Event
HomeGoodwill or wind chill? An examination of the introduction of ethos
Saturday, May 20th, 2006, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Speaker: Peter Burden, Okayama Shoka University
The Education Ministry in Japan has made institutional evaluation a requirement to improve the quality and effectiveness of teaching. While the "ethos" of an educational institution is the ground bed of all that takes place within a school this often get bypassed in formal evaluations of quality and standards. While difficult to define, a school's ethos can be described in terms of first impressions, the "feel" of the environment,and is composed of values and beliefs, attitudes, and relationships. In Scotland, the use of "ethos indicators" has been successfully introduced by the Education Ministry there to provide schools with techniques for gauging the interpersonal context of learning, which has an impact on the nature and extent of the learning which can take place. This presentation examines in more depth the importance of measuring a school's ethos,outlines some ways currently used in Scotland, shows the results of a small scale study carried out in Japan, and seeks participants' views on ways in which we can learn about a school's underlying ethos in their institutions.
Organization: Okayama Chapter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (Okayama JALT)
Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 500 yen
Venue: Sankaku A Bldg. 2F
Location: Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture, Japan
Upcoming Months
By Location