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Educational Philosophy
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Proponent
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Description of the Philosophy
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Christian
Philosophy
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Jesus
and Saul of Tarsus or St. Paul, the Apostle
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Believes
in the: a) God is the creator of all things; b) Jesus is the Messiah, Christ,
Son of God; c) The Holy Trinity includes the Father, the Son and the Spirit;
d) The Human being is a sinner who requires redemption; e) Jesus came down to
Earth to redeem the mankind; f) The soul is immortal; g) The Old Testament
and the New Testament are the guides to ideal Christian life; h) Baptism is
necessary for salvation; and i) There is life after death. (Ali, 2013)
The
scope, or field of Christian education, though guided by Biblical truth, is
not limited to Biblical exposition. A Christian School seeks to develop the
learner a worldview, a perspective that enables him to understand,
appreciate, and live a Christian life in the world in which God has placed
him. The school's education, hopefully, shall help the individual develop the
ability to separate truth from error, not only in Bible doctrine, but also in
the facts and issues of his everyday life.
As
a Christian educator the teacher must be both a Christian and an educator. As
a Christian he has experienced the reality of God's truth, and he has god's
Spirit to empower him and his teaching. As an educator he functions in
accordance with the mandate of God to teach in accord with the educational
principles contained in the Word of God. Educate means to change one's
behavior.
A
pupil's growth is determined not by what he hears, but by what he does about
what he hears. The important thing is what is happening inside the pupil. He
may accept or he may reject whatever is going on outside. Learning is what
the pupil does and what the outer forces do to him. Teachers can influence
the inner factors only by properly using the outer factors. If a teacher will
work with the Spirit of God, He can use him to effect the desired inner
changes. – LeBar (Cates, 1975)
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Rationalism
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Pythagoras,
Plato, Aristotle, Rene Descartes, Baruch Espinoza, Gottfried Leibniz and
Immanuel Kant
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Views
are "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or
"any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification (Lancey, 1996).
Defined
as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not
sensory but intellectual and deductive (Bourke, 1962)
Believes
that reality has an intrinsically logical structure.
Rationalists
assert that certain rational principles exist in logic, mathematics, ethics,
and metaphysics that are so fundamentally true that denying them causes one
to fall into contradiction. Rationalists have such a high confidence in
reason that proof and physical evidence are unnecessary to ascertain truth –
in other words, "there are significant ways in which our concepts and
knowledge are gained independently of sense experience” (Rationalism vs.
Empiricism, 2004).
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Empiricism
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John
Locke, Aristotle, Alhazen, Avicenna, Ibn Tufail, Robert Grosseteste, William
of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle, George Berkeley, Hermann
von Helmholtz, David Hume, Leopold von Ranke, and John Stuart Mill.
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States
that knowledge comes only primarily from sensory experience. Empiricism is
the philosophical stance according to which the senses are the ultimate
source of human knowledge.
Empiricist
claim that all ideas that a mind can entertain have been formed through some
experiences or – to use a slightly more technical term – through some
impressions; here is how David Hume expressed this creed: "it must be
some one impression that gives rise to every real idea" (A Treatise of
Human Nature, Book I, Section IV, Ch. vi). Indeed – Hume proceeds in Book II
– "all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our
impressions or more lively ones". Under this characterization,
empiricism is the claim that all human ideas are less detailed copies of some
experience or other (Borghini, 2013).
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Pragmatism
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John
Dewey, Charles Sanders Peirce and William James
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Synonymous
to practicality and functionality.
Believes
that reality is constantly changing and that we learn best through applying our
experiences and thoughts to problems as they arise.
Recognizes
utility as the supreme guide in developing one’s values.
Utilitarian
Theory: U = T – What is useful is true (Zacal, 2013)
For
Pragmatists, the world of experience is central and only those things that
are experienced or observed are real.
Schools
should emphasize the subject matter of social experience.
All
learning is dependent on the context of place, time and circumstances.
For
pragmatist, teaching methods focus on hands-on problem solving, experimenting,
and projects, often having students work in groups.
Curriculum
should bring the disciplines together to focus on solving problems in an
interdisciplinary way.
