Psychology Applied to Teaching Term Paper

It would not be wrong to say that teachers have dual responsibilities in our society, to reshape and put an influence on the moral development of children and to meet parents’ expectations. Since parents entrust their children to teachers with hope and believe that teachers groom their children, therefore, the foremost responsibility of the teachers is to behave ethically in the classroom so that they transmit values upheld by society, and serve as moral models for their students (Rest & Narvaez, 1994, p. 71). As a role model, the significance of morals and ethics is essential to teach children the difference between ethical and unethical treatment. This happens whenever teachers after analyzing their vulnerability behave in front of the children, this way children usually learn whatever the teacher tries them to learn and since teachers usually work in isolation, children portray them as role models. It is a matter of common fact today that with the increasing influence of schools and teachers there is a decreasing trend towards the influence of family, church, and community.

There is no doubt that the way United States today is considerable for the debate over personalities and moral values, it has never been so considerable in the past. The reason is simple; though theorists have dedicated to a scientific approach there is no similarity whatsoever among their proposed techniques which they employ to collect the empirical data on which to base their model. Such methodological differences, along with the fact that the younger generation is getting low on the moral developmental aspect, have influenced the nature of theories in important ways.

For example, today’s teacher no longer believes that those materials on which Freud relied while erecting his psychoanalytic theory were primarily dreams and memories of childhood that neurotic patients in his medical practice recounted to him during therapy sessions. Similarly, Piaget’s model was there who put time and effort in building on the answers children offered to questions an experimenter asked about the rules of games and about what should happen to people who committed various kinds of misdeeds. Gilligan proposed a unique theory derived from interviews regarding how personal moral conflicts were perceived by college students in a class on morality and political choice (Thomas, 1997, p. 11).

Children’s nature with ethical reasoning

In order to evaluate the influence of teachers over children, we first analyze children’s nature in the light of various sociologists, and there is a reason for it. The question that arises before us is that why children are supposed to be influenced by their teachers? Since children according to 18th-century social critic Rousseau (1955) are born innocent and morally good, therefore they are just like blank paper unless and until they learn from society. It is during the process of their learning with growing years that children’s character is dishonored by this society, but pessimistically. Thus, in line with Rousseau’s opinion, it is the teacher’s responsibility to properly moralize children’s upbringing by protecting the young one’s innate goodness from damaging as the child advances to adulthood.

There is another ethical aspect to this theory that leads our teachers to understand their onus in the lives of the younger generation. We must consider the question as to why our children have no longer religious beliefs, morals, and values like patriotism. Because we as the previous generation have failed to provide current generation teachers in the church with an understanding of the rudimentary elements of biblical knowledge and Christian theology. The result of this deviation from biblical and theological source materials is an almost unbelievable religious illiteracy that is commonly found even among regular churchgoers (Juengst, 1998, p. 2). Therefore this situation where children found their teachers not confident among their own values, has made our youth pessimistic enough to deviate from what they are supposed to learn.

Teacher’s Role in developing moral reasoning among children

Many sociologists examine the ways in which various teachers perceive their roles differed and this difference acts as a basis of teachers’ moral reasoning. Results at this level show that teachers who stand at the senior moral reasoning level tend to view their roles as more democratic and facilitative whereas teachers at lower moral reasoning levels view their role as controlling and policing. Teachers who have higher moral reasoning levels are friendlier to maintain student-teacher relationships whereas teachers who possess lower moral reasoning levels are likely to maintain a traditional and participative climate in their classrooms.

Being Patient: As a role model, the teacher should be patient to see their student in particular ways that would be hard or impossible for someone who lacks patience. At the same time, a teacher must not resist if he or she is given any pessimistic response from his or her student. This is so because a teacher is supposed to teach morals to the students, not a pessimistic attitude or behavior. If in any case a teacher gets violent or shows any sign of rage or despair this would be a defeat on part of the teacher, since he or she is being imitated by children.

