Challenging the idea of the student as a Victim

2019

This paper aims to investigate the classroom phenomenon, which lies beyond pedagogical intentionality according to organization theories, systems theory and the concept of natality by Arendt. Firstly, the authors investigate theories on school organization from bureaucracy theory (Weber) to garbage can theory (Cohen, March, Olsen). It provides an organization theoretical overview and historical changes in identifying school classroom. Secondly, the authors will also investigate Luhmann's systems theory, in which the school classroom can be marked with the metaphor of the "white box". Different from the "black box", it will provide relatively with more transparency regarding the rules of interaction between participants. Focusing on the concept of double contingency, the possibility and limit of this sociological-constructivistic approach will be discussed. In the chapter, the authors will lastly explore the concept of natality by Arendt, which is a key concep...

Educação em Revista, 2024

This article aims to examine how efforts that seek to replace the personality of the teaching action by the impersonal technicality of its activity affect the teacher and the teaching profession. The discourse of technicization of education, a discourse structured around the intended completeness, centrality, and autonomy of the technical and methodological dimension of education, conceives education as an activity that does not require the presence of someone, the presence of a subject to whom it is possible to enjoy a place of action and enunciation. What does the teacher do in the face of efforts to reduce teaching to an activity guided by the logic of factory production, marked by the automated repetition of processes that are independent of the uniqueness and personality of the one who performs it? Would this condition be related to the complaints, illnesses, feelings of devaluation, and impotence frequently mentioned by teachers? The examination of these questions will be done in the light of a phenomenology of human activities, as conceived by Hannah Arendt, and of writings that seek to understand education from the contributions of psychoanalysis.

2009

This study and its analysis of the institutional and discursive power evident in the lives of novice teachers suggests a need for teacher education programs to better prepare student teachers for the issues of power and discipline that will mark their professional lives and those of their students. v TABLE OF CONTENTS

Philosophy of Education Archive, 2003

Teachers do not see themselves as powerful and in some ways, they are sadly correct in this assessment. As Wodak (2001a) asserts language is powerless; the power of language is from those who use it. However, the words employed by the people keep their language strong. Thus, even those who are in power, but unable to employ the appropriate words in appropriate context will lose their power. The concept of power in a class is not what a dominant group has on the subordinate group, but is defined in terms of resistance created on the part of students. As to the writers, power and resistance run in parallel, even between the teacher and his/her students. In the paper, the writers, having provided a review of ideas regarding critical discourse analysis (hereafter CDA) investigated the concept of power in teacher's talk and examined how power is exercised and resisted in classroom.

2019

Education has been accepted as one major agency of socialization, and teachers and educational institutions as socializing agents. Teachers are looked upon as the individuals who can help to bring about positive changes in the lives of people. The role of the teacher has changed. Teachers do not see themselves as powerful. Imagining teachers as the most powerful creatures in the class seems plausible, but how is power relation represented in teacher's discourse? The way teachers see themselves as professionals and how they compose their identities in schools is important factor in teacher authority discourse. The problem of the social status of the teacher cannot be solved instrumentally by increasing the disciplinary power of teachers, but must be addressed as a more foundational problem concerning the basis of authority in a pluralistic society. The discussion on how power is activated, practiced and accomplished within and across children's everyday interactions with adults, is in great significance. Language plays an important role in authority constructions. Teachers' ability to control their use of language is considered to be as important as their ability to select appropriate methodologies.

Teaching and Teacher Education, 2004

Teaching is a profession in which teachers are accustomed to being in the spotlight. In this paper we meet ''Tina'' 1-a newly employed teacher at a Norwegian public junior high school-who is engaged on an hourly basis to teach Arts and Crafts, including a seventh-grade class which has been called ''challenging'' by other members of the staff. Enthusiastic, committed, and focused educators who can serve as role models for their students are much in demand at this school. Her own challenge is to find a good balance between the many cultural roles she has to perform in an inclusive education-one that works toward a goal of servicing an integrated student body-as manager, administrator of materials, initiator, facilitator, reflection partner, and mentor. In this paper we describe how she shapes a learning environment characterized by clear and unambiguous signals about what is acceptable behavior, while at the same time insisting on creativity and originality in art work. The guiding question is: How does the teacher achieve the double task of keeping order and maintaining creativity? The study is based on ethnographic field work conducted over several months in the Arts and Crafts class of ''Berge'' school. We describe how the children try to sabotage the tasks, and analyze critical episodes using sociocultural theory. With its emphasis on cultural and creative activities, the Arts and Crafts subject provides a special opportunity for what sociocultural theory calls using mediating artefacts or elements (mediated action 2). What makes the subject particularly interesting is that it is not only a matter of using linguistic mediation, but rather also mediation based on external factors, such as the use of specific objects or model learning.

ADVED 2016- 2nd International Conference on Advances in Education and Social Sciences,, 2016

This article attempts to examine the transformation of the teacher's role in the humanities and sciences in higher education institutions, in terms of demands to the educational process, relevant to the Bologna agreement. A teacher serves as a "guide" in the huge array of information flows. Professional activities of the teacher, especially in the humanities, is aimed not at being the primary source of professional information, but he/she needs to help students find the necessary information, analyze it, assess it adequately, and to form their own opinions and ideas. This means that the teacher bears more responsibility; not only prepare a professional, but educate citizens, "a human in a human". The peculiarity of Humanitarian Sciences is that the same fact can be assessed in different ways. For example, the student can independently find and study information about any person or event; he can even independently explore different points of view on historical processes. The task of the teacher is, first, not to allow the student to "sink" in the vast array of information, second, help the student to look at the facts from a different perspectives, to form a comprehensive understanding of a phenomena, third, together with the students analyze the fact so that the student could develop his/her own views and opinions, and he could defend his point of view with arguments. In this case, the personal communication of the teacher and the student plays a huge role. The author comes to conclusions that the teacher shifts from the "source of knowledge" into a "conductor" of informational flow.

2007

What happens when the student know more about the subject than the teacher? Following discussion did occur at a secondary college during a computer lesson. I want to learn how to make sounds for games. It's really cool to make sound effects, say one of the students. No, today we are going to finish the tasks. Get on with it, answers the teacher. But I already know all that! I want to do something else, say Michael. Michael, stop doing that and get on with the tasks, or else you must leave the classroom! In the paper this situation in the classroom will serve as a point of departure for the discussion. The aim of the paper is to illuminate, enable understanding and discuss the meaning of social relations in the learning process. In the paper we limit the discussion to raise some ideas of how the student's inherent power can affect the learning situation, which in turn can have impact on the psycho-social well-being among the students and the teachers. This will be viewed taki...

2020

Perceptions about the relationship between teacher and student refer to the confidence, motivation and interest of the students, and to the expectations and attitudes of the teachers. With the aim of arousing and encouraging discussions about these aspects that can, eventually, improve the relationship between teachers and students through the study of a teacher’s perceptions about this relationship, this article was carried out in the light of Critical Discourse Analysis and studies focusing on teachers’ expectations. The corpus – answers to a questionnaire applied to a high school teacher at a San Diego/CA suburban school – was submitted to the analysis of the author’s position regarding her role as teacher. The willingness to engage in a good relationship with students was present in the corpus as expected. However, there were a few unexpected occurrences: predominantly dominant attitude about problem solving, heterogeneity in the division of responsibilities, and explicit citati...