CHAPTER 7
Upper
EDUCATIONAL REALISM
DISCIPLINISM AND RATIONALISM
NATURALISM
EDUCATIONAL REALISM
Realism refers to the philosophy which holds that
education should be concerned with the actualities of life.
Educational realism came into existence as a protest against
the narrowness and excessive formalism of the humanist and
the religious reformers.
Realists differed as to the methods by which such
could be achieved. This difference of opinion gave rise to
three groups:
 Humanistic or Verbal Realists
 Social Realists
 Sense Realists
Humanistic or Verbal Realism
The verbal or literary realists did not entirely break
away from humanism. Both the humanists and the verbal
realists believed that the only material worth reading was
classical literature. The humanists believed that literature has
to be studied for its own sake for its aesthetic value. The
verbal realists believed that classical literature should be
studied not for its beauty but for the information and
knowledge of the facts of the past so that knowledge could be
used for the preparation for practical living. The verbal realists
were especially interested in the scientific, historical, and
social instruction which they could get from literature.
Educational Aims of Verbal Realism
 Humanistic or verbal realists aimed at a complete
knowledge and understanding as to fit the individual
to the environment which he lives.
From the point of view of method, the verbal realists
advanced the following ideas:
 Juan Luis Vives: ―Education should develop
personality.‖ The teacher should study each pupil
individually; adapt schoolwork to the abilities and
interests of the pupil, hold quarterly conferences of
teachers to thoroughly assess pupil‘s progress.
 Francois Rabelais: ―Aim of learning was the
development of the whole man.‖ It is the incidental
method of teaching; all learning is to be made
pleasant; learning facilitated through natural
activities; reasoning substituted for rote learning;
made use of reference books.
 John Milton: ―Education was to prepare for actual
living.‖ Reading for content and not for syntax; use
of resource person in the classroom; discussions and
lectures by academic authorities.
Agencies of Education and Contents Studied
From birth to age six, the child was to be taught at
home by the mother under the supervision of the father. At age
seven, the boy had to enter the public day school, which was
the idea of Vives. The academy, on the other hand, was the
idea of Milton. Academy is the private secondary school we
know today. Between ages twelve and twenty-one, the boy
should be given his entire education in the academy.
courses were taken in the university.
The pupils in the lower schools were free but those of
the higher schools had to pay tuition fees, especially in private
schools.
The curriculum of the verbal or literary realists
covered almost all subject matters. The study of vernacular as
a national language and Latin as a universal language were
used. The study of language should be based on usage. Lower
schools offered mathematics, natural and physical science,
literature and philosophy, history and geography. The higher
schools offered technical and professional study such as law,
theology, medicine, architecture, political science, and
warfare. For women, vernacular, Latin, religion, moral
conduct, rearing for children and housekeeping were taught.
These subjects were advocated by Vives.
Rabelais advocated a very comprehensive curriculum
particularly in physical exercises, sports and games, the Bible
and religious exercises, instrumental music, intellectual
readings from ancient literature, science, history, mathematics
and astronomy.
Likewise, Milton, proposed the study of ancient
learning and classics in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic,
Syrian, and Italian; natural science, social science, philosophy
morality, religion and physical education for the military.
Outstanding Contributions to Education
Practical education that would enable man to adjust
himself to his environment was the outstanding of verbal
realists.
Social Realism
Social realists were members of the aristocracy who
aimed for education that would develop the gentleman and
such an education could be best direct contact with the people
and their social activities rather than through books.
Educational Aims of Social Realism
 Pragmatic Utilitarian. Michael Montaigne, a social
realist, proposed a broad social education that would
make a young aristocrat a man of the world. Travel
according to him, would be most suitable so that the
school had very little use. The private tutorial
systems became popular among the nobility. The
finishing schools and the private military academies
of today are the remnants of social realism.
 Social Relation is another aim to prepare and train the
aristocratic youth to have the right relationships with
his fellowmen to achieve joyful living with them.
 Decision-making was also emphasized to train the
aristocratic youth to make wise and practical
judgement, proper decisions, and right choices.
Agencies and Contents Studied
 The Tutor was advocated by Montaigne and was
adopted by the nobility.
  Academies was established emphasizing
mathematics, good manners, modern languages and
military sciences as part of the curriculum.
 Ritterakademie was established solely for the sons of
the nobility under the influence of the French court
life.
Tutorial system was one of the methods of
instruction. One teacher taught one pupil. Travel is another
method aside from learning by experience. Understanding and
judgement were emphasized instead of memorization.
Gathering information was drawn from observation and social
contacts rather than from books. Application is another
method where independent thinking of the student was
encouraged. The pupils had to pay fees to the school and to
their tutors.
Outstanding Contributions to Education
 Tutorial System
 Finishing School
 Private Military Academies
Sense Realism
Sense realist advocated a type of education in which
scientific content would be introduced and the scientific
method used.
Educational Aims of Sense Realism
Four educational thinkers represent sense realism.
Their viewpoints became the basis of the sense realists in
formulating the aims of education.
 Richard Mulcaster: ―Children must be studied
thoroughly and the innate abilities respected; make
use of the games, play and exercise for learning
purposes.‖ For a harmonious society, the natural
tendencies and activities of the child must be
developed.
 Francis Bacon: ―Give man dominance over things.‖
He used the inductive method for learning. To
increase the scientific knowledge of man about all
things in his environment.
 Wolgang Ratke: ―Developed a natural method of
teaching; nothing is to be learned by rote; repetition
must be done as often as possible; Learning by senses
first then by explanation.
 Joan Amos Comenius: ―The ultimate goal of
education was eternal happiness with God and
education should prepare or the activities of life
through knowledge.‖ Learning should start from the
senses; learning should proceed from known to
unknown. Thus, the aims were religious, intellectual
and practical.
Agencies of Education and Contents Studied
 Model educational institution for scientific
investigation was drawn up by Bacon and became the
forerunner of the modern research university. To
Bacon, the most important subject was science.
 Six-year vernacular elementary school for all boys
and girls, secondary school, and university for
Mulcaster. Children of both sexes were taught
reading, writing, vernacular, English as a subject and
medium of instruction, drawing and music, physical
exercises and group sports.
 Comenius‘ curriculum was the most comprehensive
because its aims was ―to know all things, to say all
things.‖ Every subject was taught including the
Trivium and Quadrivium – grammar, rhetoric,
dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music
and in addition physics, geography, history, and
religion. Comenius also considered textbook as an
important agency of education. He considered four
educational periods: 1.) School of the Mother‘s Knee,
contents was drawn from child areas of interest
things, manipulation, language, and people; 2.)
Vernacular elementary; 3.) Latin school, and 4.)
University.
 The sense realists considered the teacher as an
important agency of education.
 Franke, head of the Priests, organized a group of
schools including a university emphasizing scientific
studies; a seminar for training teachers for the
Volkschule; the pedagpoium, secondary school of
science and language.
 Realschule, a secondary school was established by
Julius Hecker in Berlin. Pure and applied science
dominated the curriculum.
Attendance in the lower vernacular schools was free
but in the higher schools the students had to pay school fees.
Some schools received endowments.
Outstanding Contributions to Education
 Training of Teachers
 Organization of Training Schools for Teachers
 Development of Textbooks
 Internal Administrative Organization of a School
 Ladderized System of Grade Level Organization
 Emphasis on Science in the Curriculum
 Teaching of Science by the Laboratory Method
 Several Tested Methods of Teaching
 The Use of Vernacular in Teaching
Educational Aim of Formal Disciplinism
The aim of disciplinism was the formation of habits
through discipline.
Agencies of Education and Contents Studied
 The Tutor (advocated by Locke but not much used)
 Elementary school. Drill subjects such as spelling,
arithmetic, grammar, history, geography, and
elementary sciences.
 Secondary school.
 University. Classical languages, mathematics,
English, drawing, geography, history, anatomy,
ethics, dancing, practical and fine arts were studied.
All the pupils had to pass through the three levels:
elementary, secondary and college. All the methods were
based on the laws of habit formation: desirable habits of
thinking and acting. Drill and exercise were also used for habit
formation. Locke‘s presented three steps in learning: 1.) sense
learning (what are sensed should be retained); 2.)
memorization (no one can reason out if he has nothing in his
head), and 3.) reasoning. The disciplinists believed that the
mind could be developed by memorizing and abstract
reasoning.
Discipline was very severe. Corporal punishment as
used extensively.
The discplinists had a limited curriculum. They
believed that the intellectual powers of memorizing and
reasoning developed by offering the proper kind of subject
matter that could be used in mastering other subject.
Outstanding Contribution to Education
 Formal Discipline.
Rationalism
The rationalists upheld the right of each individual to
his own opinion, liberty of conscience, and freedom of
thought. They believed that man could by his own reason
improve himself and his institutions, in order to bring about
the general welfare.
Educational Aims
 Rationalism aimed at developing and individual who
could control all the aspects of life by reason,
suppress passion and display of feeling, to live in a
highly artificial society.
 The education resulting from these aims was
aristocratic, creating a class of illuminati. They had
no use for universal education, since they could not
accept the idea that the lower classes were capable of
being educated.
Agencies of Education and Contents Studied
Secondary and higher schools were organized under
the humanist movement. Encyclopedia, another agency, was a
compilation of all knowledge about science and philosophy
discovered up to that time. Fashionable salons were also
considered as agency. The ladies discussed in their salons
what they read in science, pamphlets, and leaflets distributed.
All things reasonable were included in the curriculum
and all unreasonable things were thrown out. Scientific and
philosophical arguments were emphasized. There was no
religion. Philosophy, science, art, formal etiquette, and codes
of self-interest were subjects included in the curriculum.
The pupils paid their tuition fees since they belonged
to the upper class.
Outstanding Contribution to Education
 Training of Creative Thinking and Reasoning (Logic)
 Inductive Method
NATURALISM
Naturalism was an educational movement in Europe.
It was the most influential education movement during the 18 th
century. The child was to be educated in accordance with the
natural laws of human development, free from all that was
artificial.
Jean Jacques Rosseau was the first to develop an
educational theory based on naturalistic approach. Few books
have exercised such profound influence on the theory and
practice of education as he attached the formal education and
insisted on nature as the best guide to the educational process.
His educational ideas were set forth in Emile (1762), one of
the greatest and most influential educational classics.
Educational Aims of Naturalism
 Preservation of Natural Goodness of Man and Virtue
―Man is by nature good and virtuous.‖ (Rosseau)
 Individual Freedom
To free the individual from the impositions of the
state, the Church, and the aristocratic society.
To be free was a right.
 Create a New Society
To create a new society where there should be
―simplicity, liberty, equality, and fraternity‖ for
all. To create a society in which the individual
could attain his fullest fulfillment as a natural
man.
Agencies and Contents Studied
 The parents had to handle the education of their
children at home.
 Tutorship was best suited to the educational plan of
Rosseau.
History was taught as biography. Astronomy and
geography were learned through observation. Counting and
weighing things, measuring distances, drawing, and singing
were also included in the curriculum. Women were taught
only singing, dancing, embroidery and home chores to please
their men.
Outstanding Contributions to Education
 Three modern Principles of Teaching:
 Principle of growth
 Principle of pupil activity
 Principle of individualization
 The Order of Nature:
 Need
 Activity
 Experience
 Knowledge
CHAPTER 8
MEN IN THE MODERN EDUCATION PERIODS
16TH – 17TH Centuries
Education for This World
JOHN AMOS COMENIUS
(1592-1670)
 Also known as Johan Amos, an educational reformer
and writer, was born in Moravia. Poverty delayed his
education. He wrote his first picture book, ―Orbis Pictus
Sensualium‖ or the World of Sensible Things Pictured which
led to the use of visual aids in the classroom. His famous
work, the Great Didactic gives his theories and procedures of
practical education. He wrote over 154 books in his lifetime,
even after all of his original manuscripts were burned during a
rebellion in Holland. He was an amazing and prolific educator,
and has been stamped ―The Father of Modern Education‖.
