Presentation
The revista española de pedagogía (Spanish Journal of Pedagogy or rep) is one of the oldest journals in the world dealing with pedagogical research. During the several decades it has been published, the revista española de pedagogía has always maintained the highest standards of quality and it has gained international awards.
The logo of the journal is a wheel, a symbol that wants to evoke several ideas: creativity and forward motion, the wisdom eye that enters into the knowledge of reality, the sun that radiates knowledge and makes ideas shine more clearly, as well as the globe, the sign of an education that is interested in the society where it belongs. This symbol, together with some other figures, is represented in the famous picture painted by Raphael entitled “the School of Athens”, in recognition of one of the most important moments of Pedagogy.
The Home page includes a summary of the articles published in the last number of the Journal .
Home
| Teachers and the civic life of schools |
|
|
|
| Written by David T. Hansen | |
|
Teachers can influence their students’ moral and civic learning in two
broad ways. The first is through deliberate, planned activities.
These include organizing school-wide assemblies on the importance of
voting, escorting students to visit political institutions, and
sponsoring debates in the classroom on historical or current political
issues. However, such activities are intermittent and discrete. They
stand out and apart from the everyday business of teaching and learning
in schools and classrooms. This daily business gives rise to the
second way in which teachers can influence their students’ moral and
civic learning. Teachers can do so through what scholars have called
their everyday manner, style, or tact of teaching. Each of these
concepts describes a kind of teacher influence that is continous,
ongoing, indirect, and often nonselfconscious and unplanned. The
concepts spotlight the importance of the spirit in which the teacher
works.
That spirit can be more important, with respect to moral and civic
learning, than curricular and instructional approaches considered by
themselves. In this article, I examine the spirit of teaching and its
importance for civic education by constructing composite images of two
different classrooms. The two teachers I describe share a strong
knowledge base in their discipline and are dedicated to their work.
However, the spirit in which they teach differs markedly. As a result,
while their students end the academic year performing comparably on
their subject matter examinations, the students take away quite
different moral and civic lessons from their classroom experience. I
conclude the discussion by reminding teachers of the value of pondering
their manner, style, and tact. I also urge schools to provide teachers
systematic opportunities to discuss together the moral and civic
dimensions of their everyday work. David T. Hansen Key Words: Civic education, Moral education, Teaching, Teacher awareness, Schooling. |
