The aim of this conceptual investigation is to reclaim
the ethics of teaching through a critical examination of
some recent accounts of good practice in teaching and by advancing
an alternative account. Many recent accounts
of good practice focus on concepts such as
professionalism, competence and reflective practice. In
some of these accounts, the ethical dimension of teaching
is central and explicit; in others, it is only implicit;
in yet others, it is distorted or even ignored. This
inattention to ethics in theoretical accounts is
paralleled in practice by teachers' failure to understand
teaching as a moral enterprise, as is exemplified by
responses of teachers to some of the teaching problems
that they encounter.
This research gives an alternative account of teaching as
a practice through using Alasdair MacIntyre's conception
of a practice. Key term in MacIntyre's conception are
internal and external goods, standards of excellence and
virtue. It is shown that the acquisition of the goods
internal rather than the goods external to teaching is
necessary but not sufficient for a flourishing practice
of teaching. The conception of teaching as a practice is
also used in this investigation to reflect on the roles
of teachers as specified by the new Norms and Standards
Teacher Education in South Africa. If well understood,
the roles of teachers are not made up of mere lists of
tasks and competences. The notion of teachers' roles
opens the way for reclaiming an ethics of teaching.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/14687 |
| Date | 20 May 2014 |
| Creators | Mafeka, Mahali |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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