His contributions to the educational scene are
immeasurable in many ways, and, as stated before, he is
deemed the ―Father of Modern Education.‖ He answered the
question ―Is there a way to teach children pleasantly, but
quickly at the same time?‖ in a most biblical and helpful
manner. The various schools of his day thought this was
impossible. They leaned upon corporeal discipline to the
extreme, and neglected the teaching of girls altogether.
Comenius through that learning should be in the home
(following thoughts surrounding catechizing that began during
the Reformation) and thus by parents, which would have
included the mother. If mothers, then, were not educated, then
children would not be educated as well. He wrote the book
The Great Didactic (published in 1657 in Holland) that
encompassed a Christian worldview in learning from God‘s
second book – nature, and aiding parents in helping their
children learn about god in every way possible. Children in
Comenius day were trained to repeat memorized Latin
vocabulary and conjugations, but they were not taught to think
well. If one cannot think well, how can they learn or
understand a given proposition? Education for Comenius
stretches beyond the boundaries of the classroom and
encompasses all of life.
Some principles Comenius observed in nature applicable
to education:
1. Nature observes a suitable time.
2. Nature prepares the material, before she begins to
give it form.
3. Nature chooses a fit subject to act upon, or first
submits one to a suitable treatment in order to make it
fit.
4. Nature is not confused in its operations, but in its
forward progress advances distinctly from one point
to another.
5. In all the operations of nature, development is from
within.
6. Nature, in its formative processes, begins with the
universal and ends with the particular.
7. Nature makes no leaps, but proceeds step by step.
8. If nature commences anything, it does not leave off
until the operation is completed.
9. Nature carefully avoids obstacles and things likely to
cause hurt.
JOHN LOCKE
(1632-1704)
The Father of English Empiricism (you have
evidences to prove things) and foremost exponent of
disciplinism (education is based on discipline), whose
theories, knowledge and political life are still widely felt. He
protested against the time devoted to study Latin and Greek
and recommended a broader curriculum and physical training.
He authored the ―tabula rasa‖ theory of education – that the
mind of the child at birth is a blank tablet. *discipline: along
area of a subject
Ultimately, in his acceptance of the existence of God,
Locke was a dualist – though only barely so; he did not
consider man to be a divine creature fixed with ideas on
coming into this world. Locke was an empiricist, viz., all
knowledge comes to us through experience. ―No man’s
knowledge here can go beyond his experience.‖ There is no
such thing as innate ideas; there is no such thing as moral
percepts; we are born with an empty mind, with a soft tablet
(tabula rasa) ready to be writ upon by experimental
impressions. Beginning blank, the human mind acquires
knowledge through the use of the five senses and a process of
reflection. Not only has Locke‘s empiricism been a dominant
tradition in British philosophy, but it has been a doctrine
which with its method, experimental science, has brought on
scientific discoveries ever since, scientific discoveries in
which our modern world now depends. 1
FRANCIS BACON
(1561-1626)
He introduced the inductive method of teaching from
his book Novum Organum. He also wrote the New Atlantis, a
utopian society, and The Idols of the Mind, obstacles to man‘s
pursuit of truth.
Novum Organum and the Theory of Induction
Already in his early text Cogitata et Visa (1607)
Bacon dealt with his scientific method, which became famous
under the name of induction. He repudiates the syllogistic
method and defines his alternative procedure as one ―which by
slow and faithful toil gathers information from things and
brings it into understanding. Later on, he developed his
method in detail, namely in his Novum Organum.
 The inductive method starts from sensible experience
and moves via natural history (providing sense-data
as guarantees) to lower axioms or propositions, which
are derived from the tables of presentation or from
the abstraction of notions.
 Induction can only be efficient if it is eliminative by
exclusion, which goes beyond the remit of induction
by simple enumeration. The inductive method helps
the human mind to find a way to ascertain truthful
knowledge.
 Novum Organum, the ―pulling down‖ of ―the signs
and causes of the errors‖ within the sciences,
achieved by means of three refutations, which
constituted the condition for a rational introduction of
method: refutation of ―natural human reason‖ (idols);
refutation of ―demonstrations‖ (syllogisms) and
refutation of ―theories‖ (traditional philosophical
systems).
 Novum Organum deals with Bacon‘s rule for
interpreting nature, even if he provides no complete
or universal theory. He contributes to the new
philosophy by introducing his tables of discovery by
 presenting an example of particulars, and by
observations on history. It is well known that he
worked hard in the last five years of his life to make
progress on his natural history, knowing that he could
not always come up to the standards of legitimate
interpretation.
 Bacon‘s method presupposes a double empirical and
rational starting-point. True knowledge is acquired if
we proceed from lower certainty to higher liberty and
from lower liberty to higher certainty.
The method of induction works in two stages:
1. Learned experience from the known to the unknown
has to be acquired, and the tables (of presence,
absence, degrees) have to be set up before their
interpretation can take place according to the
principle of exclusion. After the three tables of the
first presentation have been judged and analyzed,
Bacon declares the First Vintage or the first version
of the interpretation of nature to be concluded.
2. The second phase of the method concentrates on the
process of exclusion. The aim of this procedure is the
reduction of the empirical character of experience, so
that the analysis converges with an anatomy of
things. Here, too, tables of presence and of absence
are set up. The research work proper consists of
finding the relationship of the two natures of
qualities. Here exclusion functions as the process of
determination. Bacon‘s method starts from material
determination in order to establish the formal
determination of real causes, but does not stop there,
because it aim at the progressive generalization of
causes. Here, again, the central element of the
inductive method is the procedure of exclusion.
 In the Novum Organum (the new
instrumentality for the acquisition of
knowledge) Francis Bacon classified the
intellectual fallacies of his time under four
headings that he called idols. He
distinguished them as idols of the Tribe,
idols of the Cave, idols of the Marketplace
and idols of the Theater.
 An idol is an image, in this case held in the
mind, which receives veneration but is
without substance in itself. Bacon did not
regard idols as symbols, but rather as
fixations. In this respect he anticipated
modern psychology.
 Idols of the Tribe. The Idols of the Tribe
have their origin in the production of false
concepts due to human nature, because the
structure of human understanding is like a
crooked mirror, which causes distorted
reflections (of things in the external world).
 Idols of the tribe are deceptive beliefs
inherent in the mind of man, and therefore
belonging to the whole of the human race.
They are abstractions in error arising from
common tendencies to exaggeration,
distortion, and disproportion. Thus men
gazing at the stars perceive the order of the
world, but are not content merely to
contemplate or record that which is seen.
They extend their opinions, investing the
starry heavens with innumerable imaginary
qualities. In a short time, these imaginings
gain dignity and are mingled in the facts
until the compounds become inseparable.
 The Idols of the Cave consist of
conceptions or doctrines which are dear to
the individual who cherishes them, without
possessing any evidence of their truth. These
idols are due to the preconditioned system of
every individual, comprising education,
custom, or accidental or contingent
experiences.
 Idols of the Cave are those that arise within
the mind of the individual. This mind is
symbolically a cavern. The thoughts of the
individual roam about in this dark cave and
are variously modified by temperament,
education, habit, environment, and accident.
Thus and individual who dedicated his mind
to some particular branch of learning
becomes possessed by his own peculiar
interest, and interprets all other learning
according to the colors of his own devotion.
The chemist see chemistry in all things, and
the courtier ever present at the rituals of the
court unduly emphasizes the significance of
kings and princes.
 Idols of the Marketplace. These idols are
based on false conceptions which are
derived from public human communication.
They enter our minds quietly by a
combination of words and names, so that it
comes to pass that not only does reason
govern words, but words react on our
understanding.
 Idols of the Marketplace are errors arising
from the false significance bestowed upon
words, and in this classification Bacon
anticipated the modern science of semantics.
It is the popular belief that men form their
thoughts into words in order to communicate
their opinions to others, but often words
arise as substitutes for thoughts and men
think they have won an argument because
they have out talked their opponents. The
constant impact of words variously used
without attention to their true meaning only
in turn condition the understanding and
breed fallacies. Words often betray their
own purpose, obscuring the very thoughts
they are designed to express.
 Idols of the Theater. According to the
insight that the world is a stage, the Idols of
the Theater are prejudices stemming from
received or traditional philosophical
systems. These systems resemble plays in so
far as they render fictional worlds, which
were never exposed to an experimental
check or to a test by experience. The idols of
the theatre thus have their origin in dogmatic
 philosophy or in wrong laws of
demonstration.
 Idols of the Theater are those that are due to
sophistry and false learning. These idols are
built up in the field of theology, philosophy,
and science, and because they are defended
by learned groups are accepted without
question by the masses. When false
philosophies have been cultivated and have
attained a wide sphere of dominion in the
world of the intellect they are no longer
questioned. False superstructures are raised
on false foundations, and in the end systems
barren of merit parade their grandeur on the
stage of the world.
RICHARD MULCASTER
(1531-1611)
He was an English schoolmaster, many of whose
pedagogical theories were not generally accepted until at least
250 years after his death. He was educated at Eton,
Cambridge, and Oxford. In 1561, he became the first
headmaster of the Merchant-Taylor‘s School, and, after
teaching in his own private schools, he became high master at
St. Paul‘s. Mulcaster‘s fame rests mainly upon his two books
Positions Concerning the Training Up of Children (1581) and
The First Part of the Elementarie (1582). He recommended
special university training for teachers, comparable to that for
doctors or lawyers, careful selections of teachers and adequate
salaries, assignment of the best teachers to the lowest grades,
and close association between teachers and parents. He
emphasized the importance of individual differences in
children, the adjustment of the curriculum to these differences,
and the use of readiness rather than age in determining
progress.
FRANCOIS FENELON
(1651-1715)
Francois Fenelon was an activist French educator and
writer. Fenelon‘s success at tutoring the Duc de Bourgogne,
grandson of Louis XIV, won him an appointment to the
Academic Française, the title of archbishop, and a favored
position at court. He lost favor, however, by embracing the
ideas of Quietism (a religious movement that advocated
mystical union by withdrawing the soul from external objects
and fixing it on the contemplation of God). Fenelon sealed his
fate with the publication of Telemaque, which, in offering
political advice to the dauphin, indirectly criticized the
policies of the king. Fenelon was exiled to his diocese. Liberal
in his political and educational theories, Fenelon expressed in
convictions in De l‘Éducation des Filles [On the Education of
Girls], 1687).
WOLFGANG RATKE
(1571-1635)
Wolfgang Ratich (Ratke or Ratichius) was one of the
next celebrated exponents of educational theory, as well as one
of its practical demonstrators. Ratke was a German educator
who initiated teaching in accordance with the child‘s nature.
He advocated the principle of repetition to ensure mastery.
His was the revival of the methods of Socrates and
Plato. Beginning with known things, he proceeded to their
names, and based the study of foreign tongues on the analogy
of his own. In fact, his whole system was one of induction; of
education rather than instruction. Differing from Melanchton,
he would allow nothing to be learned by heart. Like most of
the men who have been educationally in advance of their age,
he fell into disrepute, and for some alleged fault suffered
imprisonment for eight months.
MARTIN LUTHER
(1483-1546)
A German religious reformer, the inaugurator of the
Protestant reformation, who insisted on state-founded
compulsory education for both sexes especially in the
elementary level but also, compelled parents to send their
children to school. This provision was considered one of the
most important influences of the reformation.
The discipline he was subjected to was very severe.
His father whipped him till the blood came, and it is on record
that he received corporal punishment fifteen times in one day.
At the age of eighteen he went to the University of Erfurt, and,
in 1505, became a doctor of Philosophy. Having been
ordained a priest in 1507, Luther subsequently took up the
office of teacher in the newly founded university of
Wittenberg. Here he taught philosophy and physics. But it was
his theological teaching which was destined to almost
revolutionize the intellectual world. He was the leader and
mouthpiece of the revolt against ecclesiastical absolutism. His
Translation of the Bible into the vulgar tongue, coupled with
the religious revivalism that he preached, tended greatly to
extend the blessings of education to the common people. As
religious thought became more free, so did intellectual inquiry
and individual investigation extend. This probably may be
regarded as the foundation of the German system of education,
which has been looked upon as the model for modern nations
to copy. Luther died in 1546.