Rather
than passing down organized bodies of knowledge to new learners, Pragmatists
believe that learners should apply their knowledge to real situations through
experimental inquiry. This prepares students for citizenship, daily living
and future careers. (Mercado, 2013)
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Reconstructionism
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Theodore
Brameld, Plato, Agustine, Karl Marx, John Dewey, George S. Counts, Harold
Rugg, John Childs and etc.
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Reconstructionist
educators focus on the curriculum that highlights social reform (quest to
create a better society and worldwide democracy).
Primary
concern is for man to become aware of the various social problems that beset
him and be able to find ways/solutions for this. This entails his active
participation on this to achieve the elusive Social Change.
This
theory has two predominant themes: 1) Society is in need of change or
reconstruction; 2) education must take the lead in the reconstruction of the
society. (Zacal, 2013)
For
social reconstructionists and critical theorists, curriculum focuses on the
student experience and taking social action on real problems, such as
violence, hunger, international terrorism, inflation and inequality.
Strategies
for dealing with controversial issues (particularly in social studies and
literature), inquiry, dialogue and multiple perspectives are the focus.
Community-based
learning and bringing the world into the classroom are also strategies. (Mercado, 2013)
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Confucianism
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Confucius
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Teaches
moral life through devotion to the family, loyalty to elders, love of
learning, brotherhood, civil service, and universal love and justice.
The
concept of superior individual is one who lives in a life of rightness,
virtues and propriety.
People
are social beings; must interact with society without necessarily
surrendering to it and the moral individual will attempt to change others to
conform to the moral path.
Five
constant virtues: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and sincerity
Education
should build moral, character than merely teaching skills or information
Every
person should strive for the continual development of self until excellence
is achieved. (Ali, 2013)
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Hindu
philosophy
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Kapila,
Iśvarakṛṣṇa, Vachaspati Misra, Guṇaratna
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Emphasizes
a commitment to an ideal way of life called Dharma, characterized by honesty,
courage, service, faith, self-control, purity and non-violence.
Dharma
can be achieved through Yoga.
Believes
that one should be able to control and regulate his desires, not to devote
life to sensual pleasure or worldly success.
Believes
that religion should be practical. God is to be realized by living in the
world.
God
is the truth and the best way to seek the truthis by practicing non-violence
(Ahinisa).
God
is an abstraction but a living presence. (Ali, 2013)
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Buddhist
philosophy
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Siddharta
Gautama or Buddha
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Believes
that personal gratification is the root of sufferings in the world.
The
teachings of Buddha centered on four noble truths: 1) All in life is
suffering, pain and misery of dukkha;
2) This suffering has a cause: selfish craving and personal desire; 3) This
suffering can cease; and 4) The way to overcome this misery is through eight
Fold Path such as: Right understanding, Right speech, Right Conduct, Right
Vocation, Right Concentration, Right effort, Right Mindfulness and Right
Thought.
Holds
that the universe is a Samsara, a stream without end in which the law of
karma operates.
Stressed
non-attachment, concern for humanity, desire to become Buddhalike and to live
in harmony with the natural flow of the Universe. (Ali, 2013)
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Paolo
Freire’s Philosophy
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Paolo
Freire
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"There is no such thing as a neutral education
process. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to
facilitate the integration of generations into the logic of the present
system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the ‘practice of
freedom’, the means by which men and women deal critically with reality and
discover how to participate in the transformation of their world." —Richard
Shaull, drawing on Paulo Freire (Mayo, 1999)
Emphasizes
the need to provide native populations with an education which was
simultaneously new and modern (rather than traditional) and anti-colonial
(not simply an extension of the culture of the colonizer).
Champions
that education should allow the oppressed to regain their sense of humanity,
in turn overcoming their condition. Nevertheless, he also acknowledges that
in order for this to occur, the oppressed individual must play a role in
their liberation. (Freire, 1970)
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Socrates’
Philosphy
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Socrates
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Dialectic
method of inquiry, known as the Socratic method or method of
"elenchus", which he largely applied to the examination of key
moral concepts such as the Good and Justice.
