In the profit-above-all-world of digitization and automation, ethics and the nature of professionalism seem to be in question and under attack from all sides. Will the new robots on the block provide the same expertise and multiple intelligences we expect from human experts? What can be done to preserve and strengthen the quality of our professions?
Ma részében 2 of our three-part blog mini-series, In Search of Professional Ethicists, Professor Howard Gardner will discuss this important topic and how, különösen, education as a profession is being affected by our rapidly changing world.
Howard Gardner has received numerous honors throughout his lifetime, including a MacArthur prize fellowship. He has honorary degrees from many universities, and has been named one of the 100 most influential intellectuals by Foreign Policy and Prospects magazine for his work in the study and exploration of the theory of multiple intelligences. He directs The GoodWork™ Project, a large scale effort to identify individuals and institutions that exemplify good work.
Howard, how do you view the professional status of educators?
Some sectors of education are clearly professional, például, professors (and I am one of them) have higher degrees and receive various kinds of protection in return for the services that they provide. In principle, we professors can also be removed from our positions if we violate the tenets of the academy, például, publishing work that has been plagiarized or systematically penalizing students who disagreed with us.
Teachers and administrators in the K-12 sector have the status of professionals in many countries; but it is no secret that many teachers in the public sector in the United States are not treated as professionals and there are powerful pressures nowadays, both economic and political, to de-professionalize K-12 education. These pressures range from efforts to destroy teachers’ unions to the manufacturing of curricula, online and offline, that are deemed ‘teacher-proof’.
So whether or not educators are thinking explicitly about whether they are engaged in a recognized profession, we should be and we should try to raise consciousness about a teaching corps that is highly professionalized.
What are the key aspects of professional ethics for educators?
At the core of each profession is a set of values. In the case of education, the values include knowing one’s subject and keeping up with new knowledge; understanding the population(s) with which one is working; passing on the knowledge and values that are central to the community; preparing young people for a future that cannot be fully anticipated; és, legfontosabb, treating all students fairly and with dignity.
But what about the issues that current trends in learning present for the education profession?
Egyik “valuable” values I’ve previously mentioned can or should be scrapped. De ugyanakkor, it is imperative that educators realize that many forms of knowledge can be presented digitally and we should welcome the many powerful technological advances of recent decades.
Valóban, I’d like to replace the word ‘education’ with the phrase ‘life-long learning.’ While complexifying our profession, this move both underscores its importance. No longer is education an occupation that solely serves young people from 5 a 20; inkább, it is lifelong, starting at birth and continuing so long as the learner is willing and able. Ideális esetben, a jövőben, we should think of the range of workers in education, from preschool preceptors to graduate level professor, as members of the same profession.
How important is the compensation factor in the issues facing the K – 12 oktatási szakma?
I certainly believe that all professionals, whether teacher, ministers, ügyvédek, mérnökök, vagy a rendszergazdák, should have a decent living. Society owes that to its valued workers.
And for those who say we can’t afford to pay teachers a decent wage, I ask them to consider how much money we spend on national defense each year and the size of salaries and bonuses that are paid each year to the many thousands who work on Wall Street.
Though criticisms of Teach for America have some validity, I’ve been a fan of that organization and others like it. We need to attract talented young college graduates to the profession of education and TFA has succeeded in this respect. But if we want to keep talented teaching novices in the profession, and help them become seasoned professionals, then we need both a viable career path és a salary scale that allows teachers to lead a decent middle class life. We know that this can be done because it is being done in countries as different from one another as Finland, Lengyelország, and Singapore.
In the United States today, we are making a fundamental error, indeed a fatal error, by evaluating individuals by the amount of money that they make. This is the biggest change in American society over the last half century: A közepén a 20. században, professionals were comfortable but did not expect to live like millionaires. That situation has changed fundamentally and is the single biggest threat to a society that wants, valóban, that needs, to have cohorts of competent professionals. It’s a reason that I do not favor for-profit educational systems. Once the principal, if not the only, purpose of education becomes the achievement of profit, then the other values are ultimately undermined.