Patience becomes second nature when it is successfully cultivated, particularly in a student-teacher relationship it means a lot more than teaching our youth directly, in fact, patience is something children learn about indirectly, while they are trying to imitate their elderly ones. Among other issues or lessons that children learn in class, this means patience color the attractiveness of possible ends and inform perceptions of their salience in the classroom. According to Macleod (2002), it is the intensity of teacher’s supposed goods whose pursuit only lightly limits the pleasure of adopting an impatient attitude that exerts a weaker attraction for children who understand and can pursue the goods beyond impatience without acting against the grain of character (Macleod & Archard, 2002, p. 124).

It is also important that a child must perceive teaching as an attractive role. The reason behind making teaching attractive for children indicates that it is essential for the children to take interest in what teachers present before them. Parents’ role also matters but their response that their child has an undoubted interest in acquiring the right values is right. In educating the child to acquire and value the morals, the values of the parents matter that they are teaching the child what they, the parents, not because these are their values but because they are the right values. This response is the answer to what we seek earlier that we want our individuals to see their values survive not because they are theirs but because they are the correct ones.

Teachers as Moral tutors

Teachers infer the role of ‘socializer’ among children; therefore the role of moral educator refers to the individual or individuals who give the child the values by which he makes sense of his condition, experience, and responsibilities. Moral education does not mean those hardships that let us evaluate why an adequately supported single parent would do worse in this role than a married couple. Instead, not depending upon the social structure the motivation to educate morally is not distributed differentially by family. According to the socialization structure, moral education may be accomplished through institutions other than the family and this is what a teacher is supposed to inject among his or her students not on the basis of unethical attitude but on the grounds of kindness and patience.

As their cognitive capacities mature, parents do realize that children come to need not only socialization but teaching. This is evident from the fact that attendance at school provides children with the social and intellectual skills as well as the technical knowledge to compete successfully in today’s global economy as well as to discharge knowledgeably and responsibly a variety of civic duties (Macleod & Archard, 2002, p. 147). In the United States most parents look forward to teachers making an attempt to meet this developmental need, therefore send their children to public school, but unfortunately, public schools in the context of raising children’s morals failed to satisfy what parents expect from them.

Students-teacher relationships in public schools

Some teachers often develop caring relationships with students even in large, traditional secondary schools and even do not hesitate to put in extra time working with them so as to develop very close and supportive relationships with their students. An effective relationship requires careful observation of students by teams of teachers which helps teachers examine exactly what they are doing and where they stand. Public school teachers when teaching in groups get to see a different side of students and events and this is entirely based on relationship setting.

Maxine Greene, a major 20th-century American educational philosopher, declares that since the relationship is fundamental to instruction, teachers need to create democratic classrooms and must learn to listen to student voices (Singer, 2003, p. 108). Similar is the case when teachers listen to their students; as proper listening allows teachers to conclude what students are thinking, what concerns them, and what has meaning to them. When teachers along with students learn to listen and concentrate, it is possible for teachers and students to collectively search for metaphors that make knowledge of the world accessible to us.

Psychology when applied to teaching whether in the context of public or private schools helps teachers, counselors, and psychologists to develop an individualized education program (IEP) for each student that is re-evaluated on a regular basis. However, it must be the goal of a public school teacher to closely examine and attend to each and every need and learning style of individual students which is also a goal in middle schools where teachers are organized as interdisciplinary teams who have the same classes, rather than into academic departments. In the context of public schools, teachers and counselors must meet daily and engage in an ongoing review of individual student progress. This also helps teachers and team members to be aware of those major problems that start at a rudimentary level from a minor upset.

Mentoring is another way through which teachers can make their passage towards fostering relationships with students. Public schools often take this opportunity to experiment with student-created interdisciplinary portfolios or projects that are periodically examined by teams of teachers. However, the teachers, in this case, must analyze their roles and how best they can do to improve the performance of these portfolios because it is through these portfolios that teachers get to know their students individually so as to offer academic support and guidance.