ST. JOHN BAPTIST DE LA SALLE
(1651-1719)
He founded the Institute of the Brethren of Christian
Schools (La Salle Schools) that aimed to teach the poor and
the underprivileged and introduced a practical teacher training
program. He was regarded as the patron saint of teachers.
The various educational reforms which de la Salle
introduced prove that he legislated wisely. The courses of
study for elementary free schools, technical schools, and
colleges are evidences of his broad culture and wide grasp of
educational problems. Hence, if the needs of a certain locality
called for special branches, or if the times and conditions
demanded certain advanced studies, de la Salle was not slow
in responding nor in giving these subjects a place
commensurate in importance with their educational value. De
la Salle, furthermore, displayed his genius in giving is institute
a distinctive character, that of a teaching body, consecrated to
the work of popular education. Thus, he became the author of
a system of psychologic pedagogy that included the essential
principles adopted by later workers in the field of educational
reforms, notably by Pestalozzi, Fröbel, Herbart, and others. In
making the vernacular the basis of all instruction, de la Salle
appealed to the intelligence of the child, prepared the way for
the study of national literature, and opened up to the grown
man those avenues of real knowledge and delight that had
hitherto been closed against the eager multitude.
With true scientific insight he perceived the absurdity
of retaining Latin texts to teach the art of reading. For this
change he gave the following reasons:
 The teaching of the art of reading, in primary and
elementary schools, through the vernacular, is of
greater and wider utility than by Latin texts.
 The vernacular is more easily taught to children, who
already possess some knowledge of it, than the Latin
of which they are wholly ignorant.
 It requires considerably less time to learn the of
reading through the vernacular than through a foreign
tongue.
 The boys and girls attending the primary and
elementary schools, can spend only a few years under
instruction. Now, if they are taught reading from a
Latin text, they generally leave school without being
able to read the vernacular, and with only an
imperfect knowledge of how to read the Latin.
Hence, they will soon forget the little they have
learned, and, perhaps, even how to read the
vernacular.
 Reading is one of the most efficacious means of
acquiring knowledge. With due care in the selection
of books, children who can read in the vernacular
could spread the Christian doctrine in the family
circle, and, on evenings, read some useful or
instructive books to the assembled household;
whereas, if they could read the Latin only, without
understanding it, they would be deprived of many
valuable benefits resulting from the intelligent
reading of a good book.
 It is impossible for children in primary and
elementary to master the reading of Latin texts,
because they are not acquainted with its subject
matter. It is, therefore, the part if wisdom to train
children thoroughly to the intelligent reading of
works written in the vernacular. Thus, having
mastered the art of reading in the vernacular, a few
moths would suffice to make them read the Latin
fluently, whereas, if the traditional method were
followed, it would require at least several years.
This fact proves that de la Salle was a profound
thinker, a genius in the work of popular education. He
embraced all classes, all conditions of society. By making the
free schools popular, he grasped the growing needs of society
in his own day and for all times. No phase of the educational
problem escaped his penetrating vision.
18th – 19th Centuries
CHILD-CENTERED EDUCATION
JOHANN HEINRICH PESTALOZZI
(1764-1827)
In his aim to psychologize education, he combined
physical, moral, intellectual, and manual work. His major
emphasis was on helping children to learn by experience and
observation, rather than by verbalism and memorization. He
wrote Leonard and Gertrude in 1781 and How Gertrude
Teaches Her Children in 1801. His writings exercised a
widespread influence. His work came to a crucial point in the
history of education, when nations were beginning to establish
systems of compulsory elementary education.
Born in Zurich, Pestalozzi took up Rousseau‘s ideas
and explored how they might be developed and implemented.
His early experiments in education ran into difficulties but he
persisted and what became known as the ―Pestalozzi Method‖
came to fruition in his school at Yverdon (established in
1805). Instead of dealing with words, he argued, children
should learn through activity and through things. They should
be free to pursue their own interests and draw their own
conclusions.
―I wish to wrest education from the outworn order of
doddering old teaching hacks as well as from the new-fangled
order of cheap, artificial teaching tricks, and entrust it to the
eternal powers of nature herself, to the light which God has
kindled and kept alive in the hearts of fathers and mothers, to
the interests of parents who desire their children grow up in
favor with God and with men.‖
Pestalozzi goes beyond Rousseau in that he sets out
some concrete ways forward – based on research. He tried
reconcile the tension, recognized by Rousseau, between the
education of the individual (for freedom) and that of the
citizen (for responsibility and use). He looks to ―the
achievement of freedom in autonomy for one and all.‖
His initial influence on the development of thinking
about pedagogy owes much a book he published in 1801: How
Gertrude Teaches Her Children – and the fact that he had
carried his proposals through into practice. He wanted to
establish a ―psychological method of instruction‖ that was in
line with the ―laws of human nature.‖ As a result, he placed a
special emphasis on spontaneity and self-activity. Children
should not be given ready-made answers but should arrive at
answers themselves. To do this their own power of seeing,
judging and reasoning should be cultivated, their self-activity
encouraged. The aim is to educate the whole child –
intellectual education is only part of a wider plan. He looked
to balance, or keep in equilibrium, three elements – hands,
heart and head.
Six principles that run through Pestalozzi’s efforts around
schooling.
1. Personality is sacred. This constitutes the ‗inner dignity of
each individual for the young as truly as for the adult.
2. As ―a little seed... contains the design of the tree‖, so in
each child is the promise of his potentiality. ―The educator
only takes care that no untoward influence shall disturb
nature‘s march of developments.‖
3. Love of those we would educate is ―the sole and everlasting
foundation‖ in which to work. ―Without love, neither the
physical not the intellectual powers will develop naturally‖. So
kindness ruled in Pestalozzi‘s schools: he abolished flogging –
much to the amazement of outsiders.
4. To get rid of the ―verbosity‖ of meaningless words
Pestalozzi developed his doctrine of Anschauung – direct
concrete observation, often inadequately called ―sense
perception‖ or ―object lessons‖. No word was to be used for
any purpose until adequate Anschauung had preceded. The
thing or distinction must be felt or observed in the concrete.
Pestalozzi‘s followers developed various sayings from this:
from the known to the unknown, from the simple to the
complex, from the concrete to the abstract.
5. To perfect the perception got by the Anschauung the thing
that must be named, an appropriate action must follow. ―A
man learns by action... have done with [mere] words!‖ ―Life
shapes us and the life that shapes us is not a matter of words
but action.‖
6. Out of this demand for action came an emphasis on
repetition – not blind repetition, but repetition of action
following the Anschauung.
And what is his significance to informal educators today?
First, there is his concern with social justice and his
commitment to work with those who have suffered within
society. He saw education as central to the improvement of
social conditions.
Second, he used his sympathy for peasant life and his
remembrance of his mother‘s care as paradigms – as ways of
thinking about the form education should take. In a famous
phrase he declared: ―There can be no doubt that within the
living room of every household are united the basic elements
of all true human education in its whole range‖. This
underlines the potential of everyday life for educators. That
said though, Pestalozzi force, (in contrast to Rousseaus‘
emphasis on the tutor).
Third, there is Pestalozzi‘s concern with equilibrium between
elements – head, hands and heart – and the danger of attending
to just one.
Fourth, Pestalozzi is a classic example of the ―reflective
practitioner‖. He is concerned with action, with
experimentation and yet, at the same time, he is committed to
observation and reflection, and to trying to make sense of
experiences and situations.
Fifth, in his failed experiment at Neuhof he attempted to a
form of schooling that has subsequently appealed to Gandhi
and others concerned with combating colonialism and its
legacy. He wanted the school to combine education with work.
The school was to be a production unit so that children could
finance their own learning – and in so doing they would be
under no obligation to anyone. Furthermore, the school could
be free from state interference.
Last and not least, he strove to combat the tyranny of method
and ―correctness‖. It is ironical that his approach should
become known as a method; and that observers attempted to
systemize his thought. It was his commitment to people and
their well-being that animated his life‘s work – and in
Aristotle‘s terms he would put that which is ―right‖ or good
before that which is ―correct‖.
FRIEDRICH WILHELM AUGUST FROEBEL
(1782-1852)
His theory was based on the concept of the absolute
as a creative force, of which the child‘s nature is a part. The
function of the teacher is to promote the growth of the child as
a human plant in the direction of its own inner laws of growth.
He stressed creative self-development and spontaneous
activity, making or unfolding the best in the child. He
formulated a philosophy of child development in his
Education of Man, Pedagogies of the Kindergarten, and
Education by Development. As he worked out his theory in his
school in Keilhau, which came to be known as the
―kindergarten,‖ Froebel not only encouraged play but
elaborated series of ―gifts‖ and ―occupation‖ which developed
the idea of unity. He was known as the father of the
kindergarten (German word for Garden of Children). The
kindergarten was not accepted in Germany but it developed
widely in the united states.
 The First kindergarten was started by Ms. Carl
Schurz, for German speaking in Winconsin (1855)
 The first institution for English speaking children was
established by Elizabeth Peabody in Boston (1860)
 The leading exponent of the Kindergarten was
introduced in the infant‘s schools of England and
France where some aspects of the theory of Maria
Montessori, and Italian professor was combined with
it.
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
(1712-1778)
Best known for his work ―Emile‖, which laid out s
naturalistic educational philosophy. He also wrote ―social
contract‖ which made him the father of modern democracy.
Perhaps Rousseau‘s most important work is The
Social Contract, which outlines the basis for a legitimate
political order. Published in 1792 it became one of the most
influential works of political philosophy tradition. Rousseau
claimed that the state of nature eventually degenerates into a
brutish condition without law or morality, at which point the
human must adopt institutions f law or perish. In the
degenerate stage phase of the state of nature, man is prone to
be in frequent competition with his fellow men while at the
same time becoming increasingly dependent on them. This
double pressure threatens both his survival and his freedom.
According to Rousseau, by joining together through
the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural
right, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain
free. This is because submission to the authority of the general
will of the people as a whole guarantee individuals against
being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that
they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the
authors of the law.
While Rousseau argues that sovereignty should be in
the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction
between sovereign and government. The government is
charged with implementing and enforcing the general will and
is composed of a small group of citizens, known as
magistrates. Rousseau was bitterly opposed to the idea that the
people should exercise sovereignty via a representative
assembly. Rather, they should make the laws directly. It has
been argued that this would prevent Rousseau‘s ideal state
being realized in a large society, though in modern times,
communication may have advanced to the point where this is
no longer the case. Much of the subsequent controversy about
Rousseau‘s work has hinged on disagreements concerning his
claims that citizens constrained to obey the general will are
thereby rendered free.
Rousseau set out his views on education in Emile, a
semi-fictitious work detailing the growth of a young boy of
that name, presided over by Rousseau himself. He brings him
up in the countryside, where, he believes, humans are most
naturally suited, rather than in a city, where we only learn bad
habits, both physical and intellectual. The aim of education,
Rousseau says, is to learn how to live, and this is
accomplished by following a guardian who can point the way
to good living.
The growth of a child is divided into three sections,
first to the age of about 12, when calculating and complex
thinking is not possible, and children, according to his deepest
conviction, live like animals. Second, from 12 to about 16,
when reason starts to develop, and finally from the age of 16
onwards, when the child develops into an adult. At this point,
Emile finds a young woman to complement him.
The book is based on Rousseau‘s ideals of healthy
living. The boy must work out how to follow his social
instincts and be protected from the vices of urban
individualism and self-consciousness.
Rousseau‘s account of the education of Emile is,
however, not an account of education of a gender-neutral
―child.‖ The education he proposes for Sophie, the young
woman Emile is destined to marry, is importantly different to
that of Emile. Sophie (as a representative of ideal
womanhood) is educated to be governed (by her husband)
while Emile (as a representative of the ideal man) is educated
to be self-governing. This is not an accidental feature of
Rousseau‘s educational and political philosophy, it is essential
to his account of the distinction between private, personal
relations and the public world of political relations. The
private sphere as Rousseau imagines it depends on the
(naturalized) subordination of women in order for both it and
the public political sphere (upon which it depends) to function
as Rousseau imagines it could and should.
