Thinking Education: Personal Experiences and Educator's Understanding

This essay delves into the author's personal experiences as a learner in primary and secondary school, reflecting on the impact of political, social, and cultural forces on their education. It examines the curriculum, teaching methods, examinations, and value learning, highlighting both positive and negative aspects. The essay also emphasizes the importance of educators possessing a critical understanding of education and culture, discussing the negative impacts of dominant cultural and political influences and the positive outcomes of fostering a deeper understanding of diverse cultures. The author shares their expectations regarding learning, advocating for a more inclusive curriculum and opportunities for broader educational experiences. Overall, the essay underscores the crucial role of educators in shaping well-rounded individuals through learner-centric, unbiased teaching approaches.

Running head: Thinking education 0
THINKING EDUCATION

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Option 1...........................................................................................................................................2
a. Personal experiences as a learner in primary and secondary school............................................2
Impact of political and social forces............................................................................................2
Impact of cultural forces..............................................................................................................2
Value learning..............................................................................................................................3
Hidden curriculum.......................................................................................................................3
Examinations................................................................................................................................3
My learning..................................................................................................................................4
My personal expectations regarding learning..............................................................................4
b. Importance of a critical educational and cultural understanding for educators...........................4
Understanding of education and culture......................................................................................4
Negative impact of being influenced by dominant culture and politics......................................4
Importance of an advanced understanding of culture..................................................................5
Positive changes in learners and learning....................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
Reference list...................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
A clear understanding of education, society, culture and politics is highly needed especially for
the educators and teachers in order to impart a holistic and unbiased value based teaching and
guidance to the learners. So, this study focuses on two segments among which the first part deals
with my own personal experiences as a primary and secondary school learner. For that reason,
my experiences regarding the schooling, teaching, examinations, curriculum and more have been
recalled and recorded in this study. In addition, some impacts of social, political and cultural
forces have also been mentioned here as per my experiences. On the other hand, the study
includes a discussion on why the educators need to have a better understanding of education and
culture while teaching the learners. For that reason, the negative impact of some age old cultural
values has been illuminated that affects not only the learning but also the lives of the learners.
Moreover, the positive impact of exercising a critical understanding of culture on the part of
educators has been highlighted further in the study.
Option 1
a. Personal experiences as a learner in primary and secondary school
Impact of political and social forces
The time when I used to be under primary schooling, the public schools used to be under
governmental regulatory control. However, gradually, the public schools have been made for
market based and less governed by Australian government. As a result, the school authorities
such as the principals got the autonomy to lead the schools. I can recall that there were some
teachers in my primary schools who were rebuked by the parents and were also disliked by most
of the learners because of their teaching techniques. However, the complaints of the parents
could not make any changes at that time as the power of firing the educators were not solely in
the hands of the school principals at that time. This issue has been solved after the quasi
marketization of the Australian schools (Gobby & Walker, 2017). The emergence of neoliberal
government has also impacted the schools sociologically. As per my experiences, I can tell that I
experienced a learner centric and skill based teaching learning environment in my secondary
schooling. The reason behind is the social forces that changed the position of learners in the
learning and started viewing the learners as human capitals who are need of constant nurturing.
Impact of cultural forces
Being an Australian, I have been lucky to be around people of so many cultures.
Similarly, when in school, I used to learn together with learners coming from various
communities such as the aboriginal communities, learners belonging from different economic,
social and cultural backgrounds. However, I can remember that there were not many efforts from
the part of the schools to foreground the celebration of diverse cultures in the school. On the
contrary, the curriculum used to be surrounded by materials that were used to illuminate only the

