On Pedagogical Reasoning: Towards A More Meaningful Classroom Interaction

By Puput Arfiandhani

Woodlands Special School Students                                (Photo credit: Nottingham Post – http://www.nottinghampost.com/Remarkable-revival-special-school/story-20740762-detail/story.html)

A couple of weeks ago, I got a chance visiting two schools: Woodlands Special School and Burford Primary School in the city I currently am living, Nottingham, UK. While also doing a cultural sharing, my team mates – Dario and Emma, and I were lucky enough to be able to experience a bit of how interaction happened between teacher and the students. While the student-teacher interaction outside the classroom somehow was pretty much similar with in Indonesia – tend to be generally casual, warm and friendly, but the interaction during the teaching process was quite different. It was especially when I was in Woodland special school. The students were beyond my expectation. They could easily recall what had just been taught, could creatively answer our questions on what they thought about the culture we shared, and could manage to complete the task that was the same with the one to the primary school students.

One of the things that still linger in my mind was when a 10 y. o. student in Woodlands Special School asked me about why I wore headscarf. Despite having been facing the same question from various many people, I was startled by this kid’s question and was unable to spontaneously find proper simple way of answering. The classroom teacher, who happened to be a Muslim herself, then explained patiently the whole story about religion as well as why I wore headscarf and why she did not, regardless the fact that we shared the same belief. This willingness to explain thoroughly in a simple manner was what I found different. I personally myself may find it challenging to get accustomed to give a sound explanation for all students’ questions.

This teacher’s act of performing pedagogical reasoning is an essential aspect for a more meaningful teaching and learning process. It provides not only the ‘what’ but also the ‘why’; the latter seems to be forgotten in a lot of cases. It is important to develop students’ thorough understanding of the concept rather than storing in facts through rote-memorization. This ‘classroom customs’ becomes one of the main challenges that teachers need to face within Indonesian education system in Indonesia. Thus, trainings of applying this pedagogical reasoning skill are needed, be it in the pre-service or in-service teacher trainings.

As stated by Fenstermacher (1978, 1986) in Shulman (1987), the aim of teacher education is not to indoctrinate or train teachers to behave in prescribed ways, but to educate teachers to give a sound reasoning about their teaching as well as to perform the teaching skillfully. It implies that rather than demanding a mere memorization, critical thinking is needed to give reasoning towards the material being taught. The awareness of the importance of this skill will indirectly encourage the future teachers to deepen their knowledge about the material they learn. It can increase both their curiosity to learn more and more as well as awareness that this deeper understanding of the subject matter will be beneficial in their future teaching and learning conduct. As pointed by Cornbleth (1985), it is therefore, a dynamic process of questioning and reasoning, of raising and pursuing questions about our own and others’ claims and conclusions, definitions and evidence, beliefs and action.

It will help them to survive with people’s different perspectives and to adjust to new situations and beliefs. At the same time, critical thinking skill can help them to build a better understanding of their beliefs. They will stand on a firmer ground of philosophy about any perspective they choose. Further stated by Pacino (2008), teachers and other educators have a responsibility to create teaching and learning environments that foster a democratic exchange of ideas based on mutual respect, reflection as informed decision-making. As a consequence, students will not only get a dogmatic understanding and one single perspective, but rather they will be more open to different perspectives. They will learn to reason all things so that when they decide to believe in something, they will have better understanding over the situation.

To sum up, while students’ abundant questions might sometimes be ‘annoying’ and ‘waste’ the limited allotted lesson time, giving sound logical answers to fulfill students’ curiosity is a huge long-term investment to foster critical thinking within a more meaningful classroom interaction.

Reference

Cornbleth, C. (1985). Critical Thinking and Cognitive Processes. In W. B. Stanley (Ed.). Review of Research in Social Studies Education: 1976-1983 (p. 13). Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies.

Pacino, M. A. (2008). Reflections on Equality, Diversity and Schooling. Maryland: Hamilton Books.

Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations of The New Reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1-22.

About the author

Puput Arfiandhani is currently an MA in TESOL student at the University of Nottingham. Prior to her postgraduate study, she was a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, assisting Indonesian language classes at Yale University. She is interested in the issues of language policy, intercultural communication, materials evaluation and motivation. While escaping from her MA life, you will find her cooking, blogging, reading, or laughing out loud at Big Bang Theory.