Empirical studies show that 50% of the time, teachers spent at a principled level while this implies that most teachers could recognize, but could not produce post-conventional thinking. In other words, teachers’ moral thinking is dependant upon the school’s environment and is subject to change depending upon school leaders or the atmosphere of the schools in which they serve. Therefore it is true that teaching is moral by nature and teachers make moral decisions continuously, for this purpose teachers do not seem to be well prepared for this aspect of their jobs in which dedication is required to groom their youth. In this case, teachers’ educators may consider adopting the theory of moral cognitive development to solve the problem of moral and ethical behavior not only among children but among teachers as well.

Results elaborated that moral reasoning was related to teachers’ tolerance for students’ disturbing behaviors. When such theory was implicated it was seen that teachers at principled moral levels tended to be tolerant of socially deviant behaviors, whereas teachers at the pre-principled moral levels tended to be bothered by socially deviant behaviors and behaviors against social convention. In the same line, teachers’ moral reasoning scores were associated with their conceptualization of rules.

Teachers who served to operate at lower levels of moral judgment saw rules primarily serving to maintain ethical and social order where any infringement of a rule was viewed as a personal attack on the teacher. On the contrary, those teachers, who operated at higher levels of moral judgment, felt that rules were needed to ensure certain rights of students, and their students were encouraged to take part in rule-making.

Similarly, those teachers at higher moral reasoning levels showed that they could understand educational concepts more broadly and deeply way than the teachers at lower levels. For instance, the conceptualizations of ‘on-task’ were different for teachers at different levels of moral reasoning. Those teachers who were perceived to be at the lower levels of moral reasoning, ‘on-task’ meant working on the assignment given by the teacher, and whether children were ‘on-task’ was decided by teachers’ observing their students’ behaviors. However, those teachers who were perceived to be at the higher levels of moral reasoning, ‘on-task’ tasks were defined differently for each child, depending on the student’s characteristics and on the teacher’s responses to the students.

Empirical findings reveal that moral reasoning is significantly related to teachers’ conceptualizations of student discipline, teacher’s roles, curriculum, and educational issues. It is the moral reasoning that values and relates to the teacher’s relationship with students and to the intellectual and moral atmosphere of their classes. This implies that morality among children is dependant upon to what extent the values allow teachers to reason about teaching issues more thoroughly and fundamentally, and thus to see the essential dimension of teaching.

To the gateway of moral development of our youth, one of the contributing factors to the educational crisis, today, is that many professional theologians in moral and elementary education including those of religious institutes have been largely indifferent to what happens in Sunday schools as if they are beneath their notice. Few institutes provide adequate instruction in education, particularly in the basics of teacher training and leadership education that provoke the true significance of morals among our children. The result is that many graduates have little or no idea of how to go about equipping the little saints, although they may feel well equipped themselves to teach, counsel, and administer school programs.

Based on the above-discussed concept what it takes to be a responsible teacher, is the understanding of our morals and values. This way teachers with advanced moral reasoning can be more empathic to students’ needs and more willing to facilitate students’ growth by respect and teaching them not only students’ rights but human rights and the true reason to become a morally responsible citizens of our society. A responsible teacher avoids taking students’ disputes personally and is more objective when dealing with problems caused by students. This causes the students to value and respect what they learn from their elders.

One cannot ignore the fact that today the quality of the educational program in any school is determined largely by the quality of the teaching staff. Public schools being well aware of this, instead of relying upon certification and evaluations must get a hold on what today’s society is confronting – the problem of lack of moral values. Only this way our teachers would help our children to identify their true values of being moral.

References

1. Juengst Sara covin, (1998) Equipping the Saints: Teacher Training in the Church: Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY.
2. Macleod, M. Colin & Archard David, (2002) The Moral and Political Status of Children: Oxford University Press: Oxford, England.
3. Rest, R. James & Narvaez Darcia, (1994) Moral Development in the Professions: Psychology and Applied Ethics: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ.
4. Singer, J. Alan, (2003) Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach: A Handbook for Secondary School Teachers: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ.
5. Thomas, R. Murray, (1997) Moral Development Theories Secular and Religious: A Comparative Study: Greenwood Press: Westport, CT.