Browsing by Author "Fyson, Stephen J."
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Publication Can Teachers See Australia's New Caste-ism?(Avondale Academic Press, 2019-12-01) Fyson, Stephen J.We live in a world of social change. Within that world, Christian teachers are used to thinking of all people as made in the Image of God. That assumption has often meant practising a deep respect for all people. This respect has similarly extended to how Christians understand relationships in the classroom. Yet there are competing narratives about the design and purpose of life within our Western world. Part of this competition of ideas is caught up in implications that come from how we view human beings as persons. This article proposes that one of these new Australian alternatives to Christian ways of viewing life is creating an unstated but real caste system amongst so-called different kinds of persons.
Publication Character, Oh! Character, Where Art Thou?(Avondale Academic Press, 2016-11-01) Fyson, Stephen J.Publication Christian School Counselling: Towards Conceptualising a Distinctive Paradigm(Avondale Academic Press, 2008-01-01) Fyson, Stephen J.This article proposes there are inherent core understandings in the words ‘Christian’ and ‘school’ that make this type of counselling different. The writer argues for a Christian distinctive through a critical challenge put to contemporary psychology and in reviewing 1 John 3:24-4:8. The unique character of school counselling is represented by two frameworks. These examine the direction of the counselling process and the interaction between the social ecology and the interpersonal relationship patterns of school life, from a student perspective.
Publication When is 'Social Science' an Oxymoron?(Avondale Academic Press, 2022-04-01) Fyson, Stephen J.How often do we hear the phrase “the research says” in our discussions about improving teaching and learning? What do we mean by the term ‘research’? For many of us, we use this concept under the assumption that something like the ‘scientific method’ has been used to describe educational reality in a way that can help us in our teaching.
This thinking, in turn, sits under our assumptions about the validity of education being part of the ‘social sciences’. But what do we mean, ‘social science’? For some of us, it means using statistical methods to help us discover cause and effects within teaching practice. This can be in the use of ‘qualitative’ as well as ‘quantitative’ methodologies.
Yet it is not uncommon to hear people use phrases such as “But what does the hard data show?” Or, “Was this a real / solid / large enough piece of research?” Such suggestions rely on the assumption that if we use the same scientific method as the physical sciences (which can be referred to as the ‘natural’ or ‘hard’ sciences), then the research is better. This article will review these assumptions with some suggestions for how to be more inclusive in how we conceptualise research with those involved in teaching and learning – i.e. the humans in our classrooms.