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Essay / Teaching Intellectual Virtues Through Successful Intelligence
The mission statement of Nolan Catholic High School in Fort Worth, Texas is "To provide a college-preparatory education and evangelize students to be leaders servants of tomorrow through education in faith, formation in hope and perseverance in charity. It is evident that the goal of the school is not only to educate the student academically, but to educate the child as a whole. This type of mission statement is present in Catholic schools across the country and the world, but how does it translate into the classroom? If you ask a Catholic school teacher how they educate the whole child, they might respond, “I model acceptance and love in my classroom.” » While these are excellent practices to incorporate into the classroom, they are not necessarily grounded in appropriate pedagogy to achieve the ultimate goal of educating the whole child. Of course, the education of the whole child should include love and embody service, but teachers do not directly teach students what it means to be a good learner. Teachers in Catholic schools must also help students develop the types of characteristics that lifelong learners embody. These characteristics are called intellectual virtues and, more often than not, are not an obvious part of classroom teaching. Catholic and classical education support the idea that it is appropriate to teach intellectual values directly in the classroom. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayIn 1852, John Newman's Idea of a University stated that the aim of education should be "to apprehend ] the broad outlines of knowledge, the principles on which it rests, the scale of its parts, its lights and its shadows, its large and small…” and by acquiring this knowledge, “a habit of mind is formed which lasts throughout life, whose attributes are, freedom, fairness, calm, moderation and wisdom. Here, it is evident that Newman believes that a deep and well-rounded education includes the development of habits that enable students to learn beyond the classroom. Moving to classical education, Aristotle identified five primary intellectual virtues that reveal truth to the human mind: deduction/induction, good reasoning, prudence, initiation, and wisdom (1893). He believed that these virtues were acquired through time and experience but that it was important to also have examples from which to draw inspiration. This is where the teacher comes in. Intellectual virtues are an area that has been thoroughly explored in the field of educational philosophy and psychology. Suggestions from various modern psychologists on what it means to integrate intellectual virtues into the classroom will be explored in addition to a triarchic theory that divides intelligence into three different domains. The intention of this article is to merge the two into a claim that has never been published before: Robert Sternberg's theory of successful intelligence is nothing less than an explicit teaching of intellectual virtues. To begin to determine where the emphasis on the integration of intellectual virtues should lie, it is important to become familiar with John Dewey's perspective in The Child and the Curriculum (1902). In this publication, Dewey, an American philosopher and psychologist, examines the conflict between two educational approaches. The dichotomy between teaching the curriculum and teaching the child plagued the nation in the early 1900s. The development and knowledge of achildren are very different from those of adults. Their perspective is drawn to their observable world, but they are curious and learn through experience while building connections with those around them. This encourages self-realization and, therefore, the child is to some extent educated both academically and morally. The requirements of a curriculum-driven learning environment are specific and mastery-oriented. Active experience with the material is limited to the extent that truths are revealed through study. Dewey goes on to assert that the program and the child are not two distinct entities but rather “two boundaries that define a single process” (1902). That being said, Dewey would likely have supported the idea that children have the innate potential to acquire intellectual virtues through experience, but it also requires an explicit pedagogical structure to teach them as well. If there is a history in Catholic and classical education for teaching these virtues reinforced by Dewey, it is crucial to understand what exactly the training of intellectual agents looks like in the classroom. “The training of excellent intellectual agents is clearly the business. schools and parents,” Roberts and Wood state in breaking down the framework of intellectual virtues in a school environment (2007). Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge and the rationality of beliefs. From this definition, epistemic goods can be defined as the goal of intellectual life. If a person enjoys knowledge and views it as a good to be acquired, they are more likely to look for ways to actively engage and understand the material. A science classroom is an ideal setting for this knowledge-seeking effort, as collaboration and humility are abundant throughout the academic journey. An attraction to academics and a willingness to persevere in a difficult context are virtues that students often bring to the classroom, but to access the subjects they rely on, faculties such as memory and deduction. Students bring a wide diversity of faculties into the classroom with varying levels of executive functioning, it is up to the teacher to guide students in using their faculties to their fullest potential. Finally, through the lens of Roberts and Wood, the accumulation and use of these virtues is identified as a practice. Practices related to intellectual virtues are the “medium of intellectual life” (2007) and dictate what is pursued throughout the academic career. This raises the question: “Should the teacher radically and explicitly modify his or her interactions and curriculum to foster an environment in which epistemic goods are accessible through intellectual virtues?” Not necessarily. Using the work of Roberts and Woods, one could argue that the intentional and compassionate teaching practices of Catholic school teachers are sufficient. For example, when a student answers a question incorrectly, "the teacher can express the virtues of empathy, attention, courage, love of knowledge, humility and patience by remaining a little more with the student for a long time, trying to bring out more thinking in him. on the question and its answer” (2007). Moving forward, Jason Baehr delves deeper into identifying and implementing intellectual virtues in the classroom. Previously, epistemic goods were defined as the goal of intellectual life. Baehr would define this even more specifically, saying that the pursuit of epistemic goods embodies the way in which intellectual character serves as a "dimension of the self where function..