A:2 Relevant Education: Annotated Bibliography Focused on Making Lessons Relevant for Learners (Bagley vs. Rousseau)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Griswold, C. (2017). Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith A Philosophical Encounter (First edition.). London: Taylor and Francis. Rousseau was a fan of self-love. The only problem is that he believed we have to lead others to belief a false sense of who we want them to believe we are and then we can learn to love that person, even if that person is only the best part of us compared to what society thinks we should be. I believe this part of his philosophy is important to share along with his feelings of loneliness and possible narcissistic nature in his search of tranquility is noted. During this search, he was quoted to say, “human beings are not by nature bad.” Griswald (2017) Many parents that I work with are not bad. They truly believe they are, or their beliefs and styles are looking out for the “best interest” for their child and will fight in court for their decisions to be won over by the custody judge. Their heart is in the right place even if their decision to fight brings cruelty to their children. He consistently reported how we share a false image of ourselves and no one really knows who we really are, just a fa?ade. In today’s world of social media, most people show only the good of their life and how everything is so perfect. Selfies using filters, achievements and accomplishments along with perfection. I can relate to this having to put on a good show and not telling the true story. Some do not wish to tell their story about divorce and would rather pretend all is great on social media. Maybe they only want their side heard and not both sides. This means they may want to only put a fake version of themselves out there instead of telling of their family’s challenges during our divorce and custody battles. I myself want to be able to have self-love and tranquility with who I am and not have to be false. I am ok with that. I don’t want to judge myself by how others see me. It’s hard to believe this struggle of keeping up with the social status has endured for so long. This standard of showing you are good can be judged by how many over night stays and that you are better than the other, which can turn sour and competitive. If parents would only decide they look best when they share, they may find this tranquility. Immediate intuition is also mentioned by Rousseau. I believe in this even if I do not listen to it. Some parents have this and will fight for what they believe their intuition is for their children.

Wain, K. (2011). On Rousseau: An introduction to his radical thinking on education and politics (1. Aufl. ed.). Rotterdam; New York;: Sense Publishers. The belief that the state can take over what children learn and not allow them to focus on what they want, and religion could be a huge downfall. I am a huge advocate of the technical centers, but why do children have to wait until 10th grade in High School to choose or attend the classes they want to focus in. Also children are allowed to choose their extra classes in middle school, yet are forced to learn the views of history that are very opinionated and some claim they are false, but we are not allowed to teach the bible because it is of opinion. This frustrates me to no end. I believe it is a huge waste of time. Rousseau believed, “idleness brings loss of innocence”. With the classes my children take in the public schools that bore them, they have poor grades and are judged on their ability to perform, retain and repeat items that they feel they have no use for. One of my favorite sayings as a parent educator is, “Keep them busy or they will keep you busy.” I don’t say this in a bad way, but an honest way. If you add in the fact that my children are not in a school that has religion taught which I believe is the most important subject in life, but they are learning disgraceful things such as drugs, swearing and dating at young ages during their social time.

Müller, S. (2010). Freedom and authority in Alexander S. Neill’s and Jean Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy of education P?dagogik / (Vol. 20). Marburg :: Tectum Verlag,. Rousseau mentions that “humans create most of their problems by themselves” and that we are so busy educating ourselves by lessons made up by society that we miss out on learning things we need and “opportunities that present themselves”. Müller, S. (2010) One of the examples was learning lessons presented while playing and the confidence it brought until Rousseau had to go to school and was soon put in the position of not knowing anything and degraded by the amount of knowledge he didn’t know. I compare this to the grading system telling my children how dumb they are for not being able to ace subjects or behaviors that full grown adults who have gone to college to teach are proficient in. My children were full of smiles and had no fear until they reached middle school. Everything was rainbows and flowers as their elementary teachers reported how well they were doing to the next level sharing how they are never good enough. From the to-do lists and missed assignments, to the EIP’s and degrading parent teacher conferences that focus on the lacking knowledge instead of sharing where the children are proficient and the direction, they are interested in. I want to know their next steps not have them fear me going to the school. I use to enjoy volunteering. Now, I want to join in and participate. Studies show that parent involvement increases accomplishments, but then I am pushed away by the school system saying they will let us know if there is anything for us to do. This fashion of education is the opposite of parent involvement and has changed my children’s personalities to not care since none of it interests them anyhow. At home we work on the same subjects using their interests as the main focus. One of my children love to sew. We use this as an opportunity to learn math and problem solving the natural way, naturalism or otherwise called romanticism. I call it to teach a lesson while it is relevant.

William Chandler Bagley Bagley.

W., C., (1912). Educational values. The School Review, 20(3), 202-204. doi:10.1086/435907 Bagley shares the need for children to be in formal schooling and goes further to state that the children need to be separated not only by political equality of the students, but also by intellectual quality.

Bagley. W., C., (1912) Although this educational values report is a short read, it says enough. This type comment and study breaks all of my beliefs down to see pure selfishness and segregation of those judged by scores created by superiors that chose who matches their perfect picture of acceptable per location and not potential. Dexter, E. G. (1906). The educative process. William Chandler Bagley. The School Review, 14(6), 464-465. doi:10.1086/434855

Dexter reports that Bagley has chosen specific studies that are needed to be included for students to learn in order to achieve. The subjects of biology, psychology and sociology are being pushed by the new and upcoming teachers. Dexter agrees that Bagley is correct, and the field of education continues to add the experiences of more studies to the schools without including religion or self discovery. I must say I know many adults including myself that have not acceptably passed subjects that the public schools have created for us as well as many successful inventors who never graduated high school. The belief that a student must learn all subjects in depth to be successful is not sound in my opinion.

Bagley. W., C., (1912). Craftsmanship in teaching. The School Review, 20(3), 202-202. doi:10.1086/435906 Bagley wrote many published items to help teachers be better teachers, yet he did not write anything to help the teachers to discover themselves. This is a missed opportunity in my eyes. Bagley’s essentialism, traditionalism style does not mix well for me.

Synthesis

Based on my conclusion by comparing educational thinkers and their philosophies, I believe Bagley and Rousseau are on two total opposite ends of my teaching and learning style. After considering the freely learned ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the structured theories of William Chandler Bagley, I can understand the views much better allowing more forgiveness to the styles that I do not favor. I could come closer to an idle ground while teaching. It could be possible that subjects in depth could be taught to all, but I still believe the lesson is best learned when relative. Making sure the lessons are relative to the child, differentiated for their learning style and need as they have opportunities presented for hands on project-based learning, I could agree more with Bagley than ever before. Both styles have been tested and it seems they both help children learn. There will always be the Montessori classes as well as the public-school strict structure. I do not see either of these failing in the future. I do see that students are learning more difficult tasks at younger and younger ages. I foresee students being able to choose what they want to do at younger and younger ages. Preliminary Thesis Statement I believe with structure; students may be given the opportunities to learn multiple subjects required through problem-based learning which they will retain knowledge as it is relevant to them educationally. I see inclusion continuing more and more and segregation will be less.

References

Gutek, G. L. (2011). Historical and philosophical foundations of education: A biographical introduction (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.