Review of Philosophies of Education

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Review of Philosophies of Education

• EDUC 506
• Jacques Gibble

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PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS

• Beliefs about the
• nature of learners
• demands of a culture
• subject matter that is most worth learning

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TWO PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS

• Traditionalists
• What has been done in the past has been done
  well therefore we should hold to it in the
  future.
• Progressivists
• Lets look critically at past actions and
  practices to see what can be done differently to
  make learning more satisfying and effective.

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COMPARISION OF POSITIONS

• Aims of Education - to develop learners
• intellectually
• as functioning citizens
• as individuals in our society
• as actual or potential workers
• Authority versus freedom
• The uses of subject matter

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Philosophies of Education

• Perennialists
• Idealists
• Realists
• Pragamatists
• Reconstructionists
• Existentialists

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PERENNIALISTS

• Oldest and most conservative
• Relies on the past
• Curriculum is subject-centered
• One curriculum for all students
• Teacher is authority in the field
• Teaching is based on Socratic method

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IDEALISTS

• Emphasizes moral and spiritual reality
• Truth and values are absolute, timeless, and
  universal
• Learning involves recalling and working with
  ideas
• Education is concerned with conceptual matters

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REALISTS

• Views the world in terms of objects and matter
• Reality and truth emanate from both science and
  art
• Curriculum consists of organized, separate
  subject matter

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PRAGMATISTS

• Also referred to as experimentalism
• Based on change, process, and relativity
• Knowledge is a process in which reality is
  constantly changing.
• Teaching is more exploratory than explanatory

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RECONSTRUCTIONISTS

• Based on early socialistic and utopian ideas of
  the nineteenth century
• The ideal curriculum is emphasizes cultural
  pluralism, equality, and futurism
• Teachers are organized to encourage
  experimentation and to challenge outdated
  structures

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EXISTENTIALISTS

• Learners are free to choose the knowledge they
  wish to possess
• Curriculum stresses self-expressive activities,
  experimentation, and methods and media that
  illustrate emotions, feelings, and insights.
• We are what we choose to be

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SUMMARY

• Curriculum is the formal and informal content and
  process
• People are compelled to try to improve the
  schools curriculum
• Two major philosophical viewpoints - conservative
  Traditionalism and liberal Progressivism - have
  emerged over time