Lately I've been wrestling with the idea educational objectives. While I understand the need for goals and a road map of where you're going (lest you never reach your destination), the idea of making education prescriptive doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
During my pre-service teaching training, I remember coming across a theory of reading about how what we get out of the reading experience depends a lot on what we bring to it. (If I could remember who's theory it was and what it was called, I'd happily include it here.) In the information processing model, this component is referred to as perception and colors everything we learn. To me, that seems a better explanation and approach to education than the prescriptive, objectives approach.
To avoid misunderstanding, let me clearly state that I'm not proposing that we get rid of objectives entirely. However, rethinking how we use them might be very useful. As Eisner suggests, perhaps we should focus more on the experiences students need to grow instead of specifying what each student should get as a result of instruction. Instead of ignoring perception and the way it affects learning, perhaps we should embrace it as a tool useful in helping students.
During my pre-service teaching training, I remember coming across a theory of reading about how what we get out of the reading experience depends a lot on what we bring to it. (If I could remember who's theory it was and what it was called, I'd happily include it here.) In the information processing model, this component is referred to as perception and colors everything we learn. To me, that seems a better explanation and approach to education than the prescriptive, objectives approach.
To avoid misunderstanding, let me clearly state that I'm not proposing that we get rid of objectives entirely. However, rethinking how we use them might be very useful. As Eisner suggests, perhaps we should focus more on the experiences students need to grow instead of specifying what each student should get as a result of instruction. Instead of ignoring perception and the way it affects learning, perhaps we should embrace it as a tool useful in helping students.
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