The purpose of education is to bring about changes in the students
in all aspects namely mentally, physically, morally and spiritually. The Ignatian
Pedagogy Paradigm is an immense help in winning the minds and hearts of our new
generation.
This is essential to
meet the local and global challenges facing individuals today. It challenges the students and the
teachers to discern the meaning and relevance of what they are learning based
on values. This process is made possible by Ignatian
Pedagogical Model of Teaching (IPM).
MEANING OF
IGNATIAN PEDAGOGY
Pedagogy is the way in which teachers
accompany learners in their growth and development. Pedagogy, the art and
science of teaching, cannot simply be reduced to methodology. It must include a
world view and a vision of the ideal human person to be educated. These provide
the goal, the end towards which all aspects of an educational tradition are
directed. They also provide criteria for choices of means to be used in the
process of education.
THE MAIN
OBJECTIVES ARE:
1. To form men and women for others.
2. To facilitate full growth of a person
leading to action that is based on sound and
understanding and enlivened by
contemplation.
3. To form men and women of competence,
conscience and compassionate
commitment.
4. To pursue the all-round development of
students to the full measure of their
talents.
5. To urge students to self- discipline
and initiative, to integrity and accuracy.
6. To develop focused and in- depth
thinking.
7. To develop commitment to excellence
through continuous reflection.
Difference between
Traditional & IPP Methods:
Traditional Learning Paradigm
focuses on memory skills in students and contains only:
Ø Experience
Ø Action
There is no explicit formational consideration in it (human
dimensions or implications of what they are studying)
The major
difference between IPP and traditional education is its insistence that
teachers add reflection between experience and action whenever appropriate in
the learning process.
EXPERIENCE → REFLECTION →
ACTION
EXPERIENCE
Teacher creates the conditions
whereby students gather and recollect the material of their own experience in
order to distill what they understand already in terms of facts, feelings,
values, insights and intuitions they bring to the subject matter at hand. Later
the teacher guides the students in assimilating new information and further
experience so that their knowledge will grow in completeness and truth.
REFLECTION.
The
teacher lays the foundations for learning how to learn by engaging students in
skills and techniques of REFLECTION. Here memory, understanding, imagination
and feelings are used to grasp the essential meaning and value of what is being
studied, to discover its relationship to other facts of human knowledge and
activity, and to appreciate its implications in the continuing search for
truth. Reflection should be a formative and liberating process that so shapes
the consciousness of students their habitual attitudes, values and beliefs as
well as ways of thinking that they are impelled to move beyond knowing to
ACTION.
ACTION
It is then the role of the teacher to see
that the opportunities are provided that will challenge the imagination and
exercise the will of the students to choose the best possible course of action
to flow from and follow up on what they have learned. What they do as a result
under the teacher's direction, while it may not immediately transform the world
into a global community of justice, peace and love, should at least be an
educational step in that direction and toward that goal even if it merely leads
to new experiences, further reflections and consequent actions within the
subject area under consideration.
ABOUT THIS MODEL
The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm comprises
three main elements: experience, reflection and action. For such a learning
process to be successful, it must include a pre- learning element, that of
context, and a post-learning, that of evaluation.
1. CONTEXT
OF LEARNING:
This
is concerned with all the factors that help or hinder the leaning process. From
the administrators and teachers points of view this means.
i)
Personal knowledge of and care
for the student by the teacher.
ii)
A conducive environment for
learning and growth in commitment to values
From the students’ point of view, it is related to:
Readiness to learn and readiness to grow.
2. EXPERIENCE
for Ignatius meant
"to taste something internally." In the first place this calls for
knowing facts, concepts, principles. This requires one to probe the connotation
and overtones of words and events, to analyze and evaluate ideas, to reason. Only
with accurate comprehension of what is being considered can one proceed to
valid appreciation of its meaning. But Ignatian experience goes beyond a purely
intellectual grasp. Ignatius urges that the whole person --mind, heart and
will-- should enter the learning experience. He encourages use of the
imagination and the feelings as well as the mind in experience. Thus affective
as well as cognitive dimen-sions of the human person are involved, because
without internal feeling joined to intellectual grasp, learning will not move a
person to action.
Thus we use the term EXPERIENCE to describe
any activity in which in addition to a cognitive grasp of the matter being
considered, some sensation of an affective nature is registered by the student. In any experience, data
is perceived by the student cognitively. Through questioning, imagining,
investigating its elements and relationships, the student organizes this data
into a whole or a hypothesis. "What is this?" "Is it like
anything I already know?" "How does it work?"
At the beginning of new lessons, teachers
often perceive how students' feelings can move them to grow. For it is rare
that a student experiences something new in studies without referring it to
what he or she already knows. New facts, ideas, viewpoints, theories often
present a challenge to what the student understands at that point. This calls
for growth --a fuller understanding that may modify or change what had been
perceived as adequate knowledge. It disturbs a learner to know that he does not
fully comprehend. It impels a student to further probing for understanding
--analysis, comparison, contrast, synthesis, evaluation --all sorts of mental
and/or psychomotor activities wherein students are alert to grasp reality more
fully.