How are compensation issues affecting higher education?
Though less in the public eye than K-12 education, our colleges and universities are also posing big threats to the education profession. More and more teaching is done by adjuncts, who move from one campus to another each day and who barely eke out a living. These individuals – who work so hard and get neither adequate compensation nor reasonable respect, have great difficulty in behaving like professionals, even if they aspire to do so.
On the other end of the spectrum, those fortunate enough to hold tenured positions in elite institutions often direct their primary allegiance to their discipline and their disciplinary colleagues scattered around the world, and not to their students or to the particular institutions in which they work. And some of them chase money as much as do their peers in law or medicine. I especially deplore the huge salaries paid to presidents, athletic coaches, and those who manage the endowments. Though technically working at non-profit institutions, these individuals are as market-driven as those who work in the for-profit world.
It has taken centuries for the United States to develop a set of colleges and universities that have justifiably been admired all over the world. And it would indeed be tragic if these institutions were to be undermined by de-professionalization of faculty and others in leadership positions.
And so there is much to be done if we want to establish and maintain a genuine profession of education, or indeed a family of professions.
In Howard’s final blog in this series, he will share his recommended steps on becoming ethical professionals.
(All Photos are courtesy of Shutterstock and CMRubinWorld)
Csatlakozz hozzám és világszerte elismert szellemi vezetők többek között Sir Michael Barber (UK), DR. Michael blokk (Az US), DR. Leon Botstein (Az US), Professzor Clay Christensen (Az US), DR. Linda Darling-Hammond (Az US), DR. MadhavChavan (India), Professzor Michael Fullan (Kanada), Professzor Howard Gardner (Az US), Professzor Andy Hargreaves (Az US), Professzor Yvonne Hellman (Hollandiában), Professzor Kristin Helstad (Norvégia), Jean Hendrickson (Az US), Professzor Rose Hipkins (Új-Zéland), Professzor Cornelia Hoogland (Kanada), Tisztelt Jeff Johnson (Kanada), Mrs. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), DR. EijaKauppinen (Finnország), Államtitkár TapioKosunen (Finnország), Professzor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Geoff Masters (Ausztrália), Professzor Barry McGaw (Ausztrália), Shiv Nadar (India), Professzor R. Natarajan (India), DR. PAK NG (Szingapúr), DR. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), DR. Diane Ravitch (Az US), Richard Wilson Riley (Az US), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professzor Pasi Sahlberg (Finnország), Professzor Manabu Sato (Japán), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), DR. Anthony Seldon (UK), DR. David Shaffer (Az US), DR. Kirsten Magával ragadó Are (Norvégia), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (Az US), Yves Theze (LyceeFrancais számú amerikai egyesült államokbeli), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Kanada), Professzor Tony Wagner (Az US), Sir David Watson (UK), Professzor Dylan Wiliam (UK), DR. Mark Wormald (UK), Professzor Theo Wubbels (Hollandiában), Professzor Michael Young (UK), és professzor Minxuan Zhang (Kína) mivel azok feltárása a nagy kép oktatási kérdés, hogy minden nemzet ma szembesül.
A Global Search Oktatási közösségi oldal
C. M. Rubin a szerző két legolvasottabb internetes sorozat, amely megkapta a 2011 Upton Sinclair díjat, “A Global Search for Education” és “Hogyan fogjuk olvasása?” Ő a szerzője a három bestseller könyv, Beleértve The Real Alice Csodaországban, a kiadó CMRubinWorld, és egy Disruptor Alapítvány ösztöndíjasa.
Kövesse C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
Kapcsolódó hozzászólások:
A Global Search for Education: In Search of Professional Ethicists – On Becoming a Consummate Professional – Rész 3
A Global Search for Education: In Search of Professional Ethicists – Do they Exist? – Rész 1
A Global Search for Education: Képzeljük csak el, titkár Fisher
A Global Search for Education: Képzeljük csak el, titkár Gardner
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