THREE PHILOSOPHYS OF EDUCATION

THREE PHILOSOPHYS OF EDUCATION

Philosophy as a term for me has always be subjective and somewhat elusive. Philosophy, from lessons I was taught, is a form of discussion where ideas are implemented, negotiated, shaped, and debated. Philosophy applied to education seems impossible to explain narrowly, but our textbook discusses three different types of philosophy that have been applied to education and its development over the last few centuries: essentialism, perennialism, and progressivism.

Essentialism is the belief in the foundations of organized knowledge structures. They rely on methods of education used in the past, where specific and concrete areas of lessons are predetermined and limited. The essential knowledge of education, the importance and necessity, is narrowed through decisions of government officials and educators. Essentialism is deeply rooted with American History, and primarily emphasizes developments drawn from Western Civilizations. It employs methods such as strict memorization and rigid testing, and requires all students meet at the same achievement levels in the areas of knowledge that are laid out in stone. It considers individualism ineffective and dulling to the education system, and often times avoids changes and alterations in information and considers them distractions from the initial intended curriculum. Student opinions are not taken into consideration through this philosophy, and students are to remain obedient and subservient to the lessons and the authority of the teachers. There is not room for speculations and skepticisms from students. There are only requirements that each student must meet, and the requirements are predetermined through conservative methods, designed to teach that there must be acceptance in contributing to societal roles.

One problem that I found to be quite alarming, was the essentialists view of multiculturalism and diversity. The Essentialism philosophy believes that educating American students in diversity will only confuse and distract from the required lesson contents, and can only bring about rebellion and divisions. In a world where we communicate on global levels, and depend on other countries for resources and development, to limit and narrow lessons to suite only our culture, we deny students the greater understandings of our current global circumstances. “Local control of education has long been am American tradition. However, this ignores the growing interdependence of the nation and can lead to narrow interests and content that might not be important in the national or international context,”(Armstrong, page 269). Therefore, students are not given multicultural lesson and not required to be taught multiple languages, but as adults, when dealing on a global scale, this will only disable future adults from accelerating along with the other cultures and the monocultures being taught could paralyze developments in comparisons to the steadfast growth of other countries and there evolving societies.

Perennialism considers knowledge to be validated through the centuries, and to undergo the test of time in achievements truth and accuracy. It stays firm to the convictions of Western societies of the prior centuries, and questions modern arguments and considers them distracting. Knowledge, to a perennialist is reoccurring, and to them, human reason remains unaltered through the centuries of trials. The consider human understanding to be unchanging, and advances are only temporary considerations which hold no true validity. They feel new theories have not stood the test of time, and therefore are inapplicable to our education system. Only experience can lead to truths, and any information worth learning has been established by those great minds of the past. “Perennialist content that Western society lost its way several centuries ago. They decry what they see as a trend for society to rely on experimental science and technology-development they fear diverts attention away from enduring truths. Perennialists argue that the growing status of scientific experimentation has led to a denial of the power and importance of human reason,”(Armstrong, page 271). Perennialism, like essentialism, relies on traditions and historical records, and is very apprehensive to changing concrete methods of the past. They feel it will only send students off the intended path of human understanding and reason. They believe that modernism and scientific advancement only takes away from human reason as it is suppose to remain unchanged through time.

Progressivism recognizes and accepts knowledge and education as something that is constantly undergoing change and development, in a sense it is the modernized open-mindedness applied to our education system. Science is a key element in progressivism is directly tied to the growing knowledge of our society and the developments to come in the future. Science constantly requires evaluation and alteration in order to gain a better and more advance understandings of our societal operations and worldly functions on a global scale.

Progressivism also requires that educators acknowledge curiosities and speculations of individual students in order to allow nourishment for young minds to flourish. Broadening elements of academia and opening up different paths for different developing minds, where they can integrate different subject material to assist in developments to the fullest potentials. It considers conformity and forced memorization to be ineffective for brain development, and limits them from creating and discovering new things about themselves and the world. So instead of forcing controlled believes and techniques, it hands to power to the students, and teaches the student to become the navigators through the long course of education ahead of them. By handing the power over, the hope is that students will develop more completely, and in turn, contribute more productively and positively towards adulthood when the time comes to transition to being part of an overall society. The key is in order to keep our society flourishing, our young minds must be nurtured to gain these confidences. “Progressivism emphasizes changes as the essence of reality and the importance of science in dealing with change. Furthermore, in order to prepare students for their role as citizens in a democracy, it emphasizes a strong commitment to the values of democracy,”(Armstrong, page 263).

Without any hesitation, the philosophy that backs my desired teaching methods, far beyond others, is Progressivism. Students education in our modern society can only flourish with these liberal methods. Otherwise, we are creating a bunch of machines that all have the same functions, and if all our students are trained with the same functions, there are no variances. Without variances in multicultural education, our societal growth and evolution will remain stagnant. For me, this is unfair to future students, to require them to become memorizing robots will only damage our countries integrity, and delay our advancements, and cause our nation to lag more and more behind other developing countries. This means, that instead of teaching knowledge, we are teaching information, and in all the development we limit innovations for future adults, and this could cause devastation on a national level. Other countries will move forward and progress towards the future and learn smarter and more effective ways of surviving, while our limited information could bring about great suffering. We must stay in the international race of education, and we don’t stand a chance against these trails to come unless we recognize the evolving diversity and integration of the world outside our borders.

　

Armstrong, D. H. (2009). Teaching today: An Introduction to Education (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River , NJ: Pearson. (Armstrong, D., Henson, K., & Savage, T., 2009).