Pursuing an Educational Philosophy

Chapters 2&3 in Breitborde and Swiniarski

Philosophy of Education

Essential Questions: What can be known? What is the good life? What is the nature of the learner? What is the nature of the subject matter? What is the nature of the learning process

The value of philosophy

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Brings new interpretation and syntheses as well as analyzing, refining, modifying existing concepts and procedures Acts as a clearinghouse for analyzing and clarifying ideas and problems Offers a source of ethical guidance Induces habits of mind like tolerance, impartiality, and suspension of judgment

Philosophy

Love of wisdom , the quest for knowledge Philosophers often concerned with such things as power, provocation, personality offering ideas to people caught up in the whirlwinds of social crisis, ideological arguments Philosophers of education concerned with questions of schools and society

My approach to life is
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Live for today, tomorrow we die. Reach for the stars. Expect little and you wont be disappointed. It doesnt matter what you believe as long as youre sincere.
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Metaphysics

Greek word what is the nature of reality? What is real real nature or ideas? Is reality absolute and unchanging? Is reality ever changing and evolving? Some of our understandings are a priori Some of our understandings are a posteriori

I believe that the world (reality) is

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Changeless, eternal, and absolute Evolving, dynamic and unstable

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Branches of Philosophy

Metaphysicswhat is the nature of reality For Schools: What is worth Knowing? Epistemologywhat can be known and what is the nature of what is known For Schools: What is Learning? What is good teaching? Axiologyethics and aesthetics: the good, the true and the beautiful For Schools: What is the role of the school in society? Logicprinciples of right reasoning: induction and deduction For Schools: What is good thinking? Politicswhat is just? What is the role of school in society?

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

Socrates (470-399B.C.E.) philosophy was a way of life to Socrates Socratic dialogue, dialectic method of questions and answerswhat makes humans sin is the lack of knowledge Plato (427-347B.C.E.) founder of the Academy The Republic outlines a plan for a perfect society ruled by the philosopher king, knowledge consistent with temperance and justicefor women as well as men Aristotle (384-322B.C.E.) founded the Lyceum, the first person to classify knowledge by dividing and subdividing, developed syllogistic, deductive logic

Idealism

Roots in ancient Greece. Reality lies in the mind. Deductive Reasoningour power to reason clearly from general principles.

The opposite of Idealism is

Nihilism the absolute belief that no meaning or ideals or understanding can be found by human beings. Note: Teenagers often flirt with varieties of nihilism.

Plato

From text, The Republic. Plato recounts the teaching and dialogues of Socrates. Socratic Dialogue. The Allegory of the Cave.

Realism

Reality can be found in the world available to the senses. A sensible, orderly functioning. Empiricism Roots in Aristotle the forms. Enlightenment Values

Empiricism Francis Bacon Tabula Rasa John Locke

Aristotle

Focuses philosophical attention on the real world. Perceptionthe senses. Categories Logical Propositions. Foundational to Western Scientific Method

All fish can swim. This is a fish. Therefore.

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This is a Platonic dialectic This is Socratic questioning This is Aristotelian logic (a syllogism) This is metaphysics

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Breitborde & Swiniarskis Isms

Perennialism Essentialism Behaviorism Romantic Naturalism Progressivism Existentialism Reconstructionism Liberationism

Versions of Idealism

Perennialismthere are absolute truths and standardsrelated to idealism, experiences are a mental representation rather than a representation of the world, classical humanism refers to the Greek philosophers dedicated to discovering reason and truth for humankind Essentialismpreserve the basic elements of human culture and transmit them to the young Romantic Idealism.innocence of youthtruth in natural world (senses).

Versions of Realism

Behaviorism.behavior can be managed, shaped, reinforced. Learning is the real consequence of sensory input. Mechanistic.

Pragmatism.a compromise between the Ideal and the Realistic.Education should be what works. In its Progressive form, Pragmatism was associated with democratic ideals; i.e. the work of John Dewey.

For me, life is .

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A trial to be endured A wonderful gift from the creator Survival of the fittest Without any particular meaning

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Notions of Philosophy in Education

Modern Postmodern

Existentialism.truth is impossible. Life is absurd, only existence. Some existentialism shades toward the ideal; i.e. if we must endure our trial in life, it is best to live as if truth, god, beauty, etc. were possible to achieve.

Reconstructionismseeks to reconstruct society through education. Based on Progressive notions, civil rights era learnings, and multicultural realities of a Postcolonial world. Anticipated by Gandhi.
Liberationism.basis in Marx. Class struggle, political literacy, critical literacy. An impetus toward the dynamic of critical reflection.

Existentialism

What is it like to be an individual living in the world? What we have is existencenothing else. Life characterized by absurdity and imminence of death. Passionate encounter with the problems of life and the inevitability of death Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, Buber, Simone de Beauvoir Important decisions with limited knowledge

Reconstructionism

Origins in Dewey, so progressive. World needs workable change (progress). Learning is about construction of worthwhile societal structures. Global, trans-cultural perspective. George Counts reaction to U.S. Depression: Something new needed to be built.

Paulo Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970); Liberationism

This then is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well.True generosity lies in striving so that these hands whether of individuals or of whole peoples need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work, and working, transform the world.

Philosophies of Education

Postmodernismde-centers the subject There is no linear path to truth. Truth is variable, flexible, flattened. The World is Flat.

Postmodernism

Roots in 1950s world of art Themes including truth, language and its relation to thought, human nature and the self, the Other What kind of power is embedded in educational issues, problems, and traditions? Michel Foucault, Cleo Cherryholmes

Indian Philosophy

Karmawhat a person does influences what will happen to that person in the future Study, meditation, yoga can lead one to transcend cares and suffering BuddhaSiddhartha Gautama (6th century B.C.E.)all suffering is based on an inability to discern what is real and what is fictitious Gandhi (1869-1948) nonviolence toward living things Satyagrahaholding fast to the truth

Far Eastern Philosophy

21st century technology, global commerce, and population demographics demand that we know something of Eastern philosophy Confucianismconcerned with ethics and morality (foundation of Chinese civilization) five key relationships: ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder brother and younger brother, friend and friend Confucius (Kung Fu-tzu, 551-479B.C.E.)those most capable, should governmoral and ethical men make the best rulers, principle of licourtesy and ceremony Confucianisma language of morals and laws Taoismoneness with nature, noninterference

Michel Foucault

Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.

The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions and to participate in the formation of a political will (where he has his role as citizen to play).