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dominant culture. This tendency of educators never gave me the scope to know and be aware of
the other cultures and of the fact that the acknowledgement of every culture is necessary for a
holistic development in each every learner. I can surely state that learners belonging from
ignored cultures used to feel that they were not an equal part of the education process.
Value learning
There were many educators in my school who were very good at transferring values to
us, the learners. It is true that the main aim of schooling was to prepare us to be better citizens.
However, very few educators invested their time to develop out values. As a result, I experienced
many learner-learner conflicts due to lack of values that includes an understanding of the
backgrounds of other learners. I used to be bullied for having lesser pairs of school shoes by
some learners who used to have more pair of shoes than what I had. Most of the educators
invested their time in punishing those learners and not in making they understand why their
actions were wrong. Moreover, I can say that the educators used to force some dominant
ideologies on the learners when I was in school and this seemed to affect the upbringing of the
learners strongly. The intervention of my parents saved me from relying totally onto what values
my teachers used to impart. However, parents lack the knowledge of definite categorization of
values such as personal values, social values, and cultural values and so on. Thus, the role of the
educators to impart value education could not be fully replaced by the intervention of my parent.
Hidden curriculum
My experiences with the hidden curriculum in my school are not that accurate. This is
because my teachers mainly focused on the overt curriculum. The techniques of covering hidden
curriculum were also not properly managed by my educators. For that reason, value learning
used to be more didactic and less affective to me. It is true that every individual has their own set
of personal values that sometimes clashes with the universal values of justice, compassion and
fairness (Gobby & Walker, 2017). For that reason, personal values sometimes stopped the
educators to impart universal values to us. So, as per my experience, I think that the learners
including me would be more benefited if my educators would choose to invest more time on
setting the hidden curriculum and if there would be more assessment procedures to test whether
the universal values of love and respect would have been shaped in us or not.
Examinations
My experiences with school examinations have both positive and negative memories. I
remember that I used to score badly in the NAPLAN tests that constantly reminded me of my
faults as a learner. Thus, I tried my best with the help of my parents and educators to score well
and I successes in the exams that were held after. However, it is also true that the constant
pressure of scoring well imposed a series of anxiety not only within me but also within my
parents and teachers as well (Gobby & Walker, 2017).This is because the reputation of the whole
school depends on these examinations in order to be in a competition with other schools. On the
other hand, examinations like NAPLAN only tests some limited tenets of learning that includes
the numeracy and literacy of the learners. I can remember that I, along with many other learners
in my school, used to be very good at various crafts but unfortunately those talents were not
perceived as testable skills.

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My learning
Over all, I think that my experiences of being a learner include both good and bad
memories. There could be more significant memories that I cannot recall now. However, my
learning experiences tell me that educators have the capacity to create great human beings by
teaching in a more learner centric and unbiased way. Moreover, my idea of schooling is where
the educators give more time in imparting education that can build skills in the learners and less
time in preparing them for the future so that they can learn how to learn without the help of the
teachers. In this scenario, I can include the fact the role of the educators is to guide the learners
and not to help them directly when the learners cannot solve their own problems.
My personal expectations regarding learning
After speculating on my expectations as a learner, I can state that I used to think that the
curriculum did not give equal importance to each and every academic subject. I mean to say that
more optional subjects needed to be included in the syllabus that could cover a wide range of
knowledge acquisition. This variety of optional subjects could include stories written by writers
belonging from different countries and so on. Tribal music and cultural studies could also be
included in the school curriculum so that I would not have to wait til my higher education to
learn about the world I live in. On the other hand, I wished that the teachers would give us more
opportunities for educational tours not only for educational purposes but so that learners could
form a strong bond among themselves.
b. Importance of a critical educational and cultural understanding for
educators
Understanding of education and culture
Teachers play an important role in the lives of the learners. They can either improve the
lives of the learners or they can affect the future of the learners. The most important quality in a
educator is the neutrality with which the teacher deal with each and every learner in the school.
An equal handling of each and every learner not only facilitates an equal learning but also
encourages the learners to be empathetic towards each other regardless of their social and
cultural differences (Gobby & Walker, 2017). On the other hand, education has different layers
of importance all of which can be impacted by how an educator understands education and its
purposes. This understanding is highly important for preparing the learners for a better
tomorrow.
Negative impact of being influenced by dominant culture and politics
The marketization of schools has been seen as beneficial in the field of education.
However, it has its own drawbacks that negatively affect the learning environment. The
marketization of schools has increased the economic value of education and thus highlighted
more on economic objectives of education ignoring other important objectives of education. This
implies that education has other significant areas of value such as social, cultural and moral
values that have been set aside in order to perceive the learners only as forbearers of economic
agendas of the government (Gobby & Walker, 2017). This shift in perception has equated

