Entrance slip- Sarte and Hughes

On my Tuesday school visit, I was told that more than 80% of their students were doing well with their homework and were successful in their exams, but there were not really interested in what they were doing. This indicates that schools are not successful in their main task, that is, inspiring students’ learning.

In our educational system, grades are identified as a main motivator for studying and doing assignments and assessing students’ learning. However, many studies show that grades are not only unnecessary but also harmful. Alfie Kohn points out that “kids who are graded – and have been encouraged to try to improve their grades – tend to lose interest in the learning itself, avoid challenging tasks whenever possible (in order to maximize the chance of getting an A), and think less deeply than kids who aren’t graded. The problem isn’t with how we grade, nor is it limited to students who do especially well or poorly in school; it’s inherent to grading.”  It seems that the problem is not how we grade, but using grades for accountability. Also Sarte et al study indicates that teachers, by avoiding using grades as an extrinsic motivator and focusing on engaging the students in learning, can increase intrinsic motivation in students and improve their feeling of success in their learning.

What teachers need is a method of evaluation that enable them to see how well their students meet measurable objectives – a method that improves instruction for each individual student and that allows students more ways to demonstrate that they have learned the materials.

Inquiry Project

Inquiry Project Idea

Philosophy for Children is an educational approach first developed in the 1970s by Matthew Lipman at Montclair State University “to help children learn how to think for themselves” (Lipman et al, 1980, p. 53). The main aims of Philosophy for Children are: improving reasoning skills, developing creativity, providing personal and interpersonal growth, developing ethical understanding, and developing the ability to find meaning (Lipman et al, 1980). The method of P4C is philosophical community of inquiry “characterized by dialogue that is fashioned collaboratively out of the reasoned contribution of all participants” (Sharp, 1991, p. 337).

Philosophy for children was adapted to different schools’ subjects. I am interested to do some inquiry to see how this program is adapted to math and how I can conduct a philosophical/mathematical dialogue among my students to improve their reasoning skills.

Experience as a teacher

I had the opportunity to teach philosophy for children (P4C) in an experimental class in Tehran.

Philosophy for children is an educational approach to critical thinking that have been largely developed and practiced in societies such as the US and Canada.

I conducted a class consisted of ten grade-four/five students from different elementary schools. After few months I noticed that students attending the program started comparing the values that this program taught them with the values that they received from the sanctioned Iranian educational system. For example, one of the students told me that in her history class, when she criticized her teacher’s claims about a historical feature, the teacher got angry and treated her badly. The student asked me why her teacher was not willing to discuss the issue with her the way we discussed things in the P4C class, and thought that she was right and the student had to accept her claims.

In the typical classroom, they were taught to be obedient and never question the authority of their teachers and books.  In contrast, the P4C program taught them that everyone can make mistakes, and they shouldn’t accept anything unless there are good reasons for it.

Having encountered several such cases, I realized that the children attending the program commonly experienced internal and external conflicts. However, while the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that P4C teaches are compatible with children’s interest, such knowledge, skills and dispositions run counter to the social norms and ideology of the society in which they grow up. This experience led me to this question: what is the good of learning to think critically when the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that P4C teaches are seriously at odds with the social norms and rules, and conformity with these norms and rules is also part of children’s safety, career prospects, and well-being? This question made me stop doing P4C in Iran and motivated me to purse my graduate studies.    

My take away from this experience is to be aware of the impact of what we teach as educators on students’ lives, not only in the short term, but also in the long run.