Blending Education with Culture
by Human beings are not only born into a physical environment which consists of the earth, water, sky, sound texture, color, light and so on, but also into a cultural environment. this cultural environment consists, in part, of the tools, instruments, building and other material objects which man has made out of his physical environment for his comfort and use. It consists, also, of the meaning which the knowledge, institutions, social practices, symbolic systems, and all other creations of man. In short, the culture consists of the man –made parts of our environment as contrasted with all the objects and things that would exist even if man did not. If we refer to all the elements of a cultural system.
Both materials and methods of instruction are taken from the culture. the statements of fact, theories , laws and social , moral and aesthetic norms together with all other elements of school subject matter are selected from the culture. Methods of teaching and method s of classroom control is to be used in a specific case at a specific time, the methods of control that are regularly employed in the discipline of children in the school should be those that are used extensively in society at large. If the teacher understands the relation of the various methods of control to the traditions and aspirations of the people , he is better able to make wise decisions in matters of classroom management and discipline. It is important for example , whether or not reason and persuasion are more highly prized in a society than coercion and punishment. In a society that used authority and coercion for social control, the teacher will ( if he is concerned with preparing his students for participation in that society) use authority and coercion in the classroom.
On the other hand, in a society that relies upon reason and persuasion , the classroom methods of social control should, logically, also employ reason and persuasion. Decisions about the control of students in the school can not, then, be made satisfactorily without consideration of their effects upon the character of the students. And within a generation, the character produced will affect the system of social controls operating in society. In the same manner , methods of teaching are reflections of the modes of learning and thinking current outside of the school, and the stress upon some specific method of teaching will in turn affect the ways in which people subsequently think and learn in their life activities.
Thus the school and the culture are in extricably interwoven. The wise teacher will understand not only this relationship but also the basic culture in which his pupils must live.
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