Human experience may be either direct or vicarious:
1. Direct experience
Direct experience usually is fuller, more
engaging of the person. Direct experience in an academic setting usually
occurs in interpersonal experiences such as conversations or discussions,
laboratory investigations, field trips, service projects, participation in
sports, and the like.
2.Vicarious experience
But in studies direct experience is not
always possible. Learning is often achieved through vicarious experience in
reading, or listening to a lecture. In order to involve students in the
learning experience more fully at a human level, teachers are challenged to
stimulate students' imagination and use of the senses precisely so that
stu-dents can enter the reality studied more fully. Historical settings,
assumptions of the times, cultural, social, political and economic factors
affecting the lives of people at the time of what is being studied need to be
filled out. Simulations, role playing, use of audio visual materials and the
like may be helpful.
3.REFLECTION:
For Ignatius to "
REFLECTION" was to clarify his internal motivation, to probe the
causes and implications of what he experienced, and to discover what best leads
to the desired goal: to be a free person who seeks, finds, and carries out the
will of God in each situation.
At this level of REFLECTION,
the memory, the understanding, the imagination and the feelings are used to
capture the meaning and the essential value of what is being studied, to
discover its relationship with other aspects of knowledge and human
activity, and to appreciate its implications in the ongoing search for
truth and freedom. This REFLECTION is a formative and liberating
process. It forms the conscience of learners (their beliefs, values, attitudes
and their entire way of thinking) in such a manner that they are led to move
beyond knowing, to undertake action. We use the term reflection to
mean a thoughtful reconsideration of some subject matter, experience, idea,
purpose or spontaneous reaction, in order to grasp its significance more fully.
Thus, reflection is the process by which meaning surfaces
in human experience:
.by
understanding the truth being studied more clearly.
For example, "What are the assumptions in this theory of the atom, in this
presentation of the history of native peoples, in this statistical analysis?
Are they valid; are they fair? Are other assumptions possible? How would the
presentation be different if other assumptions were made?"
• by
understanding the sources of the sensations or reactions I experience in
this consideration. For example, "In studying this short story, what
particularly interests me? Why?..." "What do I find troubling in this
translation? Why?"
•
by deepening my understanding of the implications of what I have grasped for
myself and for others. For example, "What likely effects might
environmental efforts to check the greenhouse effect have on my life, on that
of my family, and friends... on the lives of people in poorer countries?"
•
by achieving personal insights into events, ideas, truth or the distortion
of truth and the like. For example, "Most people feel that a more
equitable sharing of the world's resources is at least desirable, if not a
moral imperative. My own life style, the things I take for granted, may
contribute to the current imbalance. Am I willing to reconsider what I really
need to be happy?"
•
by coming to some understanding of who I am ("What moves me, and
why?") ... and who I might be in relation to others. For example,
"How does what I have reflected upon make me feel? Why? Am I at peace with
that reaction in myself? Why?... If not, why not?"
4.ACTION:
For Ignatius the acid test of
love is what one does, not what one says. "Love is shown in deeds, not
words." Ignatius was more concerned with the formation of
students' attitudes, values, ideals according to which they would make
decisions effectively to the welfare of society.
The term "Action" here refers to
internal human growth based upon experience that has been reflected upon as
well as its manifestation externally. It involves two steps:
1) Interiorized Choices.
q After reflection, the learner considers the experience from a
personal, human point of view. E.g., Clarification of one's priorities, making
the truth one's own and remaining open to where it might lead.
2) Choices Externally Manifested
In time, these meanings, attitudes, values which have been interiorized,
made part of the person, impel the student to act, to do something
consistent with this new conviction. For example, if the student now
appreciates the reasons for his or her lack of success in school work, the
student may decide to improve study habits in order to avoid repeated failure.
5. EVALUATION:
All teachers know that from time to time
it is important to evaluate a student's progress in academic achievement. Daily
quizzes, weekly or monthly tests and semester examinations are familiar
evaluation instruments to assess the degree of mastery of knowledge and skills
achieved. This type of feedback can alert the teacher to possible needs for use
of alternate methods of teaching; it also offers special opportunities to
individualize encouragement and advice for academic improvement (e.g. review of
study habits) for each student.
Ignatian pedagogy, however, aims at formation which includes but goes
beyond academic mastery. Here we are concerned about students' well-rounded
growth as persons for others. A teacher who is observant will perceive
indications of growth or lack of growth in class discussions, students'
generosity in response to common needs, etc. much more frequently.
CONCLUSION
The basic pedagogy of Ignatius can be an immense help in winning the
minds and hearts of new generations. For Ignatian pedagogy focuses upon
formation of the whole person, heart, mind and will, not just the intellect; it
challenges students to discernment of meaning in what they study through
reflection rather than rote memory; it encourages adaptation which demands
openness to growth in all of us. It de-mands that we respect the capacities of
students at varied levels of their growth; and the entire process is nurtured
in a school environment of care, respect and trust wherein the person can
honestly face the often painful challenges to being human with and for others.
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