Kevin Moroney - Educational Philosophy Revised

DE EV VE EL LO OP PI IN NG G CH HI IL LD DR RE EN NF FO OR R FU UT TU UR RE E SU UC CC CE ES SS S
My Mission
To reverse the trend of factory model education and return to an instructional paradigm that emphasizes the learning needs and styles of individual students. To serve as a conduit and an inspiration for student learning. To create an environment where success is an entitlement, not a luxury.
My Philosophy
Excerpted from Bring on the Learning Revolution by Sir Ken Robinson, TED Global, 2006: Round the world, there were no systems of public education before the 19th century. They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialization Our education system has mined our mines, in the way we have strip-mined the earth, for a particular commodity. And for the future, it wont serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we are educating our children. See the full video presentation at: http://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY
Excerpted from The Effect of Mastery Learning on Student Achievement and Engagement by Kevin Moroney (EDU 609, 2013, internal citations omitted): In the early part of the 20th century, the number of children being served by schools dramatically increased, and the mass-production and assembly-line paradigms of an increasingly industrial society came to influence the delivery system for education. This new approach is often called the factory model of education. The metaphor of the factory is appropriate in many ways. Students passed through the system in a more-or-less continuous flow, receiving standardized courses in a cookie-cutter manner, designed to produce a uniform product in the end. The goal was efficiency and effectiveness in meeting the challenges of a growing nation. It was in the latter criterion effectiveness that the factory analogy breaks down. As it turned out, the quality controls that kept factories from producing
defective goods were not in place in the nations schools. As a result, schools manufactured both qualified and unqualified graduates. An additional deviation from the successful business model used in mass production facilities was the shift from the consumer needs to supplier needs that is, changing the focus from the cognitive and performance needs of the students preparing to go into the world to the limited resources available within the schools that were supposed to train them. Individualized instruction and remediation, as well as the goal of universal mastery, yielded to the unfortunate realities of the system.
My educational philosophy developed from a desire to reverse this trend. Over a period of several years, through exposure to and experience with an effective alternative to the factory model, I adopted a retro approach to teaching: Mastery Learning. The methodology of Mastery Learning restores not only humanity to the classroom but also the quality controls that were lost in the age of mass-produced, assembly-line students. The principles I learned through trying to adapt my teaching to the needs of my students, instead of the other way around, helped me develop a set of core values, beliefs and practices that serve me as both an educator and an individual. Here are three main concepts and the incorporated strategies that best exemplify my teaching philosophy.
I teach people, not subject matter.

As a special educator, I am licensed by my student population, not by my subject area. While my job is to impart specific knowledge and skills to the young adults who come my way, my profession is much broader than that. It requires me to look beyond the academic curricula to the people whove been assigned to learn them. Typically, these are youngsters who have been trying to learn the same material for as long as a decade, without a great deal of success. They may come in discouraged and disempowered. They may come in hating or dreading my class. They may come in frustrated and exasperated. But as long as they come, its my role to reach them. To accomplish this, I start from where the students are lead them incrementally where they need to go adapt the curriculum and the materials to their level address their attitudes as well as their skills set appropriate expectations demand success
Respect, Responsibility & Reality: the 3 (more critical) Rs in the classroom

Reading, writing, and arithmetic are useful (even essential) skills, but without respect, responsibility, and reality, they fall far short of preparing students for life after high school. The development of the students abilities to cope with the adult world is an integral part of the teachers role in both the classroom and the community. Some might call this character education and claim it is the exclusive purview of parents and preachers. But I believe that these 3 Rs are an integral part of classroom management, instruction, and motivation. Respect. It is impossible to teach students who dont respect you, and it is impossible to gain their respect without respecting them first. Respect does not always involve agreement or acceptance, but it always involved acknowledgement or validation of someones place in the world. I believe in teaching my young adult students in a way that empowers, enlightens, and encourages them to be better. To that end, I Respect their rights Respect their persons Respect their opinions Respect their experiences I then expect the same in return, meaning Respect for authority Respect for propriety Respect for other individuals Responsibility. Teaching responsibility is only partly about setting goals, tasks, and standards for the students to meet. It is just as much and often more about ensuring accountability for their choices and consequences in the face of such demands. The more a teacher models and expects responsible behavior, the more prepared the students will be to enter a world where status and position are earned (or lost) by this measure. I model and teach these truths: Responsible people keep their word. Responsible people meet their obligations.
Responsible people acknowledge their errors. Responsible people accept the consequences of their choices. Responsible people are good citizens in whatever group they join. Reality. It is a sad but true fact that, in a place where children are being prepared for life, they are often protected from some of the less pleasant aspects of reality. They are given E for effort or passed along with minimal proficiency in their assigned tasks. They are promoted due to age rather than ability. They are given second and third and sometimes fourth chances to respond to instruction or directives. And they come to believe these privileges and accommodations are entitlements, theirs by right. In the world outside academia, these children are at a distinct disadvantage. By the time they reach high school, they have as much to unlearn as learn. For this reason, I take a straight and sometimes hard line with my students about expectations, choices, and consequences. I pattern my classroom standards after the professional standards the students will be expected to adhere to when they leave secondary school. Job training is available. (This is not optional. Get it while its free.) Your work hours are set. Be here on time and prepared to work. We have a mission: get on board or get out of the way. Excellence pays better than mediocrity. You receive what you earn and lose what you forfeit. Choices have consequences sometimes immediate, sometimes harsh, and sometimes irreversible. At the managements discretion, second chances may be freely offered; third chances are expensive. Failure, like success, is a CHOICE. Working here is a privilege.
Learning is a process, not an outcome.

This principle is adapted from the adage that Life is not a destination but a journey. In the era of test stress (emphasis on test scores) rather than skill development, education has focused on outcomes rather than the processes and building blocks of learning. Many of my students come to me having walked the road of failure for so long that they know no other outcome, and no other process. My teaching philosophy is to make it my responsibility to fix
that to change I cant to I can and I can to I will. Part of this transformation is in the pedagogical method I use (the teach/test/re-teach/retest approach of mastery learning) and part of it is in the standards I apply (if you cant do it in 4 out of 5 attempts, you havent mastered the skill). Break down the skills into their smallest components and build great edifices from little stones. Take the time thats needed to teach, practice and reinforce the skill or knowledge. If at first they dont succeed, teach, teach again. If at first they dont succeed, test, test again. If they can do it 3 out of 4 times, they can do it 4 out of 5 times. Never settle for less. Build new skills and knowledge on a solid foundation of prior learning. Never let them forget prior lessons; it sends the message that it was useless in the first place.

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DE EV VE EL LO OP PI IN NG G CH HI IL LD DR RE EN NF FO OR R FU UT TU UR RE E SU UC CC CE ES SS S

I teach people, not subject matter.

Respect, Responsibility & Reality: the 3 (more critical) Rs in the classroom

Learning is a process, not an outcome.

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