Reflective Tasks #1

Reflective Tasks

Task 1.1 Posing the Right Questions

T1.1.1 Think about the statement made by American educationists Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Kenneth Zeichner: “education and teacher education are social institutions that pose moral, ethical, social, philosophical, and ideological questions.” Do you agree or disagree that it is the responsibility of educational institutions to pose questions of such a nature? What are your reasons?

• I agree with this statement. Educational institutions are the building blocks of the society. Every person acquire his/her personal and professional knowledge in a school and all the characteristics which converts a human being  to a person who can think, analyse and having moral, ethical and social values is acquired in an educational institution. So the responsibility of posing moral, ethical, social, philosophical and ideological questions belongs to the educational institutions. They are driven by sophisticated theoretical frameworks about the nature of good teaching and the nature of teachers’ learning.

T1.1.2 What kinds of moral, ethical, social, philosophical, or ideological questions do (or should) educational institutions pose?

• I think educational institutions should pose questions about fundamental disaggrements such as who should be educated, for what aims and purposes, what should be taught, how it should be assessed, and who should decide.

T1.1.3 Recall your days at school and/or college. Provide an example of a moral or ethical or social question that your educational institute posed. How did you resolve the question? How did your classmates and/or your teacher(s) assist you in resolving the question? To what extent did the school/college prepare you to identify and resolve the issue?

• I think, teacher preparation system in our country is enough in terms of acquiring professional knowledge in the related area of expertise. However this is not enough to prepare student teachers for the global context. Our current teachers should not be contented with what they have got. As well as they should be and enthusiastic about learning, they should adopt the idea of life-long learning. If and only if they can change their minds, our teacher preparation system and hence education system can be better.

Task 1.2 Facing the New Global Context

 T1.2.1 The report on Transforming Teacher Education asserts: “Notwithstanding their origins, commonalities and differences, all systems of teacher preparation have to rethink their core assumptions and processes in the new global context” (2008: 14). What do you think are the “assumptions and processes” that govern the system of teacher preparation that you are familiar with?

• I think, the assumptions and processes that govern the system of teacher preparation in our country should be rethought and changed. Teachers are the most essential and important part of an education system. While they are preparing for servicing as a teacher, their education should be organised according to the global world and they should give up their old-fashioned ideas and keep up with the postmodern world.

T1.2.2 Does “the new global context” really warrant a “rethink” of the “assumptions and processes” that you have identified? If yes, why? If not, why not?

• Yes, the assumptions and processes should be rethought because of the new global context. Nothing is permanent but change. So the new globalizing world requires change of everything including teacher preparation.

T1.2.3 If you were vested with necessary authority, what two fundamental changes would you make to the existing “systems of teacher preparation,” and why?

• In the perspectives of language education, I try to change the sense of “learning grammar is learning language”, if I had necessary authority. Although in theory, this sense is adverse, in practice unfortunately this is reality.
• And I try to provide all the pre-service teachers opportunity to utilize srudent exchange programs like ERASMUS. Actually, in all teacher education programs there must be 2+2 system (two years in Turkey, two years abroad). With the help of this system every teacher candidate would experience going abroad and using the language in order to keep up with the new world.