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COURSE NUMBER: EDUC. 435-4
COURSE NAME: Educational Theory
and Theory Criticism
SEMESTER: Summer Session 176
(July/August)
Course Description:
The theoretical basis of the Open Classroom and the limitations
of this theoretical substructure constitute the major topics
of the course. The course is designed for teachers and future
teachers who have felt dissatisfied by traditional methods
of presenting materials to children and of conducting classroom-
interchange both among children and between children and
adults, yet who are uncertain of the advantage to be gained in
Open Classrooms created on the British model. The course
considers, at a theoretical level, the degree to which these
innovative ("open") methods either do, or do not, represent
a serious transformation either in the process or the goals
of public education. Emphasis will be on education of young
people between ten and eighteen years of age.
Course Information:
Instructor
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Dates ?
Day(s) ?
Time(s)
Jonathan Kozol
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July 5-Aug. 13 ?
T, W. ?
4:30 - 8:20 p.m.
Range of Topics:
Some of the topics to be treated are as follows:
The political responsibilities of a public school.
The conflict between ethical goals and state-mandated, purposes.
The conflict between honest inquiry and pre-determined
"end-conclusions".
The conflict between education for domestication and education
for personal growth.
Moral dilemmas of the teacher asked to simulate a sense of
freedom if authentic freedom is explicitly forbidden by the
state.
Adult imposition on the bias of the child's views.
The question of "free options" in a social order which depends
upon the management of wants and views.
The fear of ideology in romantic school-reform.
The teacher as non-person in the classroom.
The teacher as participant in social change.
(Over)
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Course requirements:
Students will be asked to read extensively and to attend twelve
sessions of four hours each, beginning July 5 and continuing
five weeks. After the first, each session will involve a
presentation by the instructor, a counter-presentation by two
students, an open-ended period of concluding dialogue.
Each student will be asked to prepare one "counter-presentation"
(see above), to write one paper of moderate length by July
19 and one longer paper in the first week of August.
No examination.
Readings:
Three books are essential:
The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire, Herder 9 Herder,
1972
The Great School Legend, Cohn Greer, Viking, 1973
The Night Is Dark And I Am Far From Home, Jonathan Kozol,
Houghton Mifflin, 1975
These works are suggested:
Dare The Schools Build A New Social Order?, George Counts,
John Day Co., 1970
De-schooling Society, Ivan Illich, Harper S Row, 1971
The New Industrial State. John Kenneth Galbraith, Signet, 1968
Note: All of these books, with the exception of The Night
Is Dark...., are now available in paperback editions.
