Number of Pages 5

This research paper: This is a 5 page paper discussing teacher’s classroom experience and roles in papers by Locke, Counts and Egan. Three educational philosophy papers by John Locke (1693), George S. Counts (1932) and Kieran Egan (1986) develop different reactions in regards to their concepts of the role and responsibility of the teacher’s role or experience within the classroom. Firstly, Locke proposes that it is primarily the teacher’s responsibility to be a virtuous, wise, and well-bred role model in order for the children to properly be educated within society. While Locke believed that teaching should be more than authoritarian and that cognitively children may learn just as effectively through play than structured teaching, the role of the teacher and teacher selection was very important in regards to social responsibility. George S. Counts also saw the enormous role of responsibility of the teachers on the social development of the students. Counts basically advocated the imposition of teachers’ values in order to ultimately look toward improving society through the social education of the children. While both Locke and Counts realized the potentials of children and that there were too many restrictions within the educational system, overall the responsibility to form children into responsible social citizens was largely the role of the educators however their theories remained largely philosophical. Egan, on the other hand, believes that the traditional expectations of the educational system are “irrational” and “incompatible” arguing: how can teachers advocate opening the minds of their students by imposing their own ideals upon them. For Egan, the teachers’ role is to allow the students to learn through abstract thought, previously thought too cognitively advanced for young children. Egan offers “story telling” components which can be used in a practical sense in teaching. Regardless of the basis for each theory, all three writings promote the importance of the teachers within the process of learning not only those elements of the curriculum which are expected but the development of the cognitive mind of children and the various ways in which this can be best approached within the educational system. All three also write of the restrictiveness of the educational systems of their time; a complaint which has been consistent for over 300 years as originally expressed by Locke. Bibliography lists 3 sources.

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