Educational Systems Theory Educational Systems Theory
"... teacher, student, content, and context are taken as forming a system of education." (Steiner, 1988, p. 107) Thus, the components or subsystems of an education system are teacher, student, content and context, and affect relations pertain to how these components are connected.
In Figure 4 below, the shaded area represents an education system, and the non-shaded area its negasystem.
A teacher is one who guides the learning of
another. This defines a kind of affect relation between two
persons. Person A may guide the learning of Person
B, and Person B may guide the learning of Person A.
For example my wife of Irish descent has taught me
to cook Chinese style dinners. I have given her
guidance in using our computer at home.
Furthermore, guidance of learning is not restricted
to direct instruction (e.g., lecture, demonstrate,
answer questions, ask questions). Learning may be
guided indirectly as it is frequently in Montessori
classrooms in which it occurs through interaction
with the curriculum materials. Furthermore, the
older students may guide younger students in
Montessori classrooms in which mixed-age groups exist. These older peers
act in the role of teacher (i.e., one who guides the
learning of another). If teaching is viewed as an
affect relation, then it
unbinds us from thinking of teacher as a component in education.
Teaching is a relationship between two persons, one
of whom guides the other who follows.
A student is one who intends to learn through
guidance from a teacher. In contrast, a learner is
one who attempts to learn without guidance -- e.g.,
by trial-and-error. Studenting is also an affect relation that ought to
occur in education. An undesirable kind of affect relation would be one
who is being forced to learn against his or her
will.
Content is that which is to be learned. There
are both student-content and teacher-content affect relations. The kinds of
student-content affect
relations that we ought to create in education
are cognitive, conative and affective. We want
students to come to know the objects of learning
(cognitive relationship with subject matter), to
value such objects, and to associate positive
feelings with the objects of learning. Subject
matter need not be constrained to extant
classifications such as mathematics, science,
history, language arts, etc. The types of
teacher-content affect
relations can be similarly classified. Teachers
should know the subject matter (and how to guide
learning of subject matter, which is a further kind
of understanding of content), value it, and love it.
Context is the setting in which guidance of
learning occurs. When my wife helps me learn to
cook, the context we work in is the kitchen. When
I help her to use our computer, that usually occurs
in the context of our home office area. Typical
contexts of present-day, formal education systems include
classrooms in school buildings, principals,
janitors, local school boards, furniture,
black/white boards, overhead projectors, computers,
books, libraries, gymnasiums, school buses, cash,
cafeterias, food, etc. Context could also include
state departments of education, and national
departments of education -- if these are considered
to be part of the education
system. We have student-context,
teacher-context, and content-context affect relations. When I am
learning to cook, student-context relations include
my reading a recipe from a book, observing my wife
cook, chopping vegetables, measuring rice and water,
etc. When my wife is learning to use a
word-processor to make large-print words,
student-context relations include her using a
computer system and software program. (She makes
curriculum materials for her pre-school Montessori
classroom, which is a teacher-content relation.)
There are also content-context affect relations. The object
of learning may be symbolically represented through
printed words in a book (e.g., a math textbook); the
object of learning might be iconically represented
through a videotape (e.g., a documentary on Martin
Luther King); the object of learning might be
physically present in the current setting (e.g.,
artifacts from an archeological dig; the city mayor
herself).
Nowadays the negasystem would include the local
community -- e.g., parents and other people,
business, industry, local government. The universe
of discourse could be extended to include state and
national levels, or for that matter world-wide. If
so, these would be part of the negasystem. Notice
that the boundary between an education system and its
negasystem does not have to be a physical boundary,
in the sense of geographic space. For example, the
local school board is normally part of a community's
education system. The board
members are seldom physically present on school
grounds. Nowadays, State Departments of Education
are part of local education
systems in that they affect policies, practices,
and financing. Those State Departments are
physically remote but can be considered part of a
local community's education
system. On the other hand, churches are not
considered part of our public education systems, and would be
considered part of the negasystem as would business
and industry.
Illustration:
Comments:
Education
Negasystem
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