realised i have not posted to elaborate on the philosophy of ‘good-er’ although i have used the term in a few posts in the past. so shall do it now.
yes, it’s non-existent in English and a grammatically wrong word.
but guess that made the word stands out even more, cos in the ‘good-er’ worldview, there’s no right or wrong; only good, and good-er exist. the philosophy can be interpreted as an extension of the core of the 12 principles of knowledge building (Scardamalia, 2002; Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2006), i.e., improvable ideas.
often, in the ‘right vs. wrong’ world, it’s not uncommon that we hear: ‘this idea is stupid, it is wrong, it’s unacceptable’… and pple began to dismiss their own and others’ ideas and not to mention the emotional side of things, bad, sad, angry …
contrastingly, in the ‘only good and good-er’ world: ‘all ideas are good ideas!”. marrying it with kb’s principle of improvable ideas, all ideas become improvable. end result: all good ideas can and will only become good-er ideas over time.
the good-er philosophy was first instituted as part of my design/model for blended learning for CL teachers’ professional development. it was my research project between 2015-2016 when i was with the SCCL. it’s the first ‘rule’ (among three) that my community of teachers adopt: “只有好，和更好”。 so if u ever need to cite a source for the good-er theory/philosophy, you could either use this blog post (Tan, Y. H. (2024, November 9). Only good and good-er. Edublog.net. https://edublog.net/wp/2024/11/09/only-good-and-good-er/ ), or my handbook if you prefer an earlier source:
Tan, Y. H., Tan, Y. N., & Chow, F. Y. (2019). Blended learning for in-service teachers’ professional development: Handbook for new instructors. Singapore: NTU-SCCL Press.
OR
陈育焕、陈雁妮、周凤儿 (2019). 混成式在职教师培训：新手指导员手册 [Blended learning for in-service teachers’ professional development: Handbook for new instructors]。新加坡：南大-新加坡华文教研中心出版社。
towards only good and gooder!
Tan, Y. H. (2024, November 9). Only good and good-er. Edublog.net. https://edublog.net/wp/2024/11/09/only-good-and-good-er/
