The most basic application of the discipline of Ethics

[prof]

One of the most basic applications of theoretical Ethics - if not the most important of all - is Education; Life Coaching {adult education}; and Therapy {remedial education.} If I claim that today we need to improve education, and provide more of it, this does not meet with controversy – especially from educated people such as those who are here.

And if I further claim that good education of a child should start at birth, and that it should at least consist in teaching values, I don’t think I’ll get an argument …from most of you.

As I define it, Education is applied Ethics. The job of the teacher is to get to know each student, their interests, and their innate gifts, and to show each student how to be and become all he or she is capable of being and becoming. Teachers need a small class because their job is to draw out from each student their background experience and help the student see the relevance, to understand how each topic learned is in some way relevant to the student’s life.

In addition the teacher (of the future) may function as a proctor who gives quizzes and exercises, and scores work-books, all to see if the pupils understood the material they saw on the screen. {I heard that up in Quebec, that function too has already been replaced by computers.} On the screen was a video lecture not only by an acknowledged genius in the field of the subject matter of that specific lesson, but also a master public speaker. S/he teaches the lesson in that discipline, be it Physics, Math, English Grammar, Literary Appreciation, Poetry, Genetics, Information Technology, Programming, or the new science of Moral Psychology, about which I will elaborate in a moment.

The classroom teacher in the future will also teach art appreciation, hands-on graphic and painting skills, music, voice training, the practical arts, and crafts - such as wood-working, carpentry, model-building, and some computer skills. Most basic computer stuff will be taught by that world-class expert on the big screen, in 3D, with all the best props at his or her disposal …or on many little i-pad-like screens, and always with the teacher on hand to relate it to the child’s experience.. {To use the terminology of the Unified Theory of Ethics, q.v., Conception is systemic; Perception is extrinsic; but EXPERIENCE is Intrinsic Value. When we experience something, it becomes an integral part of our life. See especially End Note 4 in http://tinyurl.com/crz6xea }

All constructive comments and suggestions are welcome.

[LukeS]

I would agree that education is at least ethically relevant, because for me ethics is a response to a world-of-value, and education can have value. However as well as being good in itself education is instrumental, so we ought to consider what is taught. Alsongside sciences and practical crafts I feel an ethical education focused around promoting well being, would help fill the philosophical gap. In todays world people question authority, so the relevance of education needs to be outlined, and what more convincing a lure then "it is good for you"? Also I feel that with ethical grounding people will be less prone to skepticism or bafflement in the face of big questions and so society might gain focus on matters of central concern.

[The Voice of Time]

educated people such as those who are here.

what? I think you are over-estimating the average level of education here, I think the vast majority are plain or mostly hobbyists like me ^^

Teachers need a small class because their job is to draw out from each student their background experience and help the student see the relevance, to understand how each topic learned is in some way relevant to the student’s life.

Have you been reading on Norway? All school-classes in Norway are demanded to have at least two teachers as such-named "contact-teachers", the ones you work close with to ensure that no problems arises in school, that all things works well and you discuss the workings of school-life etc. There are mandatory meetings with these teachers, when you're young some few times with parents, when you're older almost always just you two. It's not out of the normal for there to be a such-called "assisting teacher" as well when you, the class, have different lessons, being it English, Nature (the Norwegian term variant of "Science lessons", although it could apply also to practical trips into nature etc.) or something else...

In Norway they've been recruiting a lot of new teachers the last few years, and it's quite normal that school classes on the country-side amount to as few as 4-5-6-7-8 school-children, and they are always pushing for more teachers.

The classroom teacher in the future will also teach art appreciation, hands-on graphic and painting skills, music, voice training, the practical arts, and crafts - such as wood-working, carpentry, model-building, and some computer skills. Most basic computer stuff will be taught by that world-class expert on the big screen, in 3D, with all the best props at his or her disposal …or on many little i-pad-like screens, and always with the teacher on hand to relate it to the child’s experience.. {To use the terminology of the Unified Theory of Ethics, q.v., Conception is systemic; Perception is extrinsic; but EXPERIENCE is Intrinsic Value. When we experience something, it becomes an integral part of our life. See especially End Note 4 in [url]htttp://tinyurl.com/27pzhbf[/url] }

All constructive comments and suggestions are welcome.

This I strongly disagree with. Mainly because videos are very under-stimulative, even some futuristic 3D would not be stimulative enough. Children are not like robots, they are human beings who needs to explore the world as it is. I myself have a proposal which features video-gaming, using technologies like advanced Kinect and clever system-design in programming to make an engaging, realistic persistently evolving virtual world where things only before imagined can be explored. But I also know, that this can never be anything but a side-step, it's not natural for people to sit on computers, the body degrades, their humanly-evolved senses and systems are distorted. Face the roughness of the world or your body will be like one which has never experienced bad bacteria, and that I mean in a broad sense and not just about not "seeing the world for how it is", I mean the biology doesn't get fully worked out if not in contact with the world, a real world, with real and not artificially designed qualities.

In Norway there's a lot of focus about taking the children out into nature so that they can experience and play with the dynamics of the real thing and not just some, however well made, image of it. The mind can't treat the world as forever abstract, it needs for its body to live in the environment developed for it by nature herself.

[prof]

Thank you, Voice of Time, for your very-constructive contribution to the topic.

You are right on point ! Spot on. The United States could learn so much from Norway if we were not so ethnocentric at times. Forum members may consider getting in touch with the Dept. of Education, Secretary Arnie Duncan's office, and present his aides with your suggestions, and description of what is done in Norway to educate children.

How to hire more teachers before we have a Democratic congress is a puzzle, though. Throughout the country in states that have Republican governors teachers are being fired- not hired.
Maybe - if people vote their self-interest in November - a sweep occurs of electing people who care about people, who care about Main Street - rather than giving first priority to multi-national corporations and to Wall Street,- there could be a reversal of the self-defeating policies.

[Hjarloprillar]

One of the most basic applications of theoretical Ethics - if not the most important of all - is Education

Agree
Yet our education system produces uneducated masses of
stupid.
I asked a kid a few weeks back.. what a proton was. He said ."A car man. are you stupid"

rest may case

prill