His
doctrine of the soul led him to the belief that all virtues converge into
one, which is the good, or knowledge of one's true self and purposes through
the course of a lifetime. Knowledge in turn depends on the nature or essence
of things as they really are, for the underlying forms of things are more
real than their experienced exemplifications. This conception leads to a
teleological view of the world that all the forms participate in and lead to
the highest form, the form of the good.
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Plato’s
Philosophy
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Plato
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Plato
began convinced of the ultimately harmonious structure of the universe, but
he went further than his mentor in trying to construct a comprehensive
philosophical scheme. His goal was to show the rational relationship between
the soul, the state, and the cosmos. This is the general theme of the great
dialogues of his middle years: the Republic, Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus,
Timaeus, and Philebus.
Plato's
philosophical views had many societal implications, especially on the idea of
an ideal state or government.
It
is in these dialogues that the famous Platonic Ideas (see realism) are
discussed. Plato argued for the independent reality of Ideas as the only
guarantee of ethical standards and of objective scientific knowledge. In the
Republic and the Phaedo he postulates his theory of Forms. Ideas or Forms are
the immutable archetypes of all temporal phenomena, and only these Ideas are
completely real; the physical world possesses only relative reality. The
Forms assure order and intelligence in a world that is in a state of constant
flux. They provide the pattern from which the world of sense derives its
meaning.
The
supreme Idea is the Idea of the Good, whose function and place in the world
of Ideas is analogous to that of the sun in the physical world. Plato saw his
task as that of leading men to a vision of the Forms and to some sense of the
highest good. The principal path is suggested in the famous metaphor of the
cave in the Republic, in which man in his uninstructed state is chained in a
world of shadows. However, man can move up toward the sun, or highest good,
through the study of what Plato calls dialectic. The supreme science,
dialectic, is a method of inquiry that proceeds by a constant questioning of
assumptions and by explaining a particular idea in terms of a more general
one until the ultimate ground of explanation is reached.
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Rousseau
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Jean
Jacques Rousseau
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Not
concerned with particular techniques of imparting information and concepts,
but rather with developing the pupil's character and moral sense, so that he
may learn to practice self-mastery and remain virtuous even in the unnatural
and imperfect society in which he will have to live.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau#Education_and_child_rearing)
Children
learn right and wrong through experiencing the consequences of their acts
rather than through physical punishment.
For
females, “their entire education must be relative to men. To please them, to
be useful to them, to be loved and honored by them, to rear them when they are
young, to care for them when they are grown up, to counsel and console, to
make their lives pleasant and charming, these are the duties of women at all times,
and they should be taught in their child hood. To the extent that we refuse
to go back to this principle, we will stray from our goal and all percepts
women are given will not result in their happiness or our own.” – Rousseau (Noddings, 1995)
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Stoic
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Zeno
of Citium
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Teaches
that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage,
or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer
such emotions.
Concerned
with the active relationship between cosmic determinism and human freedom,
and the belief that it is virtuous to maintain a will (called prohairesis)
that is in accord with nature. Because of this, the Stoics presented their
philosophy as a way of life, and they thought that the best indication of an
individual's philosophy was not what a person said but how he behaved (Sellars, 2006).
Emphasizes
ethics as the main focus of human knowledge.
Stoicism
teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of
overcoming destructive emotions; the philosophy holds that becoming a clear
and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason (logos). A
primary aspect of Stoicism involves improving the individual's ethical and
moral well-being: "Virtue consists in a will that is in agreement with
Nature". This principle also applies to the realm of interpersonal
relationships; "to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy,"and to
accept even slaves as "equals of other men, because all men alike are
products of nature." (Russel, 1967)
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Epicureanism
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Epicurus
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Epicurus
believed that what he called "pleasure" is the greatest good, but
the way to attain such pleasure is to live modestly and to gain knowledge of
the workings of the world and the limits of one's desires. This led one to
attain a state of tranquility (ataraxia) and freedom from fear, as well as
absence of bodily pain (aponia). The combination of these two states is
supposed to constitute happiness in its highest form.
Declares
pleasure to be the sole intrinsic good, its conception of absence of pain as
the greatest pleasure and its advocacy of a simple life.
Emphasizes
the neutrality of the gods, which they do not interfere with human lives. It
states that gods, matter, and souls are all made up of atoms. Souls are made
from atoms, and gods possess souls, but their souls adhere to their bodies
without escaping. Humans have the same kind of souls, but the forces binding
human atoms together do not hold the soul forever.
