Educational Values

The Q Sort framework (Atha, 2018, para. 13) was an interesting little exercise that provided some animated conversations!  The selected participants included myself, two colleagues not at my current school and two people who are not involved in the education system.  Each participant group included one female and one male participant to ensure multiple perspectives were represented.

Same/Different

For all the participants who completed the Q-Sort Score Sheet, developing intellectual potential came out as the most important educational value for public schools.  This seems an obvious choice given that the focus is education.  I did expect a difference on this most important category given that there is so much media focus on what the school system is not doing to prepare students for real things in life.  Education is a head-and-heart business where people understand that learning is a mental task but want their child treated with a heart approach—tough to balance, at times, knowing that children must be brought into that uncomfortable zone where learning happens.

After this first category, every other element was slightly different.  The women favoured the areas of developing character such as developing student emotional stability (8), developing positive social relationships (6), and cooperating through teamwork (4).  The male perspective promoted competing with others (1) over cooperation (4) and preparing career skills (9) over emotional stability (8).  This seems to fit with how male teachers approach the job of teaching vs. how female teachers nurture their students in the classroom.

Agree/Differ

Since we all agreed that public schools should focus on developing intellectual potential as the priority of their mandate, it seems obvious that the rest of the items were ordered according to out value systems.  Valuing competition (1) reduces the likelihood of cooperation, teamwork, social relationships being as important as individual development (5).  Debating these elements was helpful in that the logic and rationalization for individual preferences seemed to stem from their personal experiences as well as their current professional pedagogical perspectives.

The male participant not in education had a sales background in big business; this environment apparently fosters a lot of competition and individual development to stand out and receive bonuses as well as promotions.  Business is not the same as the inner structures of education.  All the teachers put emotional stability of students (8) as Middle or Next Most Important; it is a very relevant and highly prioritized part of our every day practice since the number of students diagnosed with anxiety disorders and irrational behaviour at school is on the rise.

Values, Views, and Visions

Discussing educational ideals with colleagues is very different than discussing education emphases with non-teaching participants. All the females who completed the Q-Sort were mothers which seemed to focus their answers toward the more relational aspects of the sort (4, 6, 8) as well as the element of ensuring a well-organized, orderly environment (7).  This appears logical and ordinary to me since we have all spent time teaching children how to get along with others as a necessary life and job character trait.  Competing with others (1) was low for the women and significantly higher for the men.  Politically correct statements were made in relation to the goals for girls and boys regarding education and how those goals would drive decisions parents and schools make within BC’s public schools.  Education seems to be both a personal and political venue at the same time.

While all the participants spoke to the value of education, each participant had various reactions to the effectiveness of public education in its current focus and differed greatly in the middle to least important range.  These differences led to discussions about what needs to change in the public-school education approach and why many people choose private or independent education for their children.  Since none of the participants who agreed to participate in my Q-Sort request had attended independent schools nor chose to send their children to tuition-required schools, it is an element that would be considered in this Q-Sort.  Would independent school participants provide different answers or sort the elements of this Q-Sort differently?

Proviso: I am the only one who had selected a private school for their child even though I am a public-school teacher. When I moved to the Fraser Valley from my small northern town, my daughter and I chose a private school for her to complete her Grade 11 and 12 years.  This seemed prudent with all the enormous changes I was requiring of her when we moved just after she turned 16.

References

Atha, D. (2018).  Organizational information strategies. [Course Notes] Retrieved October 31, 2018 from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs501/week-4-post-4-4/