The education proposed in Emile has been criticized
for being impractical, and the topic itself (the education of
children) has led the text to be ignored by many studying
Rousseau‘s more ―political‖ works. However, of particular
interest to anyone interested in Rousseau‘s intentions in Emile
is a letter he wrote to his friend Cramer on October 13, 1764.
In the letter, Rousseau answers the criticism of
impracticability: ―You say quite correctly that it is impossible
to produce an Emile. But I cannot believe that you take the
book that carries this name for a true treatise on education. It
is rather a philosophical work on this principle advanced by
the author in other writings that man is naturally good.‖
JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART
(1776-1841)
German philosopher and educator, who led the
renewed 19th-century interest in Realism and is considered
among the founders of modern scientific pedagogy. He
advocated the culture-epoch theory, based on the premise that
the growth of children corresponds to the development of
culture through the ages.
Herbart‘s position in the history of philosophy is due
mainly to his contributions to the philosophy of mind. His
aims in this respect are expressed by the title of his textbook –
Psychologie als Wissenschaft neu gegrundet auf Erfahrung,
Metaphysik, und Mathematik, 2 vol. (1824-25; ―Psychology as
Knowledge Newly Founded on Experience, Metaphysics, and
Mathematics‖); of central importance is the inclusion of
Mathematik. He rejected the whole concept of faculties (in
Kantian terms) and regarded mental life as the manifestation
of elementary sensory units or ―presentations‖
(Vorstellungen). These he conceived interactions gave rise to a
statics and dynamics of the mind, to be expressed in
mathematical formulas like those of Newtonian mechanics.
Ideas need not be conscious; and they might either combine to
produce composite resultants or conflict with one another so
that some get temporarily inhibited or repressed ―below the
threshold of consciousness.‖ An organized but unconscious
system of associated ideas formed an ―apperception mass‖;
such a system could apperceive a new presentation and thus
give it richer meaning. On this basis Herbart developed a
theory of education as a branch of applied psychology.
His theory of education – known as Herbartianism –
was set out principally in two works, Pestalozzi Idee eines
ABC der Anschauung (1802; ―Pestalozzi‘s Idea of an ABC of
Sense Perception‖) and Allgemeine Pädagogik (1806;
―Universal Pedagogy‖), which advocated five formal steps in
teaching: (1) preparation, a process of relating new material
to be learned to relevant past ideas or memories in order to
give the pupil a vital interest in the topic under consideration;
(2) presentation, presenting new material by means of
concrete objects or actual experience; (3) association,
thorough assimilation of the new idea through comparison
with former ideas and consideration of their similarities and
differences in order to implant the new idea in the mind; (4)
generalization, a procedure especially important to the
instruction of adolescents and designed to develop the mind
beyond the level of perception and the concrete; and (5)
application, using acquired knowledge not in a purely
utilitarian way, but so that every learned idea becomes a part
of the functional mind and an aid to a clear, vital interpretation
of life. This step is presumed possible only if the student
immediately applies the new idea, making it his own.
Herbart maintained that a science of education was
possible, and he furthered the idea that education should be a
subject for university study. His ideas took firm hold in
Germany in the 1860s and spread also to the United States. By
the turn of the century, however, the five steps had
degenerated to a mechanical formalism, and the ideas behind
them were replaced by new pedagogical theories, in particular
those of John Dewey.
 19th – 20th Centuries
DEMOCRIZATION OF EDUCATION
PEDRO POVEDA
(1874-1936)
Pedro Poveda, founder of the Teresian Foundation,
was born in Linares, Spain on December 3, 1874. After he was
ordained priest in Guadix in1897, he exercised his first
apostolic ministry among the poor cave dwellers. He
organized a livelihood program for adults and stablished a
school for children. He gave himself to human and social
advancement of the poor and marginalized people.
In 1906, he was assigned as Canon in Marian
Sanctuary of Covadonga. While in Covadonga, he became
aware of the importance of education and the emerging trends,
so he dedicated himself to solve the problems that confronted
Christian education at that time. He wrote to the university
sector of Madrid where women were just beginning to take
active part in the academic life of the universities.
Modified the past Christian education with his own
Christian Humanism which commits Christianity to the
upliftment of the and marginalized people. He founded the
Teresian Association in 1911, a group of Christians committed
to the transformation of the World through the Gospel.
When the Civil War broke out, he was identified as
an enemy by those who wished to dechristianize he schools.
On July 28, 1936, he was shot to death for his faith and for the
cause of Christian education.
He was beatified by Pope John Paul II at St. Peter‘s
Basilica on October 10, 1993, together with Victoria Diez, a
member of the Teresian Association.
May 4, 2003 marked the canonization of Pedro
Poveda by Pope John Paul II in Madrid, Spain. Fr. Poveda was
declared SAINT. His work is continued by the many men,
women and youth in four continents where the Teresian
Association is.
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
(1801-1890)
A leader of the Oxford Movement and later a cardinal
of the Roman Catholic church, John Henry Newman,
outstanding religious thinker and essayist, was probably the
most influential theologian of Victorian England. Born on
February 21, 1801, Newman was educated at Trinity College,
University of Oxford. Newman, whose own religious thinking
had for some time been along similar lines, soon became the
acknowledged leader of the Oxford group, a role for which his
vital personality, fervent asceticism, and persuasive eloquence
preeminently qualified him. He was one of the chief
contributors to the Tracts for the Times (1833-41), for which
he wrote 29 papers, including the famous Tract 90, which
terminated the series. That final tract provoked a storm of
opposition by its claim that the Thirty-nine Articles of the
Church of England, which incorporate the creed of the
Reformed Church in England, are aimed primarily at the
abuses and not the dogmas of Roman Catholicism.
Newman in 1864 published his masterpiece,
Apologia pro Vita Sua (Apology for His Life), a memorable
account of his spiritual development that is an acknowledged
classic of both religious autobiography and English prose.
Because of his disagreement with Cardinal Henry Manning
over the wisdom of promulgating the doctrine of papal
infallibility – Newman did not oppose the doctrine per se – he
fell out of favor with the Vatican in 1870, a favor that was
only restored in 1879, when, at the insistence of English
Catholics, Leo XIII made him cardinal. He died on August 11,
1890.
In Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification (1838)
Newman attempted to find a via media between justification
by faith and by works. His emphasis on sanctification and his
suspicion of a merely imputed righteousness was marked by a
return to an emphasis on the imparted righteousness of the
indwelling Christ. His Essay on the Development of Christian
Doctrine (1845) attempts to distinguish between true and false
doctrinal developments. He suggests a number of tests
including preservation of type or idea, continuity of principles,
power of assimilation, early anticipation, logical sequence,
preservative additions, and chronic continuance. He attempts
to apply these tests to particular historical instances in the life
of the church. In addition to these tests he argues that for
Christianity to be maintained through the flux of history, it
must have an infallible expounder. A living magisterium was
necessary; and that was what Rome claimed to possess. By
such process of argument Newman became a Roman Catholic.
Newman's other important writings include An Essay
in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870), a closely reasoned
defense of the rationality of religious belief. He expounds a
theory of cumulative arguments and the process of the
"illative" sense of moral judgment to defend the moral
propriety and intellectual integrity of faith. It retrains one of
the most important analyses of religious belief.
His The Idea of a University is a landmark in writing
on the nature of university education, in which he defined the
function of a university as the of the mind rather than the
diffusion of practical information, and treats in training
particular the place of theology within such a comprehensive
framework. Newman also wrote the novels Loss and Gain
(1848) and Callista (1856); The Dream of Gerontius (1865), a
monologue in verse; and Verses on Various Occasions
(1874).
The holiness of Newman's life and the importance of
his influence have led to a movement seeking to have him
canonized. On January 22, 1991, Pope John Paul II, who
greatly admires Cardinal Newman, declared him "venerable."
JOHN DEWEY
(1859-1952)
John Dewey has made the most significant
contribution to the development of educational thinking in the
twentieth century. Dewey's philosophical pragmatism, concern
with interaction, reflection and experience, and interest in
community and democracy, were brought together to form a
highly suggestive educative form. John Dewey is often
misrepresented - and wrongly associated with child-centered
education. In many respects his work cannot be easily slotted
into any one of the curriculum traditions that have dominated
north American and UK schooling traditions over the last
century. However, John Dewey's influence can be seen in
many of the writers that have influenced the development of
informal education over the same period.
John Dewey's significance for informal educators lies
in a number of areas. First, his belief that education must
engage with and enlarge experience has continued to be a
significant strand in informal education practice. Second, and
linked to this, Dewey's exploration of thinking and reflection -
and the associated role of educators - has continued to be an
inspiration. Third, his concern with interaction and
environments for learning provide a continuing framework for
practice. Last, his passion for democracy, for educating so that
all may share in a common life, provides a strong rationale for
practice in the associational settings in which informal
educators work.
Dewey's Works
 Democracy and Education (1916). An introduction
to the philosophy of education (1966 ed.), New York:
Free Press. Classic discussion of education for
democracy (‗sharing in a common life') that includes
an important reconceptualization of vocational
learning. It remains an infuriating book to read. At
times ideas are not expressed with the clarity they
deserve; there is repetition; and not enough
signposting for readers. But... there is gold in these
hills.
 How We Think (1933). A restatement of the relation
of reflective thinking to the educative process
(Revised ed.), Boston: D.C. Heath. Brilliant,
accessible exploration of thinking and its relationship
to learning. Dewey‘s concern with experience,
interaction and reflection – and his worries about
linear models of thinking still make for a rewarding
read.
 Experience and Education (1938), New York:
Collier Books. (Collier edition first published 1963).
In this book Dewey seeks to move beyond dualities
such as progressive/traditional – and to outline a
philosophy of experience and its relation to
education.
 Experience and Nature (1929), New York: Dover.
(Dover edition first published in 1958). Explores the
relationship of the external world, the mind and
knowledge.
MARIA MONTESSORI
(1870-1952)
Maria Montessori was a unique individual. She was
born August 31, 1870, Chiaravalle, Ancona, Italy to Renilde
Stoppani and Alessandro Montessori an only child filled with
strong determination and love.
Today the news media would describe her as a person
who thinks outside of the box – a pioneer in enabling children
to learn through meaningful experiences. The culture of her
time, the late 1800‘s in Italy, expected her to become a teacher
or a nun – she earned a medical degree. At an international
congress on women‘s rights he presented Italy and advocated
equal pay for equal work. As a new medical doctor she
worked initially with young subjects in a psychiatric clinic and
then with children classified as ―mentally defective‖ students.
Her students passed the public examinations. At the turn of the
century Maria Montessori, a thirty-year old medical doctor,
mothered her only child – outside of marriage.
Maria Montessori developed a science of education
based on the observation of children‘s needs; she looked to the
child to teach her. She analyzed her observations to uncover
how children learn. She published many books on how to
understand and educate the child. Maria Montessori observed
that children under six have an extraordinary power of mind in
which they all have a once-in-a-lifetime ability to absorb
knowledge from their environment; their minds are like
sponges and do not analyze what they soak up (i.e., it is much
easier for a child to learn a foreign language than it is for an
adult). Maria Montessori called this ―the absorbent mind‖. In
more of her observations, Maria Montessori discovered that
children have sensitive phases of development in which a
child reveals an especially strong all-encompassing interest
towards a piece of knowledge or skill. For a child under age
six, Maria Montessori observed there to be sensitive phases for
acquiring language, a sense of order, an interest in tiny things,
the exploration of the senses, tactile information, writing,
words, numbers and counting, manners, and precise
movement. The key is for the educator to observe and identify
a sensitive phase and then take advantage of this concentrated
interest by the child to promote periods of intense learning that
comes easily and with little effort for the child.
