevitably upon a sobering self-scrutiny. And obviously I sa w the singleremedy that might restore their well-being: humaneacceptanceand kindlyencouragement. The school I saw atonce must withdraw its standard expectations; it must seekto discoverandto honortheir simple ambitionsto learnand togrow up.

Theresulting parallelsof philosophyweresimplyautomatic.I found not onlyclear directionsfor myown professionalimprovement, but Icoulddiscover everywhere the supporting thoughts ofothers. As my own experience haschanged, I have felt a congenial drifttowardthepragmatic philosophers. twasthey, I found, who had a warmcurrentof compassion in their veins. Theearlier ones it seem ed to me came tostandas posthumous criticsof my ownshortcomings. Listen, for example, toWilliamJames:

Now the blindness in human beings o fwhich thisdiscourse w il l treat,is theblindness withwhich w e all are afflicted in regardto th e feelings of creatures andpeople different from ourselves.W e are practicalbeings each o f us withlimited functions and duties to perform.Each is bound to fee l in tensely the importance of his own duties and th e significa nce o f the situations that call theseforth. But th is feeling is in each of u s avitalsecret for sympathy with which w evainly lo o k to others. The others are toomuch absorbed in their o w n vital secrets to

'See Earl C. Kelley.Englewood Cliffs New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.Inc., 1962. Chapter 10: see also JesseStuart.ew York:


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takean interestin ours ; hencethe stupidityandinjusti e of our opinions, so far as theydeal with the significance of alien lives.Hen ce the falsityofour judgments, so fars they presume to decide in an abso lu te

way on the valu e of other persons' conditionsor id eals .That is James speaking out sixty-

sevenyears ago in his Tow clear today, how pertinent,how humane Could one who hadlearned this lesson through experienceever serveagain theauthoritarianrole?Jamesunderstood theiniquity of rigid,mass-administeredcurricula. Tomeheseemstosaythat we need morehumanity, morefreedom for the personal ambitions of others, more respect for thechild who hears a different drummer.Accordingly, Ihave drawn up a newdefinitionoftheteacher's role: I see himnowas ahelper,as onewho makespossible children's dreams.

AndDewey, too, nowcametostir mymind as with a trumpet. Listen to hisrepudiationof theformal regimen:

Sav eas theefforts of the educator connect w ith some activity which the child scarryingon ofhis ow n initiative indepen dent of th eeducator, educationbec omes reducedto a pressurefrom without. It may,in deed, giv e certain external re sults butcannot truly be called educative. Withoutinsight into the psychologic al structure andactivities of the in dividual, the educativeprocess will, therefore, be haphazard andarbitrary. If itchancestocoin cide w ith thechild's activity it will get a leverage; if itdoes not, it will result in friction, or disintegration, or arrest of the child-nature.'

Here, I think, is illustrated the truevalueof philosophy.Speakingoutof hisown experiences with the children inthe University ofChicagoElementary

School seventyyears ago, Dewey soundstheuniversalnote of compassion. Hearing his dictadrawn from his experience fi nd an echoof myow n. I likedGardner Murphy'speroration in 1961:

JohnDew ey, it s toyoutowhom wearechiefly obligated fo r this vis ion of activeand democratic educatio n in the publicsch ools, the instillin g of soc ia llysi gnificanthabits derived from the common need s ofordinary people.

Andthusthe worldmoves onslowlybut surely, toward a more abundantfreedom. We swim in the same socialstream as the prophets of old, but alittlefarther down. The officeof philosophyis to bindtheir times and ours together ina commonality ofreflectiononexperience.

Gardner Murphy. ew York: arper andBrothers, 1961 .p.31 .

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IMPORTANCE OF PHILOSOPHY TEACHER.pdf

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