2 Idealism and Education

I. Idealism
A. Idealism, which asserts that reality is essentially spiritual or ideational, is one of humankinds
oldest and most enduring systems of thought.
B. It proclaims the spiritual nature of the human being and the universe, asserts that the good,
true, and beautiful are permanently part of the structure of a related, coherent, orderly, and
unchanging universe.
C. In the Western Educational tradition, Idealisms origins are usually traced to the ancient Greek
philosopher, Plato.
D. While Idealism is historically significant, certain current educational practices have their origin
and rationale in the Idealist perspective.
1. The notion that education is a process of unfolding that which is present but latent in the
child is grounded in idealist epistemology.
2. The concept of the teacher as a moral and cultural model, or exemplar, also originated in
Philosophical Idealism.
3. The Socratic method, which includes the skillful asking of probing questions to stimulate the
students recollection.
E. Idealist holds that the human beings spiritual essence is its essential and permanent
characteristics. The mind provides the elemental life force that gives the person vitality and
dynamism. Mind is evidenced by doubting; doubting id thinking; thinking gives evidence of the
presence of intellectual mind.

II. Idealism as a Philosophy of Education

1. Idealism is a comprehensive world view that embraces many strains of thought; it is so
comprehensive that it includes among its adherents those who have stressed personal
liberation and self-definition as well as those who have argued for the creation of an
organic society in which persons are primarily identified as exercising a specific role in the
total state system.

2. Idealism has encouraged a hierarchical view of people, society, and knowledge. Both the
position of a person in society and a subject in the curriculum is in ranked order based on
the ability to abstract or to be abstracted.

III. Plato: Founder of Western Idealism

A. The origins of philosophical Idealism in Western thought are generally traced to Plato(429-337
B.C.), the famous student of Socrates. Whereas Socrates raised fundamental questions about
reality, knowledge and human nature, Plato went beyond his teacher in seeking to provide
fundamental answers.

B. Plato, who founded the Alchemy in Athens in 387 B.C., wrote a number of philosophical works
that have established the foundations of Western philosophy:
1. Protagoras, which examined the issue of virtue;
2. Phaedo, which examined the immortality of the soul;
3. The Republic and the Laws, which looked at both political and educational issues.

C. Like his mentor Socrates, Plato rejected the Sophists claim that ethical behavior was
situationally determined and that education could be reduced to specialized vocational or
professional training. Plato based his metaphysical beliefs on the existence of an ideal, hence

Page 1 of 3
 unchanging, world of perfect ideas, such as universal and timeless concepts of truth, goodness,
justice, and beauty.

D. He asserted that human beings were good and honorable when their conduct conformed to the
ideal and universal concepts of truth, goodness, ad beauty.

IV. Educational Implications of Idealism

A. Idealisms Educational Goals
Idealist education has the following objectives that are intended to help students
become truth-seekers:
1. The teaching-learning process should assist students to realize fully the potentialities
inherent in their human nature.
2. The school, as a social institution, should expose the students to the wisdom contained in
the cultural heritage so that they can know, share in, and extend it through their own
personal contributions.

B. The School
1. It is the task of the school to preserve past knowledge, skill, and discipline; it prepares the
children for the future by transmitting the cultural heritage in a deliberate fashion by way of
systematically ordered, sequential, and cumulative curriculum.

2. The words successive and cumulative have a special meaning for the school. Its
administrators and teachers are to arrange knowledge as a structured curriculum in which
subjects, that is, organized bodies of knowledge, succeed each other in increasingly complex
and sophisticated content. As students progress through the years of schooling, their
learning is cumulative in that the knowledge attained at one level or grade is added to he
next higher level.

C. The Idealist Curriculum

1. Idealist maintain that the curriculum is a body of intellectual subject matters, or learned
disciplines, that are basically ideational and conceptual.
2. The Idealist curriculum can be viewed as a hierarchy in which the summit is occupied by the
most general of the disciplines, namely philosophy and theology.
3. Mathematics, history, literature, biography and autobiography ranked high in the
curriculum hierarchy.
4. Somewhat lower in the curriculum hierarchy can be found the various sciences that are
concerned with particular cause-and-effect relationship.

D. The Attitudinal Dimension of Education

1. Because the ethical core is contained within and is transmitted by the cultural heritage,
subjects such as philosophy, theology, history, literature, and artistic criticism are also rich
sources of value.
2. Value education requires that the student be exposed to worthy models and exemplars so
that their style might be imitated and extended.

E. Idealist Methodology
1. The Idealist conception of instructional method derives from the Idealisms concept of
epistemology. The thought process is essentially that of recognition, an introspective self-
examination in which the learner examines the contents of his/her mind and therein finds
the truth that is shared by all others because it reflects the Universal Truth.
2. Immersion in the cultural heritage, via the curriculum, is part of the formal schooling for
Idealist.
3. Idealist educator such as Friedrich Froebel, the founder of the kindergarten, have
emphasized the principle of the learners own self-activity. The learners own self- activity is
related to the learners interests and willingness to expend effort.
4. The Idealist educational method is designed to stimulate the learners own intuitive and
introspective self- exploration.
Page 2 of 3
 5. There is no method that is used exclusively in stimulating the learner. The Idealist teacher
should be conversant with a variety of methods and should use the method most effective
in securing the desired results.
6. Although no one particular method can be specified, the Socratic dialogue is certainly
appropriate to the Idealist classroom. The Socratic dialogue is a process in which the mature
person, the teacher, acts to stimulate the learners awareness of ideas. It requires skillful
questioning on the part of the teacher
7. Imitation of the model or exemplar is also a part of the Idealist methodology. Emulation is
not mimicry; rather, it is an extension of the good into ones own life.
8. Learning is a discovery process in which the learner is stimulated to recall the truths present
within the mind.

F. Teacher- Learner Relationship

In the teacher- learner relationship, great emphasis is placed on the teachers central
and crucial role.
1. The teacher should
a. be a moral and cultural exemplar or model of values that represent the highest and best
expression of personal and humane development;
b. personify culture and reality to students;
c. be a specialist in human personality;
d. as an expert in the learning process, be capable of uniting expertise with enthusiasm;
e. merit students friendship;
f. awaken students desire to learn;
g. realize that teachings moral significance lies in its goal of perfecting human beings; and
h. aid in the cultural rebirth of each generation.

2. The Learner
a. The learner is immature and seeks the perspective that the culture can provide, this
does not mean that the students personality should be manipulated by the teacher.
b. The student is exposed to valuable lessons based on worthy models or exemplars from
history, literature, religion, biography and philosophy. He or she is encouraged to study
and to analyze the model so that the particular person being studied serves as a source
of value.
c. The student imitates the model by incorporating the exemplars value schema into
his/her own life.
d. The student is striving to gain a mature perspective into his or her own personality.

Reference:
Gutek, Gerald L. Philosophical and Ideological Perspectives on Education. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1988.

Page 3 of 3