In addition, Maria Montessori learned from her
observations that children learn best by being given the
opportunity to discover and learn by manipulating objects. She
advocated then for what is now called a hands-on approach to
learning. She carefully designed materials (through trial and
error) to help children explore and classify, using their senses.
Furthermore, she observed the young child‘s need for order
and the innate need to know where and how things belong; her
classroom design included child-sized materials and furniture
arranged for optimal movement without congestion. She
highlighted the child‘s need for movement and repetition.
Children were encouraged to move and learn and not sit at
desks all day.
Children learn in many different ways. A child can
learn directly from a lesson given by the teacher, from a small
group lesson, directly from another child, or from watching
another child use the materials. All these observations of the
child‘s needs have been incorporated into the didactic
materials and the methods of working with the materials;
Maria Montessori combined theory into practice. She focused
on how to teach children to teach themselves in which the
prepared environment is central to children‘s learning. Maria
Montessori saw the teacher as a guide to the environment. She
was a strong advocate for mixed aged groups of a three-year
span within a non-competitive environment that would allow
each child to develop at his or her own pace.
 ―Education is a natural process spontaneously carried
out by the human individual and is acquired not by listening to
words but by experiences in the environment.‖
Maria Montessori traveled to many countries to
lecture and educate the world on her scientific discoveries and
method of education. She experienced the misfortunes of both
world wars and became a strong proponent of peace. She
strongly believed that peace could be achieved through the
child. In her book Education for a New World, she wrote,
―... it follows that, if we wish to alter the habits and customs of
a country, or if we wish to accentuate more vigorously the
characteristics of a people, we must take as our instrument the
child, for very little can be done in this direction by acting
upon adults. To change a generation of nation, to influence it
towards either good or evil, to re-awaken religion or add
culture, we must look to the child, who is omnipotent. The
truth of this has been demonstrated of late by Nazis and
Fascists, who changed the character of a whole peoples by
working on children.‖
Maria Montessori was nominated in 1949, 1950 and
1951 for the Nobel Peace Prize. In parts of a letter that she
sent to numerous governments, Maria Montessori summarized
her life‘s work:
―My life has been spent in the research of truth. Through the
study of children, I have scrutinized human nature at its origin
both in the East and the West and although it is forty years
now since I began my work, childhood still seems to me an
inexhaustible source of revelations and – let me say – of
hope.‖
Childhood has shown me that all humanity is one. All children
talk, no matter what their race or their circumstances or their
family, more or less at the same age; they walk, change their
teeth, etc. at certain fixed periods of their life. In other aspects
also, especially in the physical field, they are just similar, just
as susceptible.
Children are the constructors of men whom they build, taking
from the environment language, religion, customs and the
peculiarities not only of the race, not only of the nation, but
even of a special district in which they develop.
Childhood constructs with what it finds. If the material is poor,
the construction is also poor. As far as civilization is
concerned the child is at the level of the food-gatherers.
In order to build himself, he has to take by chance, whatever
he finds in the environment.
The child is the forgotten citizen, and yet, is statements and
educationalists once came to realize the terrific force that is in
childhood for good or for evil, I feel they would give it
priority above everything else.
All problems of humanity depend on man himself; if man is
disregarded in his construction, the problems will never be
solved.
Today there are over 7,000 Montessori schools
worldwide. You can find schools that serve children from
infancy all the way through adolescence. A Montessori school
today has an orderly and beautiful child-sized environment in
which the teacher serves as the guide to the environment. The
children, with the guidance of their teacher and a large block
of time to work without interruption (ideally three hours),
learn by using the manipulative didactic materials to make
discoveries, develop concentration and self-discipline and a
love of learning. The children have the opportunity to learn via
a group lesson, an individual lesson from the teacher or
another child or merely from observing another child working
with the material. The children responsibly tend to keep their
classroom and school clean and orderly. The Montessori
teacher‘s role is to be constantly observing and reflecting on
the children and her classroom and to use these observations to
guide her in planning the curriculum and environment.
HERBERT SPENCER
(1820-1903)
Herbert Spencer was born in Derby, England, on
April 27, 1820, the son of William George Spencer, an
officious but respected educator. Coming from a family of
teachers (including his grandfather and uncle) he was
encouraged to learn at an early age.
In 1855 Spencer wrote the Principles of Psychology,
which explored a theory of the mind as a biological
counterpart of the body rather than as an estranged opposite.
In this model human intelligence was something that had
slowly developed as a response to its physical environment.
Such an evolutionary standpoint on the origin of man alienated
conservative publishers, once again leaving Spencer to publish
his work at his own expense.
In 1862 Spencer was able to publish First Principles,
an exposition of his evolutionary theory of the underlying
principles of all domains of reality, which had acted as the
foundational beliefs of his previous works. His definition of
evolution explained it as the ongoing process by which matter
is refined into an increasing complex and coherent form. This
was the main canon of Spencer‘s philosophy, a developed and
coherently structured explanation of social evolution (that
predated Darwin‘s major works). By this time Spencer was
achieving an international reputation of great respect. His view
on man‘s place in nature were very influential and broadly
accepted.
In 1844, his work Man versus the State was
published, outlining his political philosophy. In 1902, shortly
before his death, he was nominated for the Noble Prize for
Literature. He continued to write throughout his life, often by
dictation in his later years, until he succumbed to his poor
health at the age of 83.
He attempted to compile all knowledge in his
―Synthetic Philosophy.‖ He also advocated the theoretical
concept, ―survival of the fittest,‖ and defined education as
complete living.
Herbert Spencer coined the phrase ―survival of the
fittest,‖ to describe changes in society. London School of
Economics Professor Rodney Barker writes:
 Like Darwin, Spencer employed a selective principle
to explain social evolution, but he complemented natural
selection with the Lamarckian notion of adaptation, and of the
inheritability of a predisposition to successful adaptation. His
familiar phrase, ―the survival of the fittest‖, can thus be
misleading, in so far as it suggests an arbitrary process
depending on the absence of presence of qualities over which
the individual or society has no control. The fittest were those
who adapted, and there was in principle no limit to the number
who might make this accommodation. The struggle for the
survival was thus not of man against man, but of man against a
changing environment.
PAULO FREIRE
(1921-)
EDUCATOR PAULO FREIRE was born
September 19, 1921. He grew up in the Northeast of Brazil
where his experiences deeply influenced his life work. The
world economic crisis forced Freire to know hunger and
poverty at a young age. He recalls in Moacir Gadotti‘s book,
Reading Paulo Freire, ―I didn‘t understand anything because
of my hunger. I wasn‘t dumb. It wasn‘t lack of interest. My
social condition didn‘t allow me to have an education.
Experience showed me once again the relationship between
social class and knowledge.‖ Because Freire lived among poor
rural families and laborers, he gained a deep understanding of
their lives and of the effects of socio-economics on education.
Freire became a grammar teacher while still in high
school. Even then his intuition pushed him toward a dialogic
education in which he strived to understand students‘
expectations. While on the Faculty of Law in Recife, Freire
met his wife, Elza Maia Costa de Oliveira, an elementary
school teacher and an important force in his life. They married
in 1944 when Freire was 23 and eventually had five children,
three of whom became educators. It was Elza who influenced
Freire to intensely pursue his studies, and helped him to
elaborate his groundbreaking educational methods.
Freire‘s arsenal of education thought began to
manifest with his appointment in 1946 as director of
Education at SESI, an employer‘s institution set up to help
workers and their families. Here he began to see more
disconnections between elitist educational practices and their
real lives of the working class. During this time Freire also
participated in the Movement for Popular Culture, and
supported the active exercise of democracy in lectures and in
Ph.D. theses, ―Present-day Education in Brazil,‖ written in
1959. His convictions would earn him the title of ―traitor.‖
Freire‘s pedagogy of literacy education involves not
only reading the word, but also reading the world. This
involves the development of critical consciousness (a process
known in Portuguese as conscientização). The formation of
critical consciousness allows people to question the nature of
their historical and social situation – to read their world – with
the goal of acting as subjects in the creation of a democratic
society (which was new for Brazil at that time). For education,
Freire implies a dialogic exchange between teachers and
students, where both learn, both question, both reflect and both
participate in meaning-making.
Concretely, this pedagogy begins with the teacher
mingling among the community, asking questions of the
people and gathering a list of words used in their daily lives.
The teacher was to begin to understand the social reality of the
people, and develop a list of generative words and themes
which could lead to discussion in classes, or ―cultural circles‖
(Gadotti 20). By making words (literacy) relevant to the lives
of people, the process of conscientization could begin, in
which the social construction of reality might be critically
examined.
The year 1962 saw the first experiments in Freire‘s
method when 300 farmworkers were taught to read and write
in just 45 days (15). As a result, the government approved
thousands of cultural circles to be set up all over Brazil.
Unfortunately, the military coup if 1964 halted the work, and
changed Freire‘s life.
In June 1964, Freire was imprisoned in Brazil for 70
days as a traitor. After a brief stay in Bolivia, he lived in Chile
for five years working in the Christian Democratic Agrarian
Reform Movement. In 1967 he published his first book,
Education as the Practice of Freedom, bringing him acclaim
and a position as visiting professor at Harvard in 1969. In
1968 he wrote his famous Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
published in Spanish and English in 1970, but not in Brazil
until 1974.
Freire has been recognized worldwide for his
profound impact on educational thought and practice. He
received numerous awards including honorary doctorates, the
King Balduin Prize for International Development, the Prize
for Oustanding Christian Educators in 1985 with Elza, and the
UNESCO 1968 Prize for Education for Peace.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
―I can‘t respect the teacher who doesn‘t dream of a certain
kind of society that he would like to live in, and would like the
new generation to live in. Educators should pursue ―a dream
of society less ugly than those we have today,‖ he urged – a
society that is ―more open‖ and less marred by prejudice.‖ –
Paulo Freire
SIGNIFICANCE/BELIEFS/PRINCIPLES OF FREIRE
1. His work ―enlightened our awareness if the causes
and consequences of human suffering, and about the
need to develop an ethical and utopian pedagogy for
social change.‖
2. Freire believed that education could improve the
human condition and counter the psychological
effects of oppression.
3. His goal in educating the oppressed was
humanization.
4. Freire‘s work has been considered quite controversial
over the years. Pedagogy of the Oppressed describes
what he terms as liberatory educator in which he
focuses on the education of adults.
5. The world is broken into a dichotomy of two parts,
the oppressed and the oppressors. He believes that the
oppressed are kept in their oppressed condition
primarily through the pedagogy of banking
 education. In the banking education method, the
oppressed are seen a passive learner whose minds are
empty slates which are to be filled with preselected,
predetermined knowledge. Oppressors treat the
oppressed like objects and use banking to promote
negative myths which are then internalized by the
oppressed. The oppressed, believing that they are
incapable objects, submit to the oppression placed on
them by those in power.
6. Freire believes that by altering this educational
process, the road to revolution can be taken.
7. Liberatory education is Freire‘s answer to oppression.
8. Liberatory education is based on conscientization
whereby the learner moves towards critical
consciousness or the ability to interpret problems by
keeping an open mind and analyze problems in depth
through discussion with others.
9. Conscientization involves ―becoming part of the
process of changing the world‖ by using dialogue
with others who are oppressed. Freire terms this
method of discussion as the dialogical method.
10. The dialogical method features cooperation and a
sense of mutual learning between teacher and student.
Contrary to banking education, where the teacher
holds all knowledge and the student holds none,
liberatory education emphasizes that in both sides of
the relationship there is equality in teaching and
learning.
11. There must be dialogue between the two parties
because dialogue is the key to changing the oppressed
from objects into subjects of their own learning
stresses the importance of collegiality and
cooperation so that both teacher and learner become
co-investigators of knowledge. ―in dialogical theory,
at no stage can revolutionary action forgo
communication with the people. Communication in
turn elicit cooperative.‖
12. Freire uses culture circles to facilitate dialogue.
Culture circles are groups of people who are working
together towards literacy by using a process of
codification and decodification takes real life or
relevant human world relationships provided by the
learners to create generative themes. These generative
themes are ―codifications of complex experiences
which are charged with political significance and are
likely to generate considerable discussion and
analysis.‖
13. In language learning, the themes are codified into
generative words which are broken down into
syllabic parts and are used to build or generate new
words. A codification is a representation of the
learner's relevant daily life; a codification could
include a photograph or a drawing, a single word or
an entire story.
