TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Frank Abrahams
(1997- updated, 2007)
Introduction
I once attended a meeting to reform the undergraduate music curriculum at my institution. The goal was to reduce overall credits and allow more electives. Specifically, we had to decide which courses would stay or go. It was not long before there was an impasse. No one was willing to let go of anything they taught or were taught when they were undergraduates. My colleagues argued "the students must have that" and "how can you eliminate this course?" Frustrated, I brazenly suggested that we eliminate everything that students don't remember anyway. Upon hearing my suggestion, most on the committee laughed and thought I was just joking. Then, interestingly, a long silence followed. However, gradually the meeting returned to sounding as before, with phrases such as "well, you can't cut that" and so forth.
Even though my suggestion was stated humorously, I was not joking. We do so much teaching at the college level because we are determined to give our students everything. Plowing through textbooks and spending hours preparing lectures, we tell our students what they need to know, assuming that because we have told them, we have taught them, and therefore, they have learned.
Authentic Teaching
The notions that teaching is lecturing alone and that the act of teaching is
limited to a classroom are myths that place teaching in a paradigm that is
narrow and restrictive. "Liberating education," according to Paulo Freire (1970;
1973),"consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information"(p.60).
Research by Patrick T. Terenzini and Ernest T. Pascarella (1994) shows that
since 85 percent of a student's waking hours are spent outside a classroom,
teaching which is restricted to only 15 percent of a students' time becomes
extremely myopic.
I believe that skillful teaching is grounded in research. In addition, three
educators have greatly influenced my philosophy of teaching. They are the late
philosopher Paulo Freire (1970, 1993), the psychologist Howard Gardner (1983;
2006) and the pedagogue Bernice McCarthy (2003; 1990; 1987; 1980). From their
research I have gathered bits of information and combined their philosophies
into one I shall call "authentic teaching.” Grounded in post-modern theory
(Abrahams, 2004), and specifically critical pedagogy (Abrahams, 2005), my
philosophy views teaching, in tandem with learning, as a partnership with
students that supports diversity of learning styles and honors individual
aptitudes and potentials (Abrahams, 1996; 1992). Such authentic teaching
produces students who are critical and independent thinkers, capable of
thinking, feeling and acting with significance and as independent agents of
change. My students are able to pose and solve problems and in the process
construct meanings for themselves. In addition, this philosophy supports
teaching in varied venues which are not limited to a classroom. For example, it
may include personal interactions with students in a formal office conference,
or it may consider their behavior in the dining commons, the library or the
quadrangle at the center of the campus. Authentic teaching encourages students
in an e-mail, iChat or on the cell phone during the evening or on weekends.
Favorable results continue by also attending student recitals and escorting
students to various conferences. Ultimately, the teacher's responsibility
should provide opportunities for their students to practice what they are
learning and to apply that information in real situations.
Teacher Roles
McCarthy (1980; 1987;1990;2000;2003) believes that teachers assume four roles while engaged in the act of teaching. I call these the roles of authentic teaching. First a teacher becomes a motivator. Students will only commit to remembering when they see a reason to learn. Timothy Gerber (in DeGraffenreid et all, 2006), professor of music education at Ohio State University, states that all learning is problem solving. As a motivator, the role of the teacher is to present learning situations which engage the students in problem solving. Problem solving promotes cognition. Paulo Freire (1970) concurs. In his most famous book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he writes:
The role of the problem-posing educator is to create, together with the students, the conditions under which knowledge at the level of the doxa is superseded by true knowledge, at the level of the logos (p. 62). Students, as they are increasingly posed with problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world, will feel increasingly challenged and obliged to respond to that challenge (p. 62). Problem-posing education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality, thereby responding to the vocation of persons as beings who are authentic only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation (p. 65). Problem-posing education...affirms women and men as beings who transcend themselves, who move forward and look ahead, for whom immobility represents a fatal threat, for whom looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future (p. 65).
Problem solving also promotes higher level thinking.
Students learn and understand when they can find solutions to problems. Once
they analyze and evaluate multiple solutions to situations, they can effectively
select and justify the best solution.
Inside the classroom, case studies (Abrahams & Head, 1998; 2005) provide
situations where students solve problems. Because students can identify with
the characters in a case study, they become engaged and hooked in the learning
experience. Perceiving a need to know, students prefer learning from content
placed into a concrete context. Music students particularly like case studies
because they can empathize with the characters, and they can project themselves
into the same situation. Also, case studies provide an opportunity for students
to discuss issues together cooperatively. By engaging in meaningful
conversation, students teach themselves and each other. And, at the same time,
long-lasting understandings develop. "Through dialogue" writes Paulo Freire
(1970),
the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach (p. 61).
The students become jointly responsible for a process in
which all grow. We know students understand when they can use new information
in the context of a conversation. Further, according to Freire, dialogue is
indispensable to the act of cognition. Teachers must engage students in
discussions. Students learn best while immersed in dialogue with the teacher
and other students. Howard Gardner (in Newmann & Wehlage, 1993) defines
understanding as the ability to use information learned in one context and apply
it to a new and different context. Likewise, case studies provide that
opportunity.
The second role is that of an informer. This is the "telling" part of
teaching. Part of a teacher's responsibility is to present information to the
students that will assist them in solving problems and making connections.
