All the prompts of this course have truly made me go deep down
through the fundamental questions: the nature of human as a social being and
relationship between individuality and sociality. Today a school appears to be
undeniably a center of human development in our society. Preschool and
elementary school enrollment rate is almost 100% in Korea. College enrollment
rate is over 80% of high school graduates. That’s a huge percentage. With the
simple fact that a lot of students are being taught in schools, we could easily
see the importance of a good school. Thinking about What Does a Good School
Look Like, I focused on the Eisner’s article. There I found meaningful messages
that struck me and got me in thinking about schools today and tomorrow. It is
about what a student can do and what a student will do. He suggests that a
school should prepare students to apply what they have learned at school to the
outside world. If the life in and out of a school is separate and distinct, it
may mean students are wasting their time meaninglessly. I remember AlvinToffler once said about the students in Korea when he visited for a conference
in 2008. (Toffler says Korean Education System Needs Reform.) That was a striking message that no teacher would deny. “Korean
students are wasting their time in schools and private institutes for 15 hours
a day to obtain knowledge that will be unnecessary in the future and for jobs
that will not exist in the future.” And he also pointed out “uniform standards”
hampering diversification in education.
“We need to determine whether
students can use what they have learned. But even being able to use what has
been learned is no indication that it will be used. There is a difference
between what a student can do and what a student will do.” (Eisner, p.331)
There are a lot of questions raised in the articles of Eisner and
Noddings regarding good schooling and aims of education. Here is a brief
summary of them.
n
About school activities:
whether they are inviting students to think and engage in the activities,
whether they are related to the problems and issues outside of the classroom
n
Cooperative learning opportunities,
and possibility of creating and designing learning environment for cooperation
n
Interactive assessment to
improve students and in turn schools
n
Feasibility of widening and
diversifying what parents and others think matters
n
Whether every lesson should have
a specific learning objective and what form it should take
Every question seems to lead us to think about what a good school looks
like. Schools should not be isolated from our real life while they provide academic
knowledge and ideas. I think relevance to our life doesn’t necessarily mean
something practical or hands-on activities. It is about certain way of thinking
and finding significance through learning process. Even when we teach a subject
that is not directly related to the real life or future job, we could get
student to learn critical thinking skills and cooperation through which
learning takes place. I think that is relevance of learning helping students to
stand on their own feet.
“The function of schooling is not to enable students to do better in
school. The function of schooling is to enable students to do better in life.
What students learn in school ought to exceed in relevance the limits of the
school’s program.” (Eisner, p.329)
Students are spending substantial amount of time in school
(especially in Korea). Considering their critical period of development,
schools should be the place where they can have every possible opportunity to
experience through trial and error, learn how to learn, and finally find and
choose what they think happy life. Noddings pointed out that we too often lose
sight of aim. I think that’s when schooling becomes separate from students’
life when we lose track of purpose and aim of education. A good school should
be able to provide with a way to raise questions (to actively engage in what
students are doing in class and later in life), prepare students for a better
and happy life, and finally keep these ideas continuously. It may be fair enough
to say that a school is good where students can learn how to think and realize
their personal value and the meaning in a society. These may sound so abstract
and broad, but that should be the very beginning and ending of the concept of a
good school.
