And our leaders, our engineers, our surgeons, and

And our leaders, our engineers, our surgeons, and

And the Concepts of Jurisprudence and Sovereigntyin the ClassroomAngela MartinezEducation 110Dr. EchevarriaNovember 10, 2004When it comes to teaching today’s youth, it is only in the bestinterest of the teacher and other adults, to arm these children with asmuch as possible to prepare them for the future. One day, these childrenare going to be our leaders, our engineers, our surgeons, and our key to abetter life.If we as role models do not do our absolute best to teachthese children everything we know, then we are doing them the biggestdisservice possible.

The same idea should be applied in the classroom.The teacher should offer her students as much knowledge as possible to helpthem stay ahead in a world that is looking to bring them down. From hintson how to study for the SAT’s to reading strategies to time managementideas. There is one other important aspect however, one must have (andseize) the opportunity to experience as much as possible in the short timeallotted here on earth.

The teacher, along with the parent, is one of thesingle most capable persons of giving children these opportunities. Whenit comes to teaching in the classroom, it is not enough to simply tell thechildren the facts. The most important part of being a teacher is aidingthe children in finding these answers on their own, allowing them thefortune to have that “Eureka!” feeling.

From preschool level throughuniversity, we as humans strive for struggle and achievement. Simplyhanding out a worksheet or assigning kids to look up definitions is notenough.Whether it is teaching the ABCs to three-year-olds or teachinghigh-schoolers the concepts of jurisprudence and sovereignty, JeromeBruner’s theory of “discovery learning” (Bruner, Goodnow, ; Austin, 1956)as described in Anita Woolfolk’s text Educational Psychology 9th Edition(2004), is the ideal model in teaching any new concept. In this theory theteacher, first, briefly gives the pupil an overview of the new conceptusing examples and nonexamples, then allows the pupil to discover themeaning of the concepts with little guidance using the idea of inductivereasoning.

As Woolfolk states in her description of the work of Jerome Bruner,he “…emphasized the importance of understanding the structure of asubject being studied, the need for active learning as the basis for trueunderstanding, and the value of inductive reasoning and learning.”(Woolfolk, 2004, p.280) The basis of this theory, in other words, is thatthe students can’t be passive learners. To truly acquire new knowledge,one must work for it and seek out the answers, rather than listen to ateacher rattle off a new vocabulary.

This process is called discoverylearning.In this process, the teacher offers examples of the newconcept and the students work off of these examples and examples of theirown “until they discover the interrelationships -the subject’s structure.”(Woolfolk, 2004, p.281) Bruner’s theory operates on the belief that whenteaching a new concept, specific examples should be used to create ageneral principle.

The first step in introducing a new topic in thediscovery learning theory is to help the children differentiate betweenexemplars, or as defined by Woolfolk (2004), specific examples of a givencategory that are used to classify an item, and prototypes, orstereotypical examples of a category that automatically come to mind. Thisis to ensure that everybody is starting off on the right page. The nextstep is to provide materials and specific instances to let the pupilsdiscover the general principles on their own. Once an interest is sparkedin the subject, they will be more motivated to seek out the rest of theinformation on their own. If there is a specific goal for the discovery,there will be less room provided for searching, however, there is stillroom for the pupil to explore and research. Although this approach can betime consuming, it is great for teaching preschool, elementary school andfor group projects at the secondary level, especially with more difficultand abstract concepts.

For teaching high school kids the concepts of sovereignty- the conceptof a government free from external control, or the concept of jurisprudence-the branch of philosophy concerned with the law and the principles thatlead courts to make the decisions that they do, Bruner’s method is a primecandidate. A good lesson on jurisprudence, could involve the Salem WitchTrials of 1692 and comparing the jurisprudence of that time period, to thatof our time period. As a lead in into the lesson, the kids can be requiredto read the novel The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The next step, as a leadin to the concept of jurisprudence, would be to write a word on the board,such as the word “evidence”. To get their brains working, teachers mighthave the pupils offer up some definitions of the word evidence. Next,place them into groups and ask them to come up with different types ofevidence that were used in The Crucible to convict the alleged witches.Before this is done, the teacher needs to have certain types of evidencealready in mind to keep the lesson on course, since this is a studentdirected activity and they can really come up with anything.

Next, ask thestudents to rank the evidence with how much weight each piece of evidenceshould be given, on a scale of 1-10, ten being the greatest weight. Inaddition to the ranking have the students include reasons for the rankingand choose which pieces of evidence would be admissible. Next, have thempretend that they are the people from that time period and see if theirweighting of the evidence would change.Finally ask them if these witcheswere being charged today, if any of the evidence listed would be admissiblein today’s courts, 300 years later. This lesson would teach the idea ofjurisprudence by showing them the difference in historical and contemporarylaw. It would start them out with a specific instance, the Salem WitchTrials, and they can then broaden the scope of the concept by comparing thetheory of law in 1692, to the theory of law today.

By working together ingroups, they can build off of what the others bring to the table in theunderstanding of the concept, and hear ideas of what jurisprudence is thatthey may not have come up with on their own. The lesson is student based,yet, the teacher is there to keep them on track, should they begin to movein a different direction.This idea of inductive reasoning and guided learning can also beapplied to teaching students the concept of sovereignty. Again, thechildren would be given a specific example, such as Antarctica since manydifferent sovereign claims have been made, yet not much has been done tosupport those claims.

