Reconstructionism in Education Example of Social Reconstructionism
This is essay anout reconstructionism in education example of personal statement in which I will discuss this topic. As I reflect on the three statements on normative philosophies, my conviction tells me that the most appropriate philosophy for my current views on education is statement two, which relates to Social Reconstructionism.
Social reconstructionism as an instructive ideology refers to an approach that seeks to bring about a change in society and inspire students to challenge social disproportions. Proponents in social reconstructionism were Theodore Brameld who edged that education has two crucial functions, to convey culture and to mutate culture. George Count was another whose advocacy was for democracy and for educators’ roles in bringing about social reform.
As a student-centered approach, social reconstructionism is more attentive to student’s needs and less coercive. Not preoccupied with mind-training and the past, alternatively priming students for a mutable future. In the classroom the educator must want to model democratic values, be a catalyst for and companion to students. Fostering lessons that instruct the students mentally and emotionally about the disproportions that surround them. The role of educators is therefore to discuss social problems, propose alternative perspectives, and encourage student analysis of these disproportions. The student's role is to become an intelligent problem solver, to enjoy learning, to live peacefully while assisting to reshape the world in which they live. Social disproportions afford an expected path for curricular and instructional activities. The social reconstructionist curriculum primarily focuses on student’s experience and social action on the disproportions facing society.
Evaluation within the social reconstructionist curriculum can be subjective as it covers a broad spectrum of student’s abilities including articulation of issues, generation of possible solutions, redefinition of their worldviews, willingness to take action towards an ideal. Some methods of teaching involve; interactional workshops, use of multimedia and social media, group discussion, experience methods. Instructional sequence such as; * identifying issues that appear most problematic, *examining the realities of the students’ lives including constraints and the root cause of their problems, *linking issues to institutions and structures in the larger society, and * relating social analysis to the visions and ideas students have for their world, community and themselves.
Social Reconstructionism in teaching practice, they say that each person has to reflect on their own experiences to understand the meaning of an idea. If you cannot relate to these ideas, then the chances would be the stored information did not recognise or even relate to these ideas. For example, as an instructor, if I speak about the concept of “airway management” to first aiders, I would probably just get a blank stare, but if I were to mention this concept to my second-year emergency medical student, they will be more likely to know what this concept is. If the students were conscientious, they will not just have learned the idea but could relate and explain this idea in their own terms.
I encountered Paolo Freire when we studied educational philosophy. His views made me think back to my previous years of training. How training differs from education, how one’s pedagogy can differ from learning, how real learning takes place and what is the role of education to the lives of the people experiencing social and economic disproportions.
So the question is, the role of social reconstructionism in education? Social reconstructionism serves as a means towards self-liberation, education should be a tool to help each individual liberate themselves. According to Freire, education should be “dialogic”, learning is not a matter of forwarding our knowledge to our students but also to engage them actively in teaching and learning experiences. In a teacher-centered approach, where I was a student, twenty-six years ago, I used to think learning is memorising what my lecturer was telling me or as it is referred to “banking system” and then my intellectual level will be based on how well I achieved in an exam. For me, this approach is not beneficial to the 21st-century students, as we all know, students have different needs and ways of learning and real learning takes place. It gives students the freedom to think and come up with their own learning. Students will discover their strengths and challenges, in this way, students will empower themselves by knowing their capacities and areas of improvement. Education helps individuals to be independent and self-regulated learners, students as stakeholders in the learning process should not act as recipients of knowledge but also as an active part of the learning experience. They should be given the chance to participate in choosing what knowledge is worth knowing and how they, as learners, learn best. Content and methods are two important ingredients in learning hence, students, not just the institutional administration and instructors should also be part of the decision-making.
Informed choice not just as mere recipients should also be practised by our educational institutions. For example, common practice medical lecturers, assume when teaching that students understand the medical or Latin terms that are referred to, sometimes making it difficult for students to understand. Firstly, some students may not be familiar with the language as English is not always their first language, and secondly the way the terms are being delivered is based on how lecturers want it to be delivered even though the way they delivered it, is not effective. Hence, students just act as mere recipients which makes them dependent learners.
In conclusion, education serves as a tool towards social transformation, the most important role of education is it serves as a tool in transforming the society. According to Russell, educational institutions should serve as the primary means by which students are to prepare to reconstruct the systems. Educational institutions should have a sense that one of their primary goals is to concertize their students to actively take their role as an agent of change. Students should be awakened that real learning happens outside the four corners of our classrooms. They should be exposed to what is happening to our real-world so they can have a sense of their important role as part of the bigger community.
