EDUCATIONAL
PHILOSOPHIES
INTRODUCTION
An
educational philosophy refers to a comprehensive and consistent set of beliefs
about the teaching-learning transaction. The purpose of an educational
philosophy is to help "educators recognize the need to think clearly about
what they are doing and to see what they are doing in the larger context of
individual and social development" (Ozmon & Craver, 1981,. Thus, it is
simply "to get people thinking about what they are doing". By doing
this, educators can see the interaction among the various elements in the
teaching-learning transaction such as the students, curriculum, administration,
and goals. This can "provide a valuable base to help us think more
clearly" about educational issues. Philosophy is abstract and consists of
ideas. "Philosophy is interested in the general principles of any
phenomena, object, process, or subject matter".
Perennialism, Perennialists is the aim
of education is to ensure that students acquire understandings about the great
ideas of Western civilization. These ideas have the potential for solving
problems in any era. The focus is to teach ideas that are everlasting, to seek
enduring truths which are constant, not changing, as the natural and human
worlds at their most essential level, do not change. Teaching these unchanging
principles is critical. Humans are rational beings, and their minds need to be
developed. Thus, cultivation of the intellect is the highest priority in a
worthwhile education. The demanding curriculum focuses on attaining cultural
literacy, stressing students' growth in enduring disciplines.
Essentialism, Essentialists believe
that there is a common core of knowledge that needs to be transmitted to
students in a systematic, disciplined way. The emphasis in this conservative
perspective is on intellectual and moral standards that schools should teach.
The core of the curriculum is essential knowledge and skills and academic
rigor. Although this educational philosophy is similar in some ways to
Perennialism, Essentialists accept the idea that this core curriculum may
change. Schooling should be practical, preparing students to become valuable
members of society. It should focus on facts-the objective reality out
there--and "the basics," training students to read, write, speak, and
compute clearly and logically. Schools should not try to set or influence
policies. Students should be taught hard work, respect for authority.
Progressivism, Progressivists believe that
education should focus on the whole child, rather than on the content or the
teacher. This educational philosophy stresses that students should test ideas
by active experimentation. Learning is rooted in the questions of learners that
arise through experiencing the world. It is active, not passive. The learner is
a problem solver and thinker who make meaning through his or her individual
experience in the physical and cultural context. Effective teachers provide
experiences so that students can learn by doing. Curriculum content is derived
from student interests and questions. The scientific method is used by
progressivist educators so that students can study matter and events
systematically and first hand. The emphasis is on process-how one comes to
know.
Reconstructionism/Critical Theory Social
reconstructionism is a philosophy that emphasizes the addressing of social
questions and a quest to create a better society and worldwide democracy.
Reconstructionist educators focus on a curriculum that highlights social reform
as the aim of education. Critical theorists, like social reconstructionists,
believe that systems must be changed to overcome oppression and improve human
conditions. Paulo Freire (1921-1997) was a Brazilian whose experiences living
in poverty led him to champion education and literacy as the vehicle for social
change. In his view, humans must learn to resist oppression and not become its
victims, nor oppress others. To do so requires dialog and critical
consciousness, the development of awareness to overcome domination and
oppression. Rather than "teaching as banking," in which the educator
deposits information into students' heads, Freire saw teaching and learning as
a process of inquiry in which the child must invent and reinvent the world.
For
social reconstructionists and critical theorists, curriculum focuses on 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.
Existentialism "Childhood is not
adulthood; childhood is playing and no child ever gets enough play. The
Summerhill theory is that when a child has played enough he will start to work
and face difficulties, and I claim that this theory has been vindicated in our
pupils' ability to do a good job even when it involves a lot of unpleasant
work."
Existentialism as an Educational
Philosophy, just as its namesake sprang from a strong rejection of traditional philosophy;
educational existentialism sprang from a strong rejection of the traditional,
essentialist approach to education. Existentialism rejects the existence of any
source of objective, authoritative truth about metaphysics, epistemology, and
ethics. Instead, individuals are responsible for determining for themselves
what is "true" or "false," "right" or
"wrong," "beautiful" or "ugly." For the
existentialist, there exists no universal form of human nature; each of us has
the free will to develop as we see fit. In the existentialist classroom,
subject matter takes second place to helping the students understand and
appreciate themselves as unique individuals who accept complete responsibility
for their thoughts, feelings, and actions. The teacher's role is to help students
define their own essence by exposing them to various paths they may take in
life and creating an environment in which they may freely choose their own
preferred way. Since feeling is not divorced from reason in decision making,
the existentialist demands the education of the whole person, not just the
mind. Although many existentialist educators provide some curricular structure,
existentialism, more than other educational philosophies, affords students
great latitude in their choice of subject matter. In an existentialist
curriculum, students are given a wide variety of options from which to choose.