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educational institutions with other markets by comparing the learners with employees who serve
only economic purposes in their workplaces. As a result, the personal, social and emotional
needs and demands of the learners have been ignored and have been seen as insignificant by the
educators. This is because the educators have been highly influenced and manipulated by the
new perception of schooling.
Learners need to be entitled to quality education so that their potentialities can be
increased due to their schooling. On the contrary, this aspect of learning has been ignored by
educators who believe that the potentialities of the learners need to be increased but only to
maximise their skills under economic terms. For that reason, the possibilities of each and every
learner have been ignored and their potentialities have been seen only through the lens of
productivity. On the other hand, it has also been seen that money has become a key factor in
deciding what level of education the learners can get. This means that economically advantaged
group of people invest more on the education of their children while people with economic
instability falls prey to unequal education. Thus, it can be said that the education system today
has fallen short to the equal access of learning to each and every learner irrespective of what
economic or cultural background they belong to.
There are numerous purposes of education that can be summarised as the holistic
development of the learners. This holistic development includes not only marketable skills but
also the knowledge of the world they live in and awareness of diverse people, their cultures and
diverse ways of living. The envisioning of the learners as marketable products blurred the vision
of the educators. As a result, the educators only give importance to how the learners can acquire
skills that can ultimately benefit the state. For that reason, the examinations also do not test every
aspect of development which are important to know the real position of learners in the learning
process (Gobby & Walker, 2017).
Importance of an advanced understanding of culture
An advanced understanding of culture is not equal to the understanding only the
dominant culture. The educators or teachers play a very significant role in injecting values and
knowledge of the world in the minds of the learners. Thus, it is important that the educators
invest time in coming up with teaching strategies and policies that aims at improving the skills of
social competency, civic competency, critical thinking abilities in the learners. This is because
learners are not homogenous and do not carry same skills and potentials. Each one of them
possesses different possibilities that can be enhanced only through an acknowledgement of
intercultural relations and different aspects of the society (Gobby & Walker, 2017). This implies
that learners need to be seen not only as skilled individuals but also as social and cultural beings.
For that reason, the concept of general capabilities has been proposed by many policy makers.
General capabilities need to be given importance to understand the potentials of the
learners. This general capability includes not only numerical skills but also ethical
understanding, intercultural awareness, social capacities, communicative abilities, creative skills,
problem solving skills and so on (Gobby & Walker, 2017). However it is not enough. The
educators need to understand the purpose of education is not only to make economically
productive citizens but also to build human beings who can change the outdated aspects of the
society in the future. This has been said because the classroom is more complex than what it
seems to be. Any classroom contains a mini version of the society that includes people belonging

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from different cultural and social backgrounds. Thus, the understanding of diverse cultures is
important so that the educators can understand the growth of the learners in their learning
contexts.
Positive changes in learners and learning
The need of having a firm understanding of education and culture is important to excel as
a teacher and to bring positive changes in the learners. For that purpose, reflection is one of the
main activities that the educators need to start so that they can observe and record the changes in
the learners. In addition, the educators can modify their teaching techniques by going through
their journals that includes al the detailed information about the learners (Gobby & Walker,
2017). One thing that is to be noted here is that the changed emotions and feelings need to be
taken into account too because those changes also state whether the positive changes have been
shaped within the learners or not.
Conclusion
This study has dealt with the importance of a critical understanding of education and
culture for the educators so that the learning can be improved. For that reason, firstly my
personal experiences have been mentioned here that includes my experiences in my primary and
secondary school regarding the schooling process, value learning and so on. It has been found
that the strong hold of governmental control over public schools had its own faults that have
been minimized after the marketization of schools in Australia. However, this also has impacted
the schooling. On the other hand, the study has focused on the fact that most of the schools
follow an imposed dominant culture that negatively affects the learners who do not belong from
the dominant cultural group and so on. Finally, the study has illuminated the importance of
applying a critical understanding of education and culture for bringing a positive change in the
lives of the learners.

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Reference list
Gobby, B., & Walker, R., (2017), Powers of Curriculum: Sociological Perspectives on
Education, Oxford University Press, U.K.