Effects of Dynamics of Social Changes on Education and Teaching Profession

Toplumsal Değişme Dinamiklerinin Eğitim ve Öğretmenlik Mesleği Üzerindeki Etkileri

Abstract

Prevailing paradigmas of our age, Social change dynamics such as modernization, globalization, democratization and information society affect all fields of our lives, from individual relationships to social institutions. By its nature, globalization which is claimed to be a supra-national cultural paradigm, aims at a similarity of value and attitude in individuals and societies. Globalization which contains big risks for humanity, at the same time, offers new opportunities regarding construction of humane civilization in the face of discrimination and otherings which have been increasing in the world, in terms of identity and belonging such as religion, language, race, nationality, gender, culture, and social class. Democracy, one of the prevailing paradigms, with its values such as respect to differences and human dignity, dialogue, tolerance, equality, justice, rule of law, offers opportunity for the compensation of social disorder which has been increasing with the weakening of traditions in the societies in the process of modernization.Recently, information society paradigm which comes along with the enormous developments in cultural industry, information technologies, sectors of telecommunication and media drives societies to “cultural reproduction”. Today the sanying that information is a “strategic power”, indicates that the international/ intersocial relations of sovereignty will be shaped on the knowledge-based termsin the next decades. Factors such as cost reduction in the face of ever increasing production of information and various communication settings and tools (internet, radio, TV, newspaper etc.) affect the human-information relationship in terms of education. Social organization model, mode of social interaction, the way of production and consumption required by the stated paradigms necessitate fields of knowledge, concept of knowledge, mental skills and system of values which has validity in global as well as individual and national levels. The paradigms in question support the thesis that the future of societies will be possible on the basis of skills and humanistic values. For this reason, it is necessary to include themes such as environment, lifelong learning, peace education, human rights and democracy, democratic citizenship, technology, design, ethical values, thinking education, socialization, and social capital into the scope of education. Therefore, it also becomes necessary for the teaching profession and roles and implementations of teachers to adapt to new developments in parallel with the variation of the aims and content of education.The afore-mentioned paradigms which affect the educational institutions and implementations considerably compel teaching profession to change qualitatively and differentiate the occupational competence of career employees from what is traditional. In other words, the threats and opportunities which these paradigms contain, bring an unavoidable change in teaching profession. Nevertheless the expectations of society and government require teachers’ qualifications to be beyond their traditional roles in our day. In this context, what is expected from educational institutions and teachers are to make students gain civic and humanist values, and mental and social skills required by to the new models of social organization and interaction. This situation requires teachers to be professionalized in the fields such as socialization expertise, information management, change leadership, social commitment, and technology literacy, learning with students, value and skills education. In this study, scanning method has been used and it is aimed to introduce how educational institutions and teacher profession are changed by democratization, globalization and knowledge society which are effective social change dynamics of our age.

Özet

Modernleşme, küreselleşeme, demokratikleşme, bilgi toplumu gibi toplumsal değişme dinamikleri çağın egemen paradigmaları olarak bireysel ilişkilerden sosyal kurumlara kadar hayatın bütün alanlarını etkilemektedir. Eğitim kurumunu ve uygulamalarını da önemli ölçüde etkileyen bu dinamikler, öğretmenlik mesleğini de nitel değişmeye zorlamakta, öğretmenlerin sosyal ve meslek rollerini geleneksel olandan önemli ölçüde farklılaştırmaktadır. Belirtilen değişme dinamiklerinin gerektirdiği toplumsal örgütlenme modeli, sosyal etkileşim biçimi, üretim ve tüketim tarzı, bireysel ve ulusal olanın yanında küresel ölçekte de geçerliliği olan yeni bilgi alanlarını, bilgi anlayışını, zihnisel becerileri ve değerler manzumesini gerekli kılmaktadır. Bu bağlamda eğitim kurumu ve öğretmenlerden beklenen, yeni toplumsal örgütlenme ve etkileşim modellerinin gerektirdiği zihinsel ve sosyal beceriler ile vatandaşlığı ve insanî değerleri öğrencilere kazandırmaktır. Bu durum öğretmenlerin sosyalleşme uzmanlığı, bilgi yönetimi, değişim liderliği, sosyal adanma, teknoloji okuryazarlığı, öğrenciyle birlikte öğrenme, değer ve beceri eğitimi gibi konularda profesyonelleşmelerini gerektirmektedir. Tarama yönteminin kullanıldığı bu çalışmada, eğitim kurumu ve öğretmenlik mesleğinin çağımızın etkili toplumsal değişme dinamiklerinden demokratikleşme, küreselleşme ve bilgi toplumundan etkilenerek nasıl bir değişim geçirmekte olduklarının ortaya çıkarılması amaçlanmıştır.