Verly

• Education


  The act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life
• Philosophy


  The systematic and critical study of fundamental questions that arise both in everyday life and through the practice of other disciplines. Some of these questions concern the nature of reality
• Teaching-learning Process


  Combined processes where an educator assesses learning needs, establishes specific learning objectives, develops teaching and learning strategies, implements plan of work and evaluates the outcomes of the instruction
• Leadership


  The art of motivating a group of people to act toward achieving a common goal. In a business setting, this can mean directing workers and colleagues with a strategy to meet the company's needs
• Educational Leadership


  A collaborative process that unites the talents and forces of teachers, students and parents. The goal of educational leadership is to improve the quality of education and the education system itself
• Carl Rogers: 'The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn …and change.'
• Education


  The wise, hopeful and respectful cultivation of learning undertaken in the belief that all should have the chance to share in life
• Education is often confused with schooling
• Schooling


  Trying to drill learning into people according to some plan often drawn up by others
• Education


  A process of inviting truth and possibility, of encouraging and giving time to discovery
• Education


  A social process - 'a process of living and not a preparation for future living'
• Educators


  Look to act with people rather on them. Their task is to educe (related to the Greek notion of educere), to bring out or develop potential
• Characteristics of education


  • Deliberate and hopeful
  • Informed, respectful and wise
  • Grounded in a desire that all may flourish and share in life
• Learning


  Both a process and an outcome
• Developments in neuroscience have shown how learning takes place both in the body and as a social activity</b>
• Intention in education


  We act with a purpose - to develop understanding and judgement, and enable action
• Hope in education


  An emotion, a choice or intention, and an intellectual activity
• Education that leaves a child without hope is an education that has failed
• Being respectful in education


  Valuing truth, others and themselves, and the world. Responding with recognition and regard
• Being informed in education


  Seeking to understand the world and people, not just accumulate facts
• Being wise in education

  Developing good judgement and the ability to make sound decisions
• Respect


  Derived from the Latin respicere, meaning 'to look back at' or 'to look again' at something. When we respect something we value it enough to make it our focus and to try to see it for what it is, rather than what we might want it to be.
• Respect calls for our recognition and our regard – and we choose to respond
• When we think highly of someone we may well talk about respecting them – and listen carefully to what they say or value the example they give
• Moral worth or value

  Rather than looking at why we respect this person or that, the interest is in why we should respect people in general (or truth, or creation, or ourselves)
• Educators


  • They should hold truth dearly, look beneath the surface, try to challenge misrepresentation and lies, and be open to alternatives
  • They should display the 'two basic virtues of truth': sincerity and accuracy
• Bearing false witness, within Christian traditions

  Can be seen as challenging the foundations of God's covenant
• Truthfulness


  Allows us to trust strangers and build complex societies, trade and cooperate
• Educators as respecters of truth

  • They should do their best to acquire 'true beliefs' and to ensure what they say actually reveals what they believe
  • Their authority must be rooted in their truthfulness
• Educators


  • They should display a fundamental respect for others (and themselves)
  • People are deserving of some essential level of regard irrespective of what they have done, the people they are or their social position
• Self-respect


  It is to do with our intrinsic worth as a person and a sense of ourselves as mattering. It involves a 'secure conviction that [our] conception of the good, [our] plan of life, is worth carrying out'
• Educators


  • They should respect the Earth, sometimes talked about as respect for nature, or respect for all things or care for creation
• Respect for the world is central to the thinking of those arguing for a more holistic vision of education and to the thinking of educationalists such as Montessori
• We face an environmental crisis of catastrophic proportions, with a likely global average rise of over four degrees Centigrade leading to runaway climate change
• Facilitation


  To facilitate learning we must have some understanding of the subject matter being explored, and the impact study could have on those involved
• We expect that when people describe themselves as teachers or educators, they know something about the subjects they are talking about
• Wisdom


  A quality recognized by others, where people have experienced their questions or judgement helpful and sound when exploring a problem or difficult situation
• Wisdom


  • Appreciating what can make people flourish
  • Being open to truth in its various guises and allowing subjects to speak to us
  • Developing the capacity to reflect
  • Being knowledgeable, especially about ourselves, around 'what makes people tick' and the systems of which we are a part
  • Being discerning – able to evaluate and judge situations
• Education should be undertaken in the belief that all should have the chance to share in life
• Where there are equitable relationships, control over the learning process, and the possibilities of fundamental change we needn't look beyond the process. However, we have to work for much of the time in situations and societies where this level of democracy and social justice does not exist.