The fifth week (already...)

On Monday from 8.15 am till 11.45 am we had a new teacher: Tove Heidemann. She gave us a lecture about the different European school traditions. She first showed us that there are historical and geographical bordelines between the European countries. The Rhine and the Danube devide Europe in a northern and a southern part. There are also differences in religion, culture, society, etc. She then concentrated more on the schools in the different countries and she presented Edgar Schein's theory on the organisation of the culture of a school. He devides it into three levels: Artefacts (this is what you can observe in a school: the canteen, the behavior of the children, the classrooms,...), Exposed Values (the values you can explain, you can give a reason for: the aims and goals), The Basic Assumptions (all the things that are self evident, which you cannot explain: the values' interpretation).

Afterwards she showed us the three main approaches of the European school traditions. First there is the Encyclopedic Approach (in France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Belgium). In this approach you have uniformity (all children should acquire knowledge on as many issues as possible, teachers use the same curriculum), rationality (no religion, no emotions, clear precise demands), elitism (competition, no cooporation, private schools, universities, grandes écoles). Secondly there is the Humanistic Approach (in Great Britain). The ideal here is the gentleman. In this approach you have high moral standard (the individual will develop empathy, responsability, sense of duty, etc.), individualism (close contact between teachers and students, learning is an individualised proces), specialisation (at the age of 16 you choose the few subjects you want to study). Finally there is the Naturalistic Approach (in Germany, The Netherlands and Scandinavia). Here, the school imitates the parents' way of socialising. Parents have a lot of influence. The children are also streamed by the teachers: Gymnasium for doctors and laywers, Hauptschule for workers and farmers, etc.

This was a very interesting course, I learned a lot of things I wasn't aware of.

In the afternoon we had another course with Torbjorn. He continued his lesson about the famous Karl Popper. He started his lesson with a brief history of philosophy. He talked about Plato and Aristotle. They wanted to find out how we can reach the complete truth? Plato showed with his famous mythe: "The Cave" that the world we see is an illusion. There is a truth behind this illusion, a truth we don't see. Aristotle, Plato's student, tried to find out what is knowledge? How can we reach that? He gives knowledge three names: episteme (the knowledge we get through science), techno (the knowledge we get through art) and phronesis (the knowledge of wisdom). They come to the solution that the truth and knowledge can be reached and once we reache it we know everything.

Later christianity came and took the idea of the complete truth over. Jesus and God are the truth. Afterwards, in the Rennaissance, things started to change. People started to think that the world might be different then it is said in a religious way... People started to think for themselves. Scientists wandered how they could find out the truth about the world, the universe, ...?

Descartes showed that through thinking you can reach the complete truth. But you can only reach it in the same way as God, through reason. (Rationalism) If you don't believe you cannot reach the complete truth..

Locke showed the contary, from observations we create theories. (Empirism) Newton observed and created many theories. He was an example formany scientists. But this doesn't work... You will never know what will happen the next time you observe the same thing. (Hume)

But Popper arrived with another theory. His asked himself: "How can we eliminate our failures?" We can find out what our mistakes are and in this way get nearer to the complete truth. But we will never completely reach the complete truth.. He also showed that science can never be sure to reach the truth. Scientists will always create and develop new knowledges by eliminating old knowledges but they can never be sure. Popper asked himself how we can get rid of the wrong theorie? He thought we should criticize them! In this way we gain new knowledges. We can test the theories and see if they really work. If they don't we let them aside. Popper made a scheme to do this: P1 (a problem) --> TT (the theory we will test)--> EE (the error elimination)--> P2 (another problem).

As a teacher we can ask pupils to work as scientists with Popper's scheme. In this way they won't copy out of their books, they will invent things, test them and see if they are right or wrong.

I think this is the one of the most interesting lessons I had until now...

In the afternoon I worked on my weblog and at 8pm I watched a film: "Side ways". It was really funny.. I went to bed at 11pm.