To
the extent that the staff, rather than the students, influences the curriculum,
the humanities are commonly given tremendous emphasis. They are explored as a
means of providing students with vicarious experiences that will help unleash
their own creativity and self-expression. For example, rather than emphasizing
historical events, existentialists focus upon the actions of historical
individuals, each of whom provides possible models for the students' own
behavior. In contrast to the humanities, math and the natural sciences may be
de-emphasized, presumably because their subject matter would be considered
"cold," "dry," "objective” and therefore less fruitful
to self-awareness. Moreover, vocational education is regarded more as a means
of teaching students about themselves and their potential than of earning a
livelihood. In teaching art, existentialism encourages individual creativity
and imagination more than copying and imitating established models.
Existentialist
methods focus on the individual. Learning is self-paced, self directed, and
includes a great deal of individual contact with the teacher, who relates to
each student openly and honestly.
RATIONALE
This survey is all about philosophical
education, conducting to be able to identify what philosophical education they
usually adopt to the student in classroom management. Through this
philosophical education we will know what are the most effective in terms of
method or what the possibilities methods that fit to the student is.
Many
people are involved at various levels and in diverse settings in the education
of adults. One of the characteristics of professional development activities
among this diverse group of adult educators is an attempt to better understand
the teaching-learning process. For teachers, this involves better understanding
what we do in the classroom and why we do it. One way to accomplish this is for
teachers to become aware of their educational philosophies because "true
professionals know not only what they are to do, but also are aware of the
principles and reasons for acting. Experience alone does not make a person a
professional adult educator. The person must be also being able to reflect
deeply upon the experience he or she has had".
Educational
philosophy can serve as the frame of reference for effectively analyzing this
reflective thinking. Since "a philosophical orientation underlies most
individual and institutional practices in adult education.”Developing a
philosophical perspective on education is not a simple or easy task. It is,
however, a necessary one if a person wants to become an effective professional
educator".
We
gathered in this survey that progressivism is the highest percentage (5) five
out of (10) ten that co-teacher is more progessivist.
|
Philosophy
|
Frequency
|
Cumulative
Frequency
|
Percentage
|
|
|
Tally
|
f
|
|||
|
Perennialism
|
II
|
2
|
2
|
20%
|
|
Essentialism
|
II
|
2
|
4
|
20%
|
|
Progressivism
|
IIIII
|
5
|
9
|
50%
|
|
Reconstructionalism
|
I
|
1
|
10
|
10%
|
|
Total
|
|
10
|
|
100%
|
X=Σ (2,2,5,1)= 2.5
4
The
philosophy have the aim of education that assure every student understand every
subject matter to be discuss of a teacher. The focus is to teach ideas that are
everlasting, to seek enduring truths which are constant, not changing, as the
natural and human worlds at their most essential level, do not change. As
essentialists said it should focus on facts-the objective reality out there is
"the basics," training students to read, write, speak, and compute
clearly and logically. In progressivist is focusing to the learners that they
consider learning is the key that they can ask a question through their
experience that can learn by doing. Reconstructionist focus also to the student
experiences taking any action to real world problem situation this incident the
student can learn through experience. The existentialist also focuses to the
individual. Because learning is self-paced and self directed through this the
existentialism encourages the individual creativity and imagination.
Educational Philosophy is very
influential to us as our guide in teaching methods. Even though the time passed
by the educational philosophies is still exiting in our education system. This
is serving as our history of education that they share to us. This is all their
aim of education that focuses to the student to be able them to learn. The
educational belief of the philosopher is based in their observation that able
them how the learner learn the subject matter. But there is also aim of
education what will change through time period. It is because depends of the
learner what strategies that we give to them to able them to learn.
Every
philosophy has their ideas in terms of education and every educational
philosophy have a recipient. This philosophies emphasizing how to deal every
student and what approaches we need to apply to the individuals. Learning is
very important to the student developing their mind through subject matter
until learning through their experience outside the real world. As a trainer to
the trainees we must consider and follow our educational philosophy to the
student to its individual to mold them as individual creatures. Through this
philosophy we can see the insight what the possibilities of individual role
are. Every student has individual aspect and perception of their life in term
of education. For me we can gather more ideas in term of method and strategies
showing were the student fits to the philosophies.
The
implication of the survey knowing the results the effective methods for
classroom situation and showing different methods to know our students are
especially in their different individuality.
CONCLUSION
Educational philosophies is very
important as teaching profession is it our guide in teaching our student. This method
is the application to the classroom situation in different aspect of a
children’s. We must value every methods we have it is a lifelong process in
teaching into the student.
We
must consider always that the student should be able to understand very well
the subject matter. Any methods should be used is no longer matter the most
important part is the learning passes through to the student. But this survey
is the information that we gathered to the institution to be able to identify
what possibilities method is more effective in terms of teaching profession and
mostly use in the classroom management. Through this way we can witness to the student
the progress of the individual acceleration.
The
implication to this every method we used is effective way in motivating the
student to work hard in studying and learning the subject matter.
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