Therefore, many and no countries at the same timehave territorial sovereignty. To begin, the teacher can assign the studentto look up a few vocabulary words to help give a bit of background of whatsovereignty is. Perhaps words like “territory”, “state’, “territorialsovereignty” and “sovereignty’ itself. The teacher can give a shortlecture on the background of Antarctica and where the sovereignty stands atthe moment. The main part of the lesson would be to pass out outline mapsof Antarctica with the borders of the claims already drawn on it to groupsof 4 or 5 students. Have the students label the claims.

Next, the teachercan lead the class in a discussion of why states and countries make claimsfor countries. The teacher can start with a specific subject matter inmind, such as the fact thatthere are so many different countries thatbelieve they own the land without any external control, yet all of thecountries are in essence controlled by the other countries that have madeclaims. The students can go into different discussion topic such as whycountries would go to the extent of sending people out to claim the land ifit cannot be used.

This would force the children to think about the ideaof sovereignty and power and how it is applied in national as well asinternational policies. It follows the guidelines of Bruner’s guidedlearning; the class openly discusses the idea with the teacher there tobring them back should they veer off subject. They start with a specificexample of Antarctica end in talking in the more general sense aboutsovereignty in the world using inductive reasoning.The example of discovery learning that Woolfolk uses in the text toexemplify Bruner’s idea of guided discovery and inductive reasoning is alesson on fruit. (p.

281) To begin, the teacher offers examples and non-examples of the concept being taught. In this case we could use apples,oranges, bananas, as peaches, and plums as examples, and potatoes, carrots,eggs, and bread non-examples. The teacher would then allow the children tocome up with some examples and non-examples on their own.The next stepWoolfolk (2004) describes in her “Guidelines (for) Applying Bruner’s Idea”is to then assist the students to find their own connections among theconcepts. She suggests asking questions such as ” What else would we callthis apple? (Fruit.) What do we do with fruit? (We eat it.) What do wecall the things we eat? (Food.

)” Woolfolk (2004) goes on in the example tosay the next step would be to ask the students questions for which theymust try to find the answer. For example, where do we get the fruit weeat? Or, do any other animals like to eat fruit? Finally, Woolfolksuggest to “Encourage students to make intuitive guesses.” (Woolfolk, 2004,p.

281) This example follows the processes suggested by Bruner in hisDiscovery Learning and the lesson ideas for teaching students the conceptsof sovereignty and jurisprudence. The students are briefly exposed to theidea of the coming lesson, however, there is room for them to make theconnections necessary to attend to the information, create a new schema forthe information if needed, and store the information properly to ensureattainment.Just this past summer, I took a class on The Principles and Practicesof Teaching Early Education. The instructor of this class is a huge fan ofdiscovery learning and the idea of the inductive reasoning technique.

Thisclass was a shortened summer class, consequently we only had eight weeks tocover the information usually given in a 16-week course. To ensureretainment of the information the instructor went over the five key pointsof the class one at a time in this manner: She would begin the week onMonday introducing us to the new concept. She would present us with thetitle of that weeks discussion topic and we would talk about what weexpected the lecture to be about, just from reading the title.

At thatclass, she would assign us the task of reading the chapter(s), andattending a preschool for a few hours to observe the classroom and reporton our observations as they pertained to that week’s subject. For example,if that week we were talking about the Physical Self of a preschooler, onMonday we would begin lecture talking about what we believed the physicalself included and how as a teacher we could facilitate the development ofit. Then in our observation assignment, we would go and observe anypreschool and look for the ways they were supporting the growth of thechildren’s physical selves. This assignment gave us the opportunity to notonly read the chapters of our text that discussed the ideas, but actuallysee what we were reading applied in real life situations. Not only didthis exercise help us to visualize what we read, it gave us a chance tobuild new schemas to categorize that weeks’ lecture in. To this day, fourmonths later, I still remember 90 percent of what I was taught in thatclass; something I can’t say for too many other classes.

This is a partialexample of the discovery learning because we were able to discover thetopics we had gone over in class and experience what the instructor wastalking about first hand.It is not a true representation of Bruner’sidea because we were presented with and lectured on the topic before wewent out and experienced it.This example goes to show that when one is actively learning theconcept one is being taught, the concept is being reinforced into themind.

When using other methods to teach new concepts, you never know if thestudent is attending to the new information and retaining it until it comestime for the test, and by that point it is too late. To engage thechildren from the beginning, they are much more apt to retain theinformation because they had to apply themselves to find the information,it was not just handed to them on a work sheet. All in all, a teachercannot expect to get more out students then they are willing to put in. Ifall a teacher is willing to put into a classroom is boring lectures anddittos, then all they can expect out of students is unengaged, and non-motivated actions. If a teacher is willing to really plan ahead and putall of the themselves into planning for a real lesson, one that mightrequire the teacher to do a little thinking themselves, then the studentswill be much more willing to put themselves on the line to reach for theinformation being offered. Reference:Woolfolk, A.

(2003). Educational Psychology (9th Edition). Boston, MA:Allyn ; Bacon.