While reading the text “What True Education Should Do” by Sydney J. Harris, I found myself questioning my own notions of what education should actually be about, thus making me reconsider my own teaching and learning philosophy.
What I liked most about the reading were the two similes the author uses in order to make his point clear. The first comparison is that of a student “as a sort of animate sausage casing.” With this image, Harris tries to make clear how we too often tend to think of students as empty sausage casings that are merely stuffed with knowledge by teachers. As he develops his arguments against this kind of “sausage casing” conception of education, he provides another simile in the last passage in order to help us visualize his counterargument.
The second image is that of students as oysters much more than sausage casings – knowledge as an innate resource within every student that only needs to be elicited by teachers. This idea appears very interesting to me, but at the same time, I am not sure whether I actually want to support it or not. On the one hand, there is definitely some truth to the notion that our job as teachers should be much more about eliciting potential knowledge in our students, but, on the other hand, for all its metaphorical beauty that we associate with the oyster student possessing knowledge in form of precious pearls that are to be cultivated – in real nature, those pearl oysters actually are the exception, which is why they are so prized. In this sense, the pearl oyster comparison would rather go with an elite student in my opinion.
The bottom line is that as a teacher one should try to find a balance between those educational approaches and philosophies instead of ruling out one of them. Neither one of those concepts can serve as THE principle of “what true education should do” – irrespective of the fact that any notions of one “true” education only reflect a specific worldview.
What I liked most about the reading were the two similes the author uses in order to make his point clear. The first comparison is that of a student “as a sort of animate sausage casing.” With this image, Harris tries to make clear how we too often tend to think of students as empty sausage casings that are merely stuffed with knowledge by teachers. As he develops his arguments against this kind of “sausage casing” conception of education, he provides another simile in the last passage in order to help us visualize his counterargument.
The second image is that of students as oysters much more than sausage casings – knowledge as an innate resource within every student that only needs to be elicited by teachers. This idea appears very interesting to me, but at the same time, I am not sure whether I actually want to support it or not. On the one hand, there is definitely some truth to the notion that our job as teachers should be much more about eliciting potential knowledge in our students, but, on the other hand, for all its metaphorical beauty that we associate with the oyster student possessing knowledge in form of precious pearls that are to be cultivated – in real nature, those pearl oysters actually are the exception, which is why they are so prized. In this sense, the pearl oyster comparison would rather go with an elite student in my opinion.
The bottom line is that as a teacher one should try to find a balance between those educational approaches and philosophies instead of ruling out one of them. Neither one of those concepts can serve as THE principle of “what true education should do” – irrespective of the fact that any notions of one “true” education only reflect a specific worldview.
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