A Humanistic Systems Approach to Teaching Political Science

Abstract

A question frequently asked of and by educators is, Are you a behaviorist or a humanist? This question, posed in either/or form, assumes, of course, that a behaviorist, i.e., a goal-oriented, educator-scientist cannot at the same time be a humanist, one who is sensi tive to feelings and attitudes and flexible enough to be creative and innovative in his teaching enabling the student to grow. A goal oriented systems approach has long been accepted in the laboratory and, in recent years, has become increasingly important in the busi ness world. A scientific approach to instruction, ever, is often suspect. Yet the questions basic to the development of any curriculum, or indeed basic to the success of any political or societal institution, are nevertheless those which deal precisely with the clarifica tion of goals. The questions, What do we want our stu dents (or citizens) to be able to do? and What kind of people do we want them to be at the end of their edu cation? require a specification of goals that must be clarified before we can or should begin instruction. This does not mean that we wish to eradicate the individuality of our citizens and create a uniformly programmed body of people. We as citizens do, however, have a fairly clear idea of what we hope will be the results of our educa tional process. The systems approach merely calls for the explication of that idea so that we can confront and thereby deal with it. Only when we know we are going can we determine to get there and, in fact, whether or not we should attempt to get there. The purpose of this paper is to present a teaching strategy that can help define that where we are going, determine how we will know when we get there, and by so doing, enable an instructor to determine if those goals are worthwhile, and then to seek out the best means for achieving those goals. The strategy is called a criterion-referenced strategy and is based on two gen eral assumptions.