Browsing by Author "Pastoll, Gregory"

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    The concept of educatedness : an analysis of the current perspectives of a population of university teachers on the personal qualities indicative of educatedness, and its implications for university teaching
    (1994) Pastoll, Gregory
    The author collected from a variety of sources descriptions of more than six hundred personal qualities held to be indicative of educational development. A survey was performed to determine which of these qualities are most widely agreed to be indicators of advanced educational development (that is, qualities which would indicate that a person had developed his or her potential as a functioning human being to an advanced extent). The respondents were 42 volunteer academics from many different university disciplines, with an avowed interest in the educational development of people. This survey made use of a card-sort method which enabled each respondent to assess each of the more than 600 collected qualities as potential indicators of educational development. Subsequent interviews gathered information on the respondents' insights into the essence of personal educational development and on the processes which they felt assisted in fostering the qualities they valued. A remarkable degree of consistency was found in the way the respondents (independently) prioritised the qualities. An analysis of the responses led to the deduction of the following eleven broad themes commonly held to characterise advanced educational development: • A sense of self-worth • A positive orientation to existence • A developed power of will • Creativeness • Individuality • A disposition to search for meaning • Being properly equipped to search for meaning • Movement towards self-understanding • Evidence of integrative understandings • A life-enhancing disposition and • The ability to make meaningful contact with others. The extent of alignment shown with these themes by respondents who exhibited a broad diversity of cultural and life-experiences makes it possible to propose that these themes might conceivably represent a substantial core of a universally valid interpretation of advanced educational development.
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    The nature of music education at the South African College of Music : an interpretative enquiry
    (1989) Montocchio, Edouard Francis; Pastoll, Gregory
    This project began with a Preliminary Study, in which the members of the 1985 final-year class at the SACM were interviewed to investigate their goals and the way in which these goals related to their curricula. The main findings of this study were that the students were unclear about their goals, their reasons for studying music at the SACM, and their future prospects. In addition, their perception of the SACM included criticism of items of curricular content and teaching methods. These findings led to a central goal question which was to become the focus of a more objective, broadly based, interpretative study that would be more apposite for investigating a topic of this complexity. This goal question is: "WHAT ISSUES DO THE PEOPLE INVOLVED AT THE SACM PERCEIVE AS AREAS OF CONCERN, IN RESPECT OF THEIR EXPERIENCE AT THE SACM, AND WHAT ARE THESE CONCERNS?" Accordingly, the main part of this investigation took the form of an attempt to sketch a collective perception of the nature of the education provided at the SACM. An institution like this is the theatre of numerous simultaneous agendas and interpretations. Its activities, directions and the education which it provides will appear different trom different perspectives. It was thus decided to obtain responses from a range of people connected with the SACM, to reflect these different perspectives. The sample who contributed to this perception is drawn from among the teachers, administrators, students, past students, parents of students and others professionally connected with the SACM.