EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHIES MINI RESEARCH

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.