[MUSIC] Here we are at module five. I have it quickly. The last four modules, we've asked you to explore the aims and the emotional contours of teaching. Today, we want you to look at two over-aching ways to frame those aims and those emotions. We're going to briefly contrast what we call an achievement approach to teaching and learning with a more what's called wholeness approach. >> We've asked you to be reflective about teaching. To think about your aims, investments, and remembering Anna Freud, your inner life as it affects your outer responses to others. And we've tried to see the various ways sadness and despair as well as love and beauty appear in our classrooms. Now we're going to look at the role of grit and pursuit of achievement, and identity and integrity and pursuit of wholeness. >> Duckworth's grit is an essential feature of persistence. It's what she would say that makes persistence impossible. Grit & Persistence enabled learners to achieve difficult and challenging learning objectives. It enables students to achieve their academic goals. Proctor Palmer on the other hand, being true to one's identity and maintaining our integrity is the one sure and solid pathway to serving and teaching others. >> Duckworth recognizes the limitations of grit and the importance of other virtues. But Palmer would, I'm sure, can see the importance of grit and the need to achieve our goals. We're going to take a look at Angela Duckworth's elaboration of grit in the formation of character. We want to contrast that with Parker Palmer's focus on identity and integrity in teaching. >> There are many people out there beyond MOOCland who would say, the goals of achievement and wholeness are in conflict. Our intention opposed to one another. Our Olympic athletes embody grit, the determination to pursue a singular focus. A pursuit of wholeness would be an annoyance on the way to Olympic gold, at least all this argument would run. >> On the other hand, those contemplative swords [COUGH] some of whom inhabit Boulder, Colorado in their contemplative search for wholeness. My think this emphasis on grit is just too much, it's not focused on what's important but pre-occupied with a ephemeral, ego-driven goals. >> These are exaggerations for sure. [LAUGH] What we want you to do is watch Duckworth's tape on character education and grit. And read Palmer's thoughts on the role of identity, and integrity, and teaching. And see how Duckworth and Palmer might argue with one another given their different perspectives. Certainly, Duckworth is speaking about students and Palmer, teachers. So, in a classroom for teachers and students, where might Duckworth's and Palmer's points of views converge? Where might they diverge? Do you want a classroom oriented towards achievement, or one that embraces wholeness? Or do you want some sort of mixture between the two? >> And then, if that's not enough, we want you to take John Dewey's call to heart and write your own pedagogic creed. Why a creed? Why John Dewey? And why read an essay by him which as of 2017 is now 120 years old? Well, here's a bit of background about the man called, the Father of American Educational Philosophy, and the importance of Dewey's essay, My Petagogic Creed. John Dewey was an American psychologist, philosopher, educator, social critic, and political activist. He was born in Burlington, Vermont October 20th 1859. Dewey graduated from the University of Vermont in 1879, and received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University. He started his career at the University of Michigan. And in 1894, he became chairman on the department of philosophy, psychology and pedagogy at University of Chicago. In 1899, John Dewey was elected President of the American Psychological Association. And in 1905, he became President of the American Philosophic Association. Dewey taught at Colombia from 1905 until he retired in 1929, and occasionally taught as Professor Ameritis until 1939. Dewey died in New York City on June 1st, 1952. My Pedagogic Creed was published in 1897 when John Dewey was 38 years old. It's a central piece by Dewey, and it's important to point out that a creed is a set of beliefs or aims that guide someone's actions. One passage in the essay is key to understanding Dewey's view of a connection between education and personal growth. A view he would write about with great frequency as teacher, as philosopher, and as psychologist. I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the human race, and to use his own powers for social ends. For Dewey, the social relations between children, and between children and teachers were vital in defining education. So his creed is laying out the importance of social and emotional development in the community life and as community life. >> Here are some questions for us to close with. Does grit have a role in your teaching, for you and for your students? Is honoring the students' identities and maintaining your integrity critical for you? How would you now emphasize student's and your own emotions in your classroom interactions? Is there joy and beauty in your classroom? What happens when students are sad? What would you place in your statement of teaching beliefs, your affective pedagogical creed?
