The "discussion - case study approach" in introduction to philosophy of education courses

Abstract

These selections, taken from B. Ed. students' reflective commentary at the end of a 10 week introductory course in philosophy of education, capture the popular expectations, stereotyped impressions or feelings that pre-service education students normally hold about foundations courses especially philosophy of education: scepticism, intimidation, boredom, uselessness, fear and practical irrelevance. A grim though very real picture! The delicate task of teaching introductory foundations courses becomes more difficult and also tragic when one learns, as stated in a couple of the above selections, that most students come with a strong and long background of "traditional teaching" in which complacency, uncriticallness, and the urge to acquire the right answer, which the teacher possesses, to get the highest grade, are implanted explicitly via the formal curriculum or implicitly via teaching styles. These qualities are essentially incompatible with a foundations perspective, and, some believe, even with the very notion of education.