14. The benefit of a representation is that is allows the
students to analyze the situation from a non-
threatening theoretical viewpoint while still making
connections with the situation to their own lives. He
states: "The task of the dialogical teacher in an
interdisciplinary team working on the thematic
universe revealed by their investigation is to 're-
present' that universe to the people from who she or
he first received it - and 're-present' it not as a lecture,
but as a problem. Hence, problem-posing or
problematization that is relative to the learners'
experience is the key to education.‖
15. Teachers are also encouraged to be aware of
teachable moments where learning can occur
spontaneously. The "Freirean" curriculum is based in
the experience and enacted elements of curriculum
design; very little of the teacher's time is spent
planning lessons because the curriculum of study
comes directly from the learners who are subjects and
participants in their own learning.
16. Following Freire many literacy and basic education
program incorporated "peer interaction and the use of
'people's knowledge' as the basis for curriculum."
17. Another activity, which is central to liberatory
education, is praxis. Praxis is a complex activity
which involves a cycle of action - reflection - action
and characteristically includes the four elements of
self-determination, intentionality, creativity and
rationality.
18. This is opposite to the elements of coercion, reaction,
homogeneity, and chance which are commonly found
in the pedagogues which lead to oppression rather
than empowerment.
19. Freire was known as a philosopher and theoretician
of education, "never separating theory from praxis.‖
20. That the practice of reflection (on readings, current
events, situation and questions) would lead students
to take action:
21. "Humankind can emerge from their submersion and
acquire the ability to intervene in reality as it is
unveiled." Their intervention in many cases results in
political action, revolution and freedom from
oppressors.
22. He also describes cultural action and cultural
synthesis as the act of learning about culture along
with the people: ―In cultural synthesis, the actors who
come from ‗another world‘ to the world of the people
do so not as invaders. They do not come to teach or
to transmit or to give anything, but rather to learn,
with the people, about the people‘s world... In
cultural synthesis, there are no spectators; the object
of the actors‘ action is the reality to be transformed
for the liberation of men.‖
23. The goal of liberatory education is to take oppressed,
illiterate people and guide them into humanization,
collective empowerment and literacy. It is important
to remember that no one is able to empower another;
empowerment is something that is comes from within
and he believes that his method of education can
provide the appropriate learning environment and
attitude to facilitate this transformation.
24. Freire repeatedly cautions those who wish to be
revolutionary leaders that they ―must not use the
same antidialogical procedures used by the
oppressors: on the contrary, revolutionary leaders
must follow the path of dialogue and of
communication‖. With respect to curriculum
approach, the curriculum of Paulo Freire appears to
fit into the category of experienced curriculum. The
content of his curriculum is not something that is
 planned ahead of time. However, Freire somewhat
contradicts himself by stating that the content of
study must come from the experiences of the students
but then it is appropriate to plan lessons if material
present is relevant to the learners. So in a way, the
enacted curriculum comes into play because it
became the role of the teachers is very important in
promoting dialogue.
25. The decisions that are made about curriculum came
from the students according to Freire. With regard to
curriculum definition, Freire would define curriculum
as ―all the experiences that learners have in the course
of living.‖ It is from these experiences that learning
occurs and the experiences become the curriculum in
the model of Freire. It is also the ‗lived‘ curriculum
because the curriculum model focuses heavily on
what each person individually experiences. The
pathway of learning is not just one direction,
according to him because both teacher and learner
interact and work as co-investigators of the problems
presented.
26. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire uses the nature
of society as the focal point around which decisions
about curricula are made.
27. In his book, Freire reflects the ―broad range of
cultural, political and economic characteristics of the
social context in which it exists so that the students
may both fit into the society in the future yet also be
able to change that society.
28. His curriculum reflects this broad range of social
context in Brazil at the time in 1970‘s. Freire
describes his work with Latin American peasants
who were oppressed by a militant government and
depressed economic situation. The students in his
program fit into the society and yet there was
evidence that the students were feeling empowered
by the program to create revolutionary changes in
society. Like the Progressive Education movement in
twentieth century, the main thrust of work by Freire
(1997) was to improve the life of the individuals and
thus society as a whole for Latin Americans. The
curriculum that Freire proposes has utilitarian value
during this time period and in this situation.
What is it about Pedagogy of the Oppressed that
aroused so much heated discussion and that caused it to be
banned by governments. First of all, this book is a critique of a
certain educational method (known as the 'banking' method,
which Paulo Freire acknowledged that he himself had
previously unreflexively engaged in.
A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship
at any level, inside or outside the school. reveals its
fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves
'a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient listening objects
(the students). The contents, whether values or empirical
dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to
become lifeless and petrified. Education is suffering from
narration sickness.
The teacher talks about reality as if it were
motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else
he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential
experience of the students. His task is to ―fill‖ the students
with the contents of his narration – contents which are
detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that
engendered them and could give them significance. Words are
emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated,
and alienating verbosity.
The outstanding characteristic of this narrative
education, then, is the sonority of words, not their
transforming power. "Four times four is sixteen: the capital of
Para is Belem." The student records, memorizes, and repeats
these phrases without perceiving what four times four really
means, or realizing the true significance of "capital" in the
affirmation ―the capital of Para is Belem,‖ that is, what Belem
means for Para and what Para means for Brazil.
Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the
students to memorize mechanically the narrated account.
Worse yet, it turns them into "containers,‖ into "receptacles‖
to be "filled" the teachers. The more completely she fills the
receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the
receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students
they are.
Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in
which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the
depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues
communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently
receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the ―banking‖ concept
of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the
students only extends as far as receiving, filing, and storing the
deposits. They do, it is true, have the opportunity to become
collectors or cataloguers of the things they store. But in the
last analysis, it is the people themselves who are filed away
through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge
in this (at best) misguided system. For apart from inquiry,
apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human.
Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention,
through the restless, impatient continuing, hopeful inquiry
human beings pursue in this world, with the world, and with
each other.
In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a
gift bestowed by those who consider themselves
knowledgeable upon those whom consider to know nothing.
Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic
of the ideology of oppression, negates education and
knowledge as inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his
students as their necessary opposite; by considering their
ignorance absolute, je justifies his own existence. The
students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic,
accept their ignorance as justifying the teacher‘s existence –
but unlike the slave, they never discover that they educate the
teacher.
This solution is not (nor can it be) found in the
banking concept. On the contrary, banking education
maintains and even stimulates the contradiction through the
following attitudes and practices, which mirror oppressive
society as a whole:
a. the teacher teaches and the students are taught;
 b. the teacher knows everything and the students know powerless is transformed in a force capable of announcing
nothing; justice. For this to happen, a total denouncement of fatalism is
c. the teacher thinks and the students are thought about; necessary. We are transformative beings and not beings for
d. the teacher talks and the students listen — meekly; accommodation."
e. the teacher disciplines and the students are
disciplined; CHAPTER 9
f. the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the HISTORY OF PHILIPPINE EDUCATION SYSTEM
students comply;
g. the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of From the pre-Spanish to the present, the educational
acting through the action of the teacher; system of the Philippines has undergone several stages of
h. the teacher chooses the program content, and the development. These stages have affected largely by the
students (who were not consulted) adapt to it; changing political regimes that have controlled the Filipinos.
i. the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with
his or her own professional authority, which she and EDUCATION DURING THE PRE-SPANISH PERIOD
he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students;  Educational Aims
j. the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, - for survival and conformity
while the pupils are mere objects. - for enculturation
 Training
It is not surprising that the banking concept of - Domestic chores and practical/occupational honing
education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings. The of skills in hunting, farming etc.
more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, - Theoretical/moral and spiritual awakening e.g.
the less they develop the critical consciousness which would worship, laws, codes
result from their intervention in the world as transformers of  Teaching Methods
that world. The more completely they accept the passive role - "Tell me" and "show me" or demonstration method
imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the - Observation and imitation
world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited - Indoctrination
in them.  Teaching Content
- broad, indefinite and unwritten
The capability of banking education to minimize or - unstructured/incidental
annul the student's creative power and to stimulate their  Evidences to support the claim that Filipinos had
credulity serves the interests of the oppressors, who care an elaborate civilization prior to Western Contact
neither to have the world revealed nor to see it transformed. o Effective Technology
The oppressors use their "humanitarianism" to preserve a Ceramic industry as early as 4000 BC
profitable situation. Thus they react almost instinctively o Predictive Sciences
against any experiment in education which stimulates the Preserved mummies in Central Cordillera
critical faculties and is not content with a partial view of Mountains
reality always seeks out the ties which link one point to o Art and Religion
another and one problem to another. Petroglyphs or Line Drawings in Angono
o Foreign Trade
Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in Full-scale trading with the Chinese during
"changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation the Tang Dynasty in 9th century AD
which oppresses them," (1) for the more the oppressed can be o Big Population center
led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be 20,000 people in Manila
dominated. To achieve this, the oppressors use the banking o Megalithic Structures
concept of education in conjunction with a paternalistic social Rice Terraces in Ifugao
action apparatus, within which the oppressed receive the o Government
euphemistic title of "welfare recipients." They are treated as Barangay with its council of elders
individual cases, as marginal persons who deviate from the o Laws
general configuration of a "good, organized and just" society. Code of Kalantiaw
The oppressed are regarded as the pathology of the healthy o Warfare
society which must therefore adjust these "incompetent and Barangay vs. Barangay
lazy" folk to its own patterns by changing their mentality.
These marginals need to be "integrated," "incorporated" into EDUCATION DURING THE SPANISH PERIOD
the healthy society that they have "forsaken.‖  Educational Aim
The Royal decree of 1555 mandated these goals of
What is to be done then? Freire points to a Marxist Spanish education in the country:
idea, which is in fact free of any so-called communist or - Indoctrination of Christianity
socialist values. According to Marx, the motor force of history - Promotion of the Spanish language
is not located with any supra-human agency, be it - Imposition of Spanish Culture
"Providence" or the "Objective Spirit." Men make their own  Agencies/Contents Studied/Training
history. In this follow-up book Pedagogy of the Heart, Paulo - the education of the Filipino was focused
Freire wrote: "It is necessary that the weakness of the mainly on the learning of the Christian
 Doctrine. It was a simple catechism, the
doctrina, not the same as Christian
education in Europe.
- it took three and half centuries before the
Spanish government set up a school system.
- the Augustinians, Franciscans, Dominicans,
and Jesuits introduced the parochial school
concept practiced in Europe during the Dark
Ages.
- the rise of parochial schools started in Cebu
in 1565 by the Augustinian missionaries.
- Subjects other than the Doctrina were
arithmetic, music, and various arts and
trades.
- training was done formally through the
visitas which served as the first schools.
- through parochial schools established in the
19th century
- in due time, academic institutions higher
than the parochial schools were established.
- secondary schools established such as the
colegios for the boys, beaterios for the girls.
These were equivalent to present-day high
schools.
- Colegio de San Ignacio by the Jesuits in
1589 in Manila was the first colegio.
- the Dominicans put up the Colegio de Santo
Rosario which later became Colegio de
Santo Tomas now the Pontifical University
of Santos Tomas.
- the Beaterio de Santa Isabel was founded in
1632 and became the oldest existing school
for girls.
- the Beaterio de Santa Potenciang, in 1594
was the first beaterio for girls.
- institutions established for higher learning to
provide the church with centers of learning
and the state with much needed judges and
lawyers.