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Naturalism
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John
Locke, Montaigne
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Education
is in accordance with nature – application of natural laws in educational
process. Hence, one’s conduct is governed by impulse, instincts and
experiences.
Learning
naturally comes as a result of his own actions.
The
end justifies the means.
Preserves
natural goodness and virtues of the individual; freeing him to the
artificialities of human society.
Recognizes
natural rights of the individual – free from restraints, punishments,
disciplines and coercions; dogmatic instructions/teachings and rituals.
Emphasis
is given not much on the 3Rs but on the physical education, value health and
sound mental development.
This
philosophy puts the Child at the center of the educational process –
preparing him to experience life as it is. (Zacal, 2013)
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Idealism
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Plato,
Descartes, Leibnitz, Spinoza, Kant and Hegel
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Ideas
are the truth (the reality) that can be found be found inside the mind since
matter or the material objects are just representation of it.
Stresses
on human spirit, soul and mind – the most important element in life.
Aims
in developing the human mind, and realizing his individual happiness. Self is
the ultimate reality.
Emphasis
is much given on intellectual capabilities, reasoning, judgment, self
realization.
Subject
matter is ideational. Hence, most of the learning will come from the child.
The teacher will just facilitate through dialogues, intellectual interactions
and the like.
For
idealist, the world of the mind, ideas and reason is primary. (Zacal, 2013)
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Realism
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Aristotle,
St. Thomas Aquinas, Locke and Herbart
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Concerns
with the actualities in life, what is real.
Emphasis
is given on natural and social phenomena.
Universal
elements are unchangeable; education = teaching/knowledge = truth
Asserts
that “nothing comes into the mind without passing through the senses”. Hence,
the world and everything in it exists. These can be all known.
Education
aims to help the child to survive by providing him/her the essential
knowledge.
Emphasis
must be given to the subject matter (child) accompanied by the form
(techniques) that the teacher should have mastered.
Learning
must be interactive.
For
realist, the universe exists whether the human mind perceives it or not.
Matter is primary and is considered an independent reality.
The
world of things is superior to the world of ideas. (Zacal, 2013)
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Scholasticism
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Anselm
of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, Duns
Scotus, William of Ockham, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas.
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Method
of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics ("scholastics,"
or "schoolmen") of medieval universities in Europe from about
1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and
defending dogma in an increasingly pluralistic context.
Places
a strong emphasis on dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge by inference,
and to resolve contradictions. Scholastic thought is also known for rigorous
conceptual analysis and the careful drawing of distinctions. In the classroom
and in writing, it often takes the form of explicit disputation: a topic
drawn from the tradition is broached in the form of a question, opponents'
responses are given, a counterproposal is argued and opponent's arguments
rebutted.
The
scholastics would choose a book by a renowned scholar, auctor (author), as a
subject for investigation. By reading it thoroughly and critically, the
disciples learned to appreciate the theories of the author.
Scholastic
instruction consisted of several elements. The first was the lectio: a
teacher would read an authoritative text followed by a commentary, but no
questions were permitted. This was followed by the meditatio (mediation or
reflection) in which students reflected on and appropriated the text.
Finally, in the quaestio students could ask questions (quaestiones) that
might have occurred to them during meditatio. Eventually the discussion of
questiones became a method of inquiry apart from the lectio and independent
of authoritative texts. In controversial cases, disputationes were arranged
in order to resolve difficult quaestiones (Asselt, 2011).
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Logical
Positivism
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Ernst
Mach, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell and the young Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Logical
positivism or logical empiricism are variants of neopositivism that embraced
verificationism, a theory of knowledge combining strong empiricism—basing all
knowledge on sensory experience—with mathematical logic and linguistics so
that scientific statements could be conclusively proved false or true.
Verificationism was inextricably tied with the covering law model of
scientific explanation.
Constitutes
that the entire universe of meaningful judgments; anything else was nonsense.
The claims of ethics and aesthetics were subjective preferences. Theology and
other metaphysics were pseudo-statements, neither true nor false, simply
meaningless nonsense.
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