Teaching Philosophy

Re “Teaching Style Shifts Power in Classroom,” March 9.

Congratulations to The Times Ventura County Edition for publishing the wonderful story on Paul Gathercoal, associate professor at Cal Lutheran University, who advocates “judicious discipline” that stresses trust between students and teachers.

Professor Gathercoal emphasizes replacing the “instructor-as-dictator style of classroom management, which stresses rewards and punishment, with a democratic approach based on mutual respect and trust between teacher and student.”

As a special-education teacher at Camarillo State Hospital before I retired in 1984, I experimented with Gathercoal’s philosophy and I discovered his findings most sound. My experiences resulted in my Cal Lutheran master’s thesis, “An Alternative Educational Program for Institutionalized Developmentally Disabled Youth.”

The educational philosophy promoted by Gathercoal has been expounded by a number of national educators beginning with A.S. Neill of “Summerhill” fame, Jonathan Kozol (“Free Schools”), William Glasser (“Schools Without Failure”), John Holt (“How Children Fail”), Herbert Kohl (“On Teaching and the Open Classroom”) and Charles Silberman (“The Open Classroom Reader”).

After years of teaching and experimenting with the open classroom, I’m of the opinion that much too much stress is being placed today on educating young people for the workplace rather than being good citizens in a democracy. It is my belief that the founding fathers who instituted free public education in our nation did so with the understanding that a democracy cannot survive without a literate society, one that can distinguish fact from fiction.

As Gathercoal has pointed out, a teacher can spend more time teaching if democratic principles are applied in the classroom. But it should be pointed out that the philosophy he expounds cannot work if a teacher or school system does not subscribe to the philosophy. It must also be pointed out that the philosophy is more successful in a school with small class sizes.

SAMUEL M. ROSEN, Newbury Park