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Running head: WEEK TWO CRITICAL ANALYSIS PAPER TWO
Week Two Critical Analysis Paper Two
Cynthia J. Spence
California State University, San Bernardino
EDUC 726 Ethical Leadership and Decision Making in Education
Drs. Piller and Tucker
October 10, 2009
Main Idea
The main theme in this week’s reading focuses on moral education and the responsibility educators have to promote principles founded on universal human rights and social justice.
Synthesis
Lawrence Kohlberg (2007) in his article “The cognitive-development approach to moral education” presents John Dewey’s and Jean Piaget’s parallel theories that moral development takes place in a series of moral stages. Dewey defines these stages as the preconventional level, the conventional level, and the autonomous level. Similar to Dewey, Piaget defines moral development as the premoral stage, the heteronomous stage, and the autonomous stage. As educators, our roles are to help students pass through these various stages. However, a potential conflict arises when parental responsibilities for moral education and school responsibilities for moral education are not clearly defined or become at odds with one another due to a contrasting vision.
Kohlberg suggests that this potential conflict can be avoided if schools focus on “…the teaching of the awareness of rights and principles of justice” (185) because “moral and civic education are much the same thing” (185). Kohlberg goes on say that “…morality is a natural product of a universal human tendency toward empathy or role taking, toward putting oneself in the shoes of other conscious beings. It is also a product of a universal human concern for justice, for reciprocity or equality in the relation of one person to another” (187).
Alfie Kohn’s (2007) article “A critical examination of character education” refers to moral education as character education and defines this issue as “helping children to become active participants in a democratic society” (196.)Kohn’s concern is with the methods frequently used to bring about this objective. According to Kohn, for many schools, character education becomes a series of rules reinforced through rewards and punishment. While these methods are temporality effective, Kohn worries that children will miss the important foundational elements of moral education and will focus only on the immediate responses to their actions.
Kohn believes this “Citizen-of-the-Month” system “sees children as objects to be manipulated, rather than as learners to be engaged” (199). Kohn suggests that a more effective method of promoting character development would need to offer students an opportunity to reflect on their behavior so that they can move beyond the surface of character development into a deeper understanding of empathy and justice. Kohn states “reinvention is necessary if we want to help children to become moral people, as opposed to people who merely do what they are told” (201). Kohn goes on to offer suggestions for activities such as creating classes where students “share, plan, decide, and reflect together” (202) and are given opportunities to imagine “…how the world looks from someone else’s point of view” (202). This parallels Kohlberg’s view that students should be taught using Socratic styled peer discussions that offer students an opportunity to solve value dilemmas through peer discussions.
Robert J. Starratt’s (2004) contribution to this moral centered discussion focuses on the ultimate responsibility of administrators to provide moral leadership. Starratt’s uses the narrative of Al Auther, a third year principal, to suggest that “moral leadership primarily involves the difficult but authentic work of pursuing the human, educational, and civic good of the students and teachers while responding to specific interpersonal, institutional, and political situations in order to prevent harm to students and teachers” (45). Using the exit exam as an example of a political policy that possibly “harms” special education students, Auther struggles with the conflict of knowing what he should do compared with what he is compelled to do. Auther’s moral dilemma is used to reinforce the premise that “Educational leaders are held to a higher moral standard of proactive responsibility for promoting quality learning for all students” (62).
Questions, Concerns, Comments
Two quotes stood out to me as a confirmation that my style of teaching has merit. First, “…the cognitive-developmental approach to moral education stresses open or Socratic peer discussion of value dilemmas” (Kohlberg, 179) and second, “…how the world looks from someone else’s point of view” (Kohn, 202).
As an English teacher, offering critical thinking opportunities is a requirement to meet student learning objectives. One of the homework assignments I require for each student is to bring a newspaper article to class with a summary of the article’s argument and counter-argument. Often, the counter-argument is only implied which requires the student to look past the article’s particular focus to find a larger issue. As a class, we will have an open discussion and students will be asked to present both sides, even better, multiple sides of a topic.
This week one debate centered on Indian Tribes having a right to reach out to Native American children who were adopted by Non-Indian families. Several questions arise:
Why didn’t the tribe find homes for the children with Indian families?
What if the adopted families have religious views that conflict with Indian heritage?
Does the child become part of the adopted family solely or does heritage retain a hold?
Does the government have a right to regulate in this area? Would Indian tribes be obligated financially if they ask for contact with the child?
If Indians gain this right will this open the door for other cultures to “interfere” or “connect” with adopted children?
I look forward to these discussions and students become acutely aware that life is complicated and the view on most issues changes dramatically depended on where you are standing at the time.
“Since both theory and research indicate that teachers tend to learn better in teams, the responsible leader will explore teams as a basic format for encouraging teacher learning” (Starratt, 53).
I work at two community colleges, and there are few opportunities to work in “teams.” I have opened up a dialog with a few instructors and have even shared syllabi and teaching practices when given an opportunity. One issue that prevents team work is competition. Instead of seeing each other as sources of knowledge teachers, especially at the community college level, often see each other as competitors. As a “responsible leader” I hope to change this over time.
References
Ornstein, A., Pajak, E. & Ornstein, S. (2007). Contemporary issues in curriculum. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Starratt, R. J., (2004). Ethical leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint