Teaching and the role of caring: Essential for a sustainable future

• In Event: Evidence-based decision making in education
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Teachers and teacher education for equity and development

Proposal

Upon googling the term “caring profession”, the answer box displays the following information: noun—"a job that involves taking care of other people, such as nursing, teaching, or social work.” However, teaching has become so focused on rigid curriculum and high-stakes testing that the endless list of things to do overshadows the practice of care (Wilde, 2013; Narinasamy & Mamat, 2013; Cooper, 2004). Hayes, Ryan & Zseller (1994) make the following observation of practices that further complicate the notion of teaching as a caring profession: “Teachers are generally limited in their contacts with students to prescribed and pressured communications determined by achievement tests and curriculum demands. Large class sizes, many short periods, and isolation of teachers also contribute to the emotional vacancy of schools…” (p. 2). This is an international phenomenon affecting students and educators the world over.

Moves to place national educational standards over fostering human beings who can positively contribute to developing sustainable societies are contrary to the historical concepts of teaching that situate it as a caring profession with an eye on the world we leave to our descendants. While public schools in the United States have strayed far away from the centrality of care within the teaching profession—both for students and our environment, the philosophy of Soka education upholds the principles of teaching as a caring profession, focusing on the human being and helping each individual to discover his or her importance as a contributing member to society, who has value and can create value in society. A key component of Soka education is the quality of the relationship between student and teacher. The teacher’s genuine concern for the student and the teacher’s efforts to address the needs and develop the character and potential of each student is paramount. Additionally, the philosophy of Soka education is grounded in the idea that education should place children’s authentic lifelong happiness as its central goal and strive to make “the best interests of the child” central to the theory and practice of education (Ikeda, 2010).

Ultimately, care is a central element in education that has been woefully neglected for several decades of US public schooling (Hayes et al., 1994), as well as in many countries who have developed similar educational models. Noddings (1995/2007) remarks that, “caring for students is fundamental in teaching and that developing people with a strong capacity for care is a major objective of responsible education” (p. 4). Putting principles of Soka education in conversation with the Western mode of teaching grounded in neoliberal economic policies can help the profession reclaim its true purpose of caring for students, while also fostering within students the value and importance of developing societies grounded in principles of sustainability. This paper is a comparative analysis that puts US pre-service teacher education in conversation with principles of Soka educational philosophy as applied in teacher professional development in Brazil, in order to clarify best practices to foster teachers who have the capacity and desire to be change-agents for a sustainable future.

References:
Cooper, B. (2004, September). Empathy, interaction and caring: Teachers' roles in a constrained environment. Pastoral Care, 12-21.
Hayes, C. B., Ryan, A., & Zseller, E. B. (1994, November). The middle school child's perceptions of caring teachers. American Journal of Education, 103(1), 1-19.
Ikeda, D. Soka Education: For the happiness of the individual. Santa Monica, California: Middleway Press, 2010.
Narinasamy, I., & Mamat, W. H. (2013, December 26). Caring teacher in developing empathy in moral education. The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Science, 1(1), 1-19.
Noddings, N. (2007). Teaching themes of care. In B. Lerner, & L. K. Terry, Character (Vol. 14, pp. 1-5). Boston, MA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Character Education Network and Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character at the School of Education at Boston University.
Wilde, S. (2013). Care in education: Teaching with understanding and compassion. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis

Authors

• Vicki G Mokuria, Texas A&M University

• Diana Wandix-White, Texas A&M University