Dowling College EDU304 Philosophy of Education

First Paper

Due by midnight on Tuesday March 11. Even if you have not completed your paper by class, do NOT miss class. If you find you are having difficulties writing your paper, contact me to let me know and I will help you.

Papers must be submitted in an electronic form. I prefer you to do so using Turnitin.com (the class ID is 60925, and the password is "dewey"), but you can instead email me a copy of your paper in Word or RTF as an attachment, or give me a copy of your paper on disk. You can if you want also give me a hard copy.

Any form of plagiarism or academic dishonesty is unacceptable and may result in you failing the course and being reported to the Dean of Students. Plagiarism is using sources in the writing of your paper without acknowledging your sources. It is often a good idea to use other sources, but if you do so, you must say where you found information, either in parentheses or in a footnote. If you quote directly or copy text from another source, you must put the quotation in quotation marks and say exactly where it comes from, giving page numbers or the exact URL. I don’t require any particular reference format, but APA format is a good one to use. (For more information on reference formats, the Dowling College Library website has a page on the Citation and Evaluation of Sources.)

The paper should be about 4 pages/ ~1200 words.

Answer ONE of these questions:

1. Aristotle writes in the Nichomachean Ethics that "Excellence or virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral, intellectual excellence owes its birth and growth mainly to teaching, and so requires time and experience, while moral excellence is the result of habit or custom" (Gutek, p 15). Focus on a particular kind of teaching to a particular age group and discuss what combination of intellectual and moral virtues are involved in being an excellent teacher. Discuss what implications Aristotle's views would have for the training of teachers today and then discuss whether you think it would be a good idea to use his ideas as a guide to the training of teachers. Explain and justify your answer. You should pay careful attention to the arguments Aristotle makes for his views and show your understanding of them in your answer.

2. Basing your answer on the Scenarios in Chapter 4 of Jacobsen, discuss what behaviors of teachers and/or students illustrate the views of education or understanding the world that were advocated by Bacon and Aristotle. Discuss whether knowledge of these philosophers sheds any useful light on teaching methods, and if so, be clear how. If not, then explain why not.