 Teaching Methods
- dictation
- memorization
- other techniques such as moro-moro, cenaculo, and
other theatrical performances
 The Media of Instruction
- Spanish
- Latin
 Type of Education
- authoritarianism
- teacher-dominated subject centered
- imposition of severe discipline
 Outstanding Contributions of the Spanish Friars
to Philippine Education
o Upliftment of the Philippine Education
Through Royal Decree of 1863 (Education
Act 1863 by Minister Jose dela Concha)
- first attempt of the Spaniards to establish an
overall public school system
- provision for training of teachers through a
normal school attached to Escuela Pia, now
Ateneo de Manila University
- complete system of education
- free system of education
- reorganization of the school curriculum
- government supervision and control of
school thus breaking 3 century church
domination in education
o Linguistics
- produced the first grammars and dictionaries
that led to the development of Filipino
languages.
- "Arte y Vocabulario de Lengua Tagala" by
Juan Quiñones in 1581 was the first Tagalog
grammar and dictionary in the country.
- Another popular Tagalog grammar was
―Arte y Regla de la Lengua Tagala" by
Francisco Blancas de San Jose, printed by
Tomas Pinpin in 1610.
EDUCATION DURING THE AMERICAN ERA
 Educational Aim
To promote democratic ideals and way of life.
 Agencies/Contents Studied
- The defeat of Spain by American force
paved the way for Aguinaldo‘s Republic
under a Revolutionary Government.
- The schools maintained by Spain for more
than three centuries were closed for the time
being but were reopened on August 29, 1898
by the Secretary of the Interior.
- The Burgos Institute in Malolos, the
Military Academy of Malolos, and the
Literary University of the Philippines were
established.
- A system of free and compulsory elementary
education was established by the Malolos
Constitution.
- Training was done through the schools both
public and secular manned by Chaplains and
military officers of the US army and the
Thomasites brought here by the vessel
Thomas.
- The University of the Philippines was
founded in 1908. It was the first state school
of university status.
- Reading, Writing, arithmetic, good manners
and right conduct (GMRC), civics, hygiene
and sanitation, gardening, domestic science,
American history, and Philippine history
were the subjects for study.
- Philippine education during this period was
highly influenced by the Philosophy of John
Dewey.
 Teaching Method
- Teaching was done through democratic way
of teaching.
 Outstanding Contributions of the Americans to
Philippine Education (Curricular Programs
Patterned from the United States)
- Religious freedom was enforced
- Development of the intelligence, right
attitudes and habits of children who were to
 become citizens of the future were
emphasized.
- Citizenship for adults became important.
- Democratic ideal as a philosophy was
emphasized.
- Supervision of schools took the role of
guidance and consultancy.
 Legal Mandate
- The Treaty of Paris in December 1898 put
an abrupt end to the newly born republic.
President Mckinley issued his "Benevolent
Policy of Assimilation" by which America
would assume full control and
administration of Philippine affairs. In 1899,
he appointed a commission to study the
newly acquired territory and this became
known as the Schurman Commission.
- In 1900 another commission was appointed
and this was the Taft Commission. Its task
was to organize a civil government.
- In March 1900, the Office of Superintended
of Public Instruction was created with Capt.
Albert Todd as the general superintendent of
schools.
- The Educational Act of 1901, also known
as Act No. 74 of the Philippine Commission,
was promulgated to establish a Department
of Public Instruction to oversee the
operation of public schools.
 Sections 1 to 13 of the Act were
meant to establish a highly
centralized system.
 Section 14 to 15 provided for the
importation of American teachers
(Thomasites). Section 16 provided
for the separation of church and
state.
 Section 17 created the Philippine
Normal School, now Philippine
Normal University (PNU).
- The Department of Public Instruction set up
a three level school system. The first level
consisted of a four-year primary and three-
year intermediate or seven-year elementary
school. The second level was a four-year
high school. The third level was at first a
two-year junior college and later a four-year
program.
- In 1925, the Monroe Survey Commission,
headed by Paul Monroe was created to
evaluate the entire school system the
Americans set up, the first of its kind in the
country. Act No. 3162 and 3196 made
possible the conduct of the Monroe survey
and recommended the following:
 educational reforms regarding
methods and techniques of
teaching, supervision, teacher
training and curriculum.
 evaluation of teaching and learning.
- In 1927, the American Director of the
Bureau of Education spelled out the aims
for education: 1.) training for self-
government and 2.) provision of English as a
common language.
 Education During the Commonwealth Period
(1935-1942)
After a persistent negotiation with the Americans led
by Manuel L. Quezon, the Americans set up a ―preparatory
period‖ to enable the Filipinos to deserve independence. The
Constitution for the Philippines was formulated, adopted and
subsequently approved by the President of the United states. It
completely replaced the 1898 Malolos Constitution.
The fundamental aims of education set forth in the
1935 Constitution are:
1. to develop moral character, personal discipline, civic
conscience, and vocational efficiency, and
2. to teach the duties of citizenship.
Training was done through the public schools and the
private schools (sectarian and non-sectarian).
Curricular emphasis was on character education and
citizenship training.
 Legal Mandate
- Executive order No. 17 of president
Quezon promulgated the so-called "Quezon
Code of Ethics‖ which laid the foundation of
the emerging philosophy of Philippine
education.
- Executive Order No. 134 in 1936 of
President Quezon designated Tagalog as the
basis of a national language.
- Executive Order No. 263 in 1940 required
the teaching of the Filipino national
language in the senior year of all high
schools and in all years in the normal
schools.
- The Education Act of 1940 (C.A. 586),
approved by the Philippine Assembly on
August 7, 1940, provided for the following:
a. reduction of the 7-year elementary
course to 6 years
b. fixing the school entrance age at at
7 6 years
c. national support for elementary
education
d. compulsory attendance of primary
children enrolled in Grade 1
e. adoption of double-single sessions
in the primary grade with one
teacher one class assignment of
intermediate teachers.
EDUCATION DURING THE JAPANESE ERA (1943-
1945)
The Asia-Pacific War or Second World War
interrupted the Ten-year Commonwealth. The Japanese
occupied the country in 1942 after the bombing of Pearl
Harbor on December 7, 1941.
 Order No. 2 if the Japanese Imperial Forces set up
the war-time educational objectives in the country on February
17, 1942.
 Education aimed at:
- Making the people understand the position
of the Philippines as a member of the East
Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere;
- Eradication of the old idea of reliance upon
western states particularly the United States
and Great Britain;
- Fostering a new Filipino culture based on
the consciousness of the people as Orientals;
- Elevating the morals of the people giving up
over-emphasis on materialism;
- Diffusion of elementary education and
promotion of vocation education;
- Striving for the diffusion of the Japanese
language in the Philippines and the
termination if the use of the English
language in schools, and
- Inspiring the people with the spirit to love
labor.
 Agencies/Content Studied
- Training was done formally through the
schools, which gave more emphasis on:
vocational, technical and agriculture.
- Opening of vocational schools
- Establishment of agricultural schools and
colleges
- Curricular content was centered on values
roots on love for labor; emphasizing
vocational education; diffusing the use of
Nippongo, and teaching physical education
and singing Japanese songs.
 Legal Mandate
Proclamation No. 1
- Informed the people that the sovereignty of
the United Sates over the Philippines was
over and that Martial Law was to reign.
- Made the Philippines a member of the
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
EDUCATION DURING THE REPUBLIC (1945-1972)
Even before independence was granted, Sergio
Osmeña who became President after the death of Quezon
affirmed the principles of freedom and democracy. On July 4,
1946, President Roxas reaffirmed such faith in democracy.
The 1935 Constitution continued to be implemented
during the entire Period.
 Educational Aims
Education aimed at the full realization of the
democratic ideals and way of life.
The characteristics are:
- democracy is predicated upon the intrinsic worth of
the individual.
- individuals realize their capacities best in a social
contract.
- society is not separated from the individual.
- democracy thrives on change; it is dynamic and
flexible.
- it fosters persuasion and consensus and rejects
coercion and indoctrination.
 Curricular Content Stressed
- social orientation as manifested by the
conservation of the Filipino heritage
- training for occupation
- promotion of democratic nation building
- a new thrust on community development
 Legal Mandates
o The Board of Textbooks was created
pursuant to R.A. 139, enacted on June 14,
1947. Its function was to screen and approve
textbooks for use in all public schools for a
period of 6 years from the date of their
adoption. Private schools may use books of
their choice provided the Board has no
objections.
o On June 15, 1954, the civil service
eligibility of teachers was made permanent
pursuant to R.A. 1079.
o The Board of National Education (BNE),
tasked with formulating educational policies
to give direction to Philippine education was
create pursuant to R.A. 1124, approved on
June 16, 1954. However, BNE was later
renamed National Board of Education
(NBE) by P.D. 1; abolished with the creation
of Board of Higher education by B.P. 232.
The Board‘s function is now under CHED
under R.A. 7722.
o A daily flag ceremony was made
compulsory in all schools including the
singing of the National Anthem pursuant to
R.A. 1265, approved on June 11, 1955.
o In terms of curricular offerings in all
schools, the life, the works, and writings of
Jose Rizal especially the Noli Me Tangere
and El Filibusterismo; shall be included in
all levels pursuant to R.A. 1425, approved
on June 12, 1956.
o Elementary education was nationalized and
abolished matriculation fees pursuant to
R.A. 4007.
o To promote the socio-economic status of the
public school teachers, their living and
working conditions, their employment and
career prospects, The Magna Carta for
Public School Teachers (R.A. 4670) was
enacted on June 18, 1966. It contains
provisions on the following:
a. recruitment qualification of teachers
b. Code of Professional conduct for
Teachers c. teaching load of 6 hours of
classroom teaching (maximum load)
and additional compensation for overtime
(25% of the regular remuneration).
d. health and injury benefits through GSIS.
e. one year study leave (sabbatical leave)
after 7 years of continuous teaching (teacher
gets 60% of the monthly salary).
f. one-range salary increase upon retirement
(basis of computing retirement benefits).
 g. teacher's freedom to form organizations.
o To finance and support provincial schools,
Special Education Fund and local school
board were created pursuant to R.A. 5447,
enacted in 1968.
o The period also saw the rise of Barrio High
Schools, originally advocated by Dr. Pedro
T Orata (father of barrio high school
movement), pursuant to R.A. 6054.
o President Ferdinand Marcos created the
Constitutional Convention, to be presided
over by President Macapagal as mandated
by R.A. 6132.
o Executive Order No. 202 issued by
President Marcos in 1969 created the
Presidential Commission to Study the
Philippine Education (PCSPE).
EDUCATION DURING THE NEW SOCIETY (1972-
1986)
 Educational Aim
One of the offshoots of the Presidential Commission
to Study Philippine Education (PCSPE), done in 1969-1970
and headed by then Minister of Education Onofre D. Corpuz
was the issuance of P.D. 6-A (Educational Decree of 1972)
which embodied into law the national development goals and
the goals of the educational system geared towards their
attainment. The educational aims are as follows:
 Provision for a broad education which will
enhance self-actualization;
 Manpower training in middle-level skills,
and
 Development of the high-level professions
and evaluation.
Proclamation 1102 of President Marcos on January
17,1973 announced the ratification of the 1973 Constitution
through a referendum of assemblies (barangays) on January
10-15, 1973. This culminated the work of 320 delegates
headed by Macapagal.
The fundamental aims of education in the 1973
Constitution are:
 to foster love of country;
 teach the duties of citizenship, and
 develop moral character, self-discipline, and
scientific, technological and vocational efficiency.
 Agencies/Contents Studied
- curricular changes in elementary education
- focused on education
- integration of values in all learning areas
- emphasis on mastery learning
- curricular changes in secondary education
- increased in time allotment
- YDT and CAT introduced as new courses
- elective offerings as part of the curriculum
 Media of Instruction
Bilingual Education Policy: use of English and
Filipino as media of instruction in specific learning areas.
