Reflection-II

 Unit II Reflection.docx

Unit II Reflection

Main take away from Unit II

This reflection shows some glimpses about unit II main learning take away, which mainly talks about educational philosophies. There are basically four philosophies of education namely perennialism, essentialism, progressivism, and reconstructionism that derive from the larger philosophical systems we have discussed. We looked into these particular educational philosophies because each one can be tested over time to bring a significant impact on Bhutanese education system. From my own understanding, educational philosophy can be defined as a set of educational beliefs and core values of a person or organization. It focuses on the purpose and objectives of educational planning, programmes nd processes when it comes to teaching and inspiring students to learn. So, following are the main educational philosophies that were discussed in brief.

 First educational philosophy that we looked into was an essentialism, which is “traditional” or “back to basics” approach to education. It is believed that educational essentialism adheres to children’s learnings on traditional subjects thoroughly and rigorously. As per essentialism, a teacher should be able to instill traditional values such as respect for authority, perseverance, fidelity to duty, consideration for others and practicality. Teacher serves as an intellectual and moral for the students’ interest.  Likewise, students should be able to master a set of body of information and basic techniques for their grade level before they promote to the next higher grade. So, with these sort of things about essentialism, there are few of its drawbacks. It is a conservative philosophy which favours tradition, culture and society and place less importance on individualism. Similarly, less emphasis is given on non-academic activities (Arends, Winitzk & Tannenbaum, 2001).

We also looked into GNH infused curriculum in the second session. For this particular, we did a short survey findings forming seven different groups from seven different groups of interviewees. Through that particular survey findings about GNH infused curriculum we could come up with quite a good findings. I was placed in one of the survey groups who had to interview lecturer science. From our finding, we could learn that GNH in science curriculum is very much common and have been practicing since 2008 in Bhutanese curriculum. There has been a successful infusion GNH values in the lessons being taught in the schools irrespective of subjects. For instance, Bhutan could battle COVID-19 pandemic successfully when well developed and well equipped countries such as USA and India lost thousands and millions of lives to it. Had there been values been imparted in the minds of young learners, there could have been great falls to Bhutan as well but we could strive and survive through hat deadliest pandemic.

Another most important finding through our survey was, the skills and the competencies that a teacher should possess in order to impart GNH values in meaningful ways. So as per the respondents, it was stated that firstly GNH infused curriculum aspires to facilitate a holistic education that would address some of the humanistic values we need in this era. Therefore, a teacher should act as a facilitator or a role model to the learners in every aspects. Likewise, including affective domains in the lessons is one way to impart values in minds of the students. So aforementioned findings as per the responses given the science lecturers of SCE which we took it as a new learning through survey in this particular topic i.e., ‘GNH infused curriculum’.

However, I could not get a clear cut idea on GNH infused curriculum from this particular unit.