Students need to be informed so that they can make connections to the concepts
being taught. Many students expect college professors to be experts in their
particular content domain. Thus, a teacher’s guidance is a valuable resource
for each student. In order to be an effective informer, the teacher must
lecture well.
Authentic teaching requires the teacher to make decisions relative to the amount
of content to be presented. Many teachers feel bound to completing a textbook
over the span of a course. Because of this commitment, they present large
quantities of information without much depth. Authentic teaching forces the
teacher to decide what content to include, and more importantly, what to leave
out. Once established, teachers can then cover the remaining material and delve
beyond the surface. By focusing on quality instead of quantity, students do not
get overloaded with too much information, which often is quickly forgotten.
Instead, they are taught the subject matter in depth, and the learning is
long-lasting. In my classes, I often assign a reading and follow with a
classroom activity which connects or relates to the content of each reading.
Although I always give students an opportunity to ask questions, I choose to use
the majority of classroom time to build on that knowledge or content. Students
need to learn to think for themselves and to learn on their own. My job is to
push them beyond their perceived limits.
Outside the classroom, teachers serve as mentors and role models. Students
observe their teachers in many ways. They examine our writing and research and
observe us in the library or the office. Sometimes, students discuss an idea or
share a problem to solve. They seek advice, approval and support. In
addition, I maintain correspondence with the undergraduates in the music
education department through our mutual accounts on the internet and a music
education departmental listserv. In some classes I use blogs where I post on
the internet an issue or topic of relevance to them and invite comments and
discussions. This serves several purposes. First, it helps me insure that they
are informed. Second, it provides them with an access to me on a one-to-one
basis. Third, I gain insight into their thinking which helps me guide them and
monitor their development. By asking probing questions, I can help them to
think at higher levels and to develop a point of view. This adds
personalization and dimensionality to my relationship with them.
Further as the third role a teacher becomes a facilitator. In this Vygotskian
(Wink, 2004; Wink & Putney, 2002) model, teachers act as a coach, the teacher
must get out of the way and allow students to take ownership for their own
learning. Learning is meaningful when it has broad applications and connects to
the world beyond the classroom. The responsibility of a dedicated teacher is to
help students see and make those connections. Aesthetic educators claim that
music should be taught for music’s own sake. This absolutist view is a narrow
one. Music has cognitive properties. It offers all students a way of thinking
and access to an aptitude or potential in everyone. Music teachers need to help
students discover how they may use their musical thinking in contexts and
situations inside and outside the domain of music-making. For students in
pre-service teacher education, this is paramount. Education that is liberating
affords students the opportunities to discuss the thinking and views of the
world explicitly or implicitly (Freire, 1970). In the role of a facilitator, a
teacher designs activities that help students to synthesize concepts and to
theorize. They also assist students in the application of the knowledge by
guiding students as they add their own individuality to the material and make it
their own. Bernice McCarthy once said that students know a piece of music when
they are able to improvise around it. This is a powerful notion. Students must
add something of themselves to their learning for learning to be long-lasting
and meaningful.
Finally, teachers are evaluators. In partnership with their students, they help
to evaluate, refine, refocus and redefine. Teachers with their students set
standards and seek excellence. Teachers and students are reflective. They are
critical of their own work. They question and challenge each other. Freire
(1970) writes of the importance of students feeling like masters of their
thinking. Teaching is also praxial. It is not only theory; it is action.
Freire (1970) says that action and reflection occur simultaneously and that
human activity is theory and practice; it is reflection and action (p. 109).
"People will be truly critical," he continues,
[I]f they live the plenitude of the praxis, that is, if their action encompasses a critical reflection which increasingly organizes their thinking and thus leads them to move from a purely naive knowledge of reality to a higher level, one which enables them to perceive the causes of reality. If [educators}... deny this right to [students}..., they impair their own capacity to think--or at least to think correctly (p. 112).
As evaluators, teachers provide social support for student
achievement. Although the basis of authentic teaching is cognitive rather than
behavioral, there is no denying the power of positive reinforcement. When
students are praised, rewarded and supported by their teachers for work that is
well done, it reinforces their self esteem and motivates them to learn more.
This often occurs outside the classroom. By attending student recitals and
escorting students to conferences or other professional meetings, teachers prove
their support of the students. It is at this point that teaching and learning
becomes transformational.
For me, authentic teaching is acquired through this entire cycle of motivator,
informer, facilitator and evaluator with the over-riding goal of teaching
students to think critically, to ask questions and to challenge new ideas inside
and outside the classroom. Different students have a pre-determined favored
role for their teachers; therefore, it is important that all four roles be
present in order to help students meet their individual learning needs.
Conclusions
The impasse at the curriculum meeting described at the beginning of this paper
might have been avoided if the attendees were of one philosophical mind.
However, this would not be consistent with the very nature of academe.
Diversity of opinion and philosophy make colleges strong. Authentic teaching
provides one perspective. Some suggest that we must ask the essential questions
and teach the essential elements. Often, this requires making hard decisions
such as what stays and what goes. Courageous teachers, regardless of their
personal teaching philosophy, are not afraid to make those decisions. Paulo
Freire (197) concludes, "knowledge emerges only through invention and
re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human
beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other" (p. 53). Dewey
(in Simpson, et al. 2006) suggests reflective practice. Likewise, I believe
good teaching results when those interactions empower, liberate and add value to
the lives of both teachers and their students.
References
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