 Educational Programs Initiated
- Project IMPACT - Instructional
Management by Parents, Community, and
Teachers
- ISOSA - In School-Off School Approach
- CPS - Continuous Progression Scheme
- PRODED - Program for a Decentralized
Educational Development
- NCEE - National College Entrance
Examination
- NEAT - National Elementary Assessment
Test for Grade VI (Battery of Achievement
Tests of Multiple Choices)
- NSAT - National Secondary Assessment
Test replaces NCEE (not a prerequisite to
entrance to college; 20% of the result is
computed to the GPA)
 Legal Mandates
 PD No. 1 - Integrated Reorganization Plan
(September 24, 1972)
- decentralization of the Department of
education, Culture and Sports
- decision-making is shared by the 13 DECS
regional offices
 The National College Entrance Examination
(NCEE, as per PD 146 issued on March 9,
1973, required all senior high school
students to pass the NCEE as prerequisite
for admission to any post-secondary
academic or professional degree program for
a minimum of 4 years of study in any
private or public college/university to start
on SY 1972-1973.
 Tertiary honor students (summa cum laude,
magna cum laude, cum laude) are granted
civil service eligibility, pursuant to PD 907
issued on March 1976 starting school year
1972-1973.
 Department Order No. 25 s. 1974
(Bilingual Education Program) mandates the
use of English and Filipino separately as
media of instruction in schools.
 Teachers are considered professionals and
teaching as profession upon passing the
Professional Board Examination for Teacher
(PBET) as per PD 1006 issued on
September 22, 1976. It created the National
Board for Teachers that was tasked to
prepare, administer, and evaluate the PBET.
R.A. 7836 that mandates the Licensure
Examination for Teachers (LET) to be
administered by the Professional
Regulations Commission (PRC) later
repealed this.
 Batas Pambansa Blg. 232 (Education Act
of 1982) entitled "An Act Providing for the
Establishment and Maintenance of an
Integrated System of Education," which
covers both formal and non-formal
education at all levels. This law carried over
the national development goals and
educational aims contained in PD 6-A.
  The Act also provided for maintenance of
―quality education‖ through:
- Voluntary accreditation for schools, colleges
or university to upgrade their standards
(section 29);
- Obligations and qualifications of teachers
and administrators (section 16 & 17), and
- Government financial assistance to private
schools (section 41).
EDUCATION DURING THE PRESENT PERIOD (1986-
present)
 Educational Aim
Education aimed to promote national development
and values education.
 Educational System and Curricular Reforms
- Implementation of NESC – addressed to
civic, intellectual, and character
development of the child. Its features are:
- Fewer learning areas, emphasis on mastery
learning;
- Focused on the development of 3R‘s, and
- Emphasis on the development of intellectual
skills which are as important as work skills.
- Focus on the development of humanism and
Filipinism in all learning areas.
 Implementation of SEDP in response to the need to
continue pupil development. To meet these needs, it
aims to improve policy making and increase the
internal efficiency if the educational system. Its
features are:
- Subjects generally oriented to the
development of values;
- Specific competencies;
- Concept-based subject areas, and
- Uni-disciplinary treatment of curriculum
content.
 Implementation of the New Secondary Education
Curriculum (NSEC). Its features are:
- Multi-disciplinary treatment of curriculum
content
- Student-centered
- Cognitive-affective manipulative based
curriculum
- Values education offered as separate subject
area
- Emphasis in Science and Technology
- Uses bilingual policy
- Critical thinking emphasized
 Values Education is offered as a separated subject in
the NSEC and integrated in all subject areas in both
curricula.
 Future Direction for the Philippines - -
“Education for All”
 EFA – mandated by Presidential proclamation 480
whose vision is anchored on humanitarianism and
equalitarianism. Its components are:
o ECCD - Early Childhood Care and
Development
o UQPE - Universal Quality of Primary
Education
o EOI - Eradication of Illiteracy
o CE - Continuing Education
 The New Society officially ended on February 25,
1986 which culminated the ―People Power
Revolution" (People Power 1). Mrs. Corazon Aquino
took her oath of office as President.
 A new Constitution was drafted by a 50-meter
Constitutional Assembly headed by Justice Cecilia
Muñoz-Palma. It was subsequently ratified on
February 2, 1987.
Section 3, Article XIV of the 1897 Constitution
contains these fundamental aims of education. To wit:
o Shall inculcate patriotism and nationalism
o Foster love of humanity
o Respect for human rights
o Appreciation of the role of the national
heroes in the historical development of the
country
o Teach the rights and duties of citizenship
o Strengthen ethical and spiritual values
o Develop moral character and personal
discipline
o Encourage critical creative thinking
o Broaden scientific and technological
knowledge
o Promote vocational efficiency
 The government also enacted a new civil service
eligibility law, R.A. 6850, February 8, 1990, which
provides for the granting of civil service eligibility to
all government employees with provisional or
temporary status who have rendered a total of at least
seven (7) years of efficient and dedicated service.
 A nationwide educational survey spearheaded by the
Congressional Commission on Education, popularly
known as EDCOM (headed by Senator Angara and
Congressman Padilla), came up with its report in
1991 with the following recommendations:
o the breakup of DECS into Department of
Basic Education (BSE); Technical
Education and Skills Development
Authority (TESDA), and Commission on
Higher Education (CHED);
o establishment of Teacher Education Centers
of Excellence (CENTREXES);
o Professionalization of teachers, and
o Technical-vocational reform.
 DECS Order NO. 6 s. 1988, issued by then
Education Secretary Lourdes R. Quisumbing,
strengthens the teaching of values in the New
Elementary School Curriculum (NESC) launched in
SY 1982-1983 and in the New Elementary Secondary
School Curriculum (NSEC) implemented in SY
1989-1990 under the Program for Decentralized
Educational Development (PRODED) and
Secondary Education Development Program (SEDP)
respectively.
 During the term of President Corazon Aquino, free
public secondary education became a reality through
the passage of R.A. 6655 on May 26, 1988. The
pertinent provisions are on the following:
 Tuition fee supplement for students in
private schools, vocational and technical
 courses which charge less than P1,500
tuition fee;
 High school textbook assistance;
 Expansion of Educational Service
Contracting Scheme;
 Voucher system of the Private Education
Student Financial Assistance Program
(PESFA);
 Scholarship grants to graduating
valedictorians and salutatorians;
 Tuition fee supplements to students in
private colleges and universities;
 Educational loan fund, and
 College faculty development fund.
 The government also looked at the welfare of poor
but deserving students by enacting the Student
Employment Law (R.A. 7232), February 3, 1992.
Students whose ages range form 15-25, may be
employed during summer or Christmas vacation with
a salary not lower than the minimum wage – 60% of
it shall be paid by the employer and 40% by the
government.
 Congress acted on EDCOM‘s recommendations on
the division of DECS into CHED (R.A. 7722), May
18, 1994, which assumed the functions of the Bureau
of Higher Education, TESDA (R.A. 7796), August
35, 1994, which absorbed the Bureau of Technical-
Vocational Education and the National Manpower
and Youth Council (NMYC). It also enacted into the
establishment of Centers of Excellence in Teacher
Education in each region of the country (R.A. 7784),
August 4, 1944, good for a period of five years.
These educational developments happened during the
term of President Fidel Ramos.
 Heeding public clamor, Congress repealed the
National College Entrance Examination (P.D. 146)
by virtue of R.A. 7731 on June 2, 1994.
 Along the professionalization of teachers started by
P.D. 1001 R.A. 7836 was signed into law on
December 16, 1994. It has these important
provisions:
o creation of the Board for Professional Teachers
composed of 5 commissioners under PRC;
o replacement of PBET by LET (Licensure
Examination for Teachers);
o transfer of authority of administering the LET from
CSC and DECS to the BOARD of Professional
Teachers under PRC, and
o the formulation, adoption, and promulgation of the
Code of Ethical and Professional standards for
Professional Teachers by the Board for Professional
Teachers pursuant to paragraph (e), Article II of R.A.
7836.
 DEC‘s Master Plan for Basic Education
 Looking beyond the realism of the
educational system.
 Strengthening its bonds with its present and
potential partners.
 Employing more non-traditional means of
ensuring that children stay in school.
 Realizing that the planning of education and
the implementation of its program must take
into primary and serious consideration the
systems provisions also for guaranteeing
that it has the students to work on.
 Establishing viable alternative between
school, home, and community and local
government - expanded the PTA into parent-
teacher-community association (PTCA) as
part of the self-management under the Third
Elementary Education Project (TEEP)
package of reforms.
 DECS response to the Social Reform
Agenda of the government which aims to
raise the participation of school-aged
children in elementary education, improve
the six-year completion in the elementary
schools and increase academic achievement
in the project provinces.
 Upgrading of teacher competencies and
improving their welfare was seen in EFA as
fundamental and long-term policy measure
to bring about quality basic education.
 NEAP - National Educators Academy of the
Philippines was established while better - in
- serve and pre-service training were
included in TEEP and the Aus Aid-assisted
Program in basic Education (PROBE).
 Internalize EFA's philosophy and goals.
 The quality goal of EFA is emphasizing
creative and critical thinking.
 Recommendations:
o Strengthening the Foundation of Education
o Priorities:
- advancement of ECCD (Early Childhood
Care and Development) with proper
maternal, child health, care and nutrition.
- expansion of pre-school services
- impact of the 8-week Early Childhood
Experiences in Grade I scheme should be
studied.
o Improving the Quality of Primary Education
- program intervention
- plan investments by scaling up and
institutionalizing pilot projects.
- DIP (Drop-Out Intervention Program)
Differentiated approaches should be allowed
for males and females and for urban rural areas when
formulating intervention to combat the low survival
rate and high dropout and repetition rates.
Special children that required focused and
differentiated approaches such as distance learning.
These need alternative learning approaches because
of the serious structural difficulty in maintaining school
attendance.
Multi-level materials assisted instruction
School feeding with parent-teacher
partnership and community.
- multi-grade-Strengthening this MTG
teaching as the norm for difficult-to-reach
areas and sparsely populated areas.
- comprehensive teacher education and
development program
 Upgrade teaching approaches and o Environmental Education - integrated into
techniques through school-based inset by the curriculum specifically in Science
principals and supervisors. o Environmental Ethics - study of man's moral
Teaching approaches which promote active obligation to preserve the environment and
participatory and experiential learning. the natural order of things.
o Curriculum and Content o Population Education - integrated into the
- broad based curriculum review involving curriculum specifically in Science and
stakeholders outside of education should be Social Studies
conducted. o Gender Fairness and Peace education are
- new basic education curriculum integrated in Social Studies
Rationale: o Global education - education for responsible
 To be relevant and responsive to a participation in an interdependent world
rapidly changing world community
 To empower the Filipino learner for Objectives:
self-development throughout his Help children develop social,
life political, and ecological sense; a sense of the world as set of
 To help raise the achievement level interconnected and interdependent environmental social and
of students political system; understand the direction of global trends;
- conceptual framework explore solutions for global problems.
The Context – defines the sources
of the curriculum in terms of the following: List of Secretaries of Education
 The Constitution
 Education Act of 1982 Month Month Name Position
 The National Development Goals started finished
in the MTPDP
 The needs of society in terms of Secretaries of Public Instruction
citizens who are:
 Makabayan 1935 1940 Sergio Osmeña
 Makatao 1940 1941 Jorge Bocobo
 Makakalikasan
 Makadiyos Secretaries of Public Instruction, Health, and Public
- paramenters of the Curriculum Welfare
 The environment Commonwealth War Cabinet
 The society
 The learner 1942 1944 Sergio Osmeña
o The Learning Areas, Process, and Outcomes
 Filipino Commissioner of Public Instruction
 English Philippine Executive Commission
 Science
 Mathematics 1942 1943 Claro M. Recto
 Makabayan
o The Support System Minister of Public Instruction
 Training of Teachers 2nd Republic
 Provisions of materials, equipment,
and facilities 1943 1945 Jorge Bocobo
 Enabling policy and administrative
support Secretaries of Education, Culture and Sports
o Monitoring and Evaluation
 Conduct of pre-implementation, February 1986 December 1989 Lourdes Quisimbing
process and post-implementation
monitoring January 1990 June 1992 Isidro Cariño
 Evaluation of the curriculum to
access progress and provide July 1992 July 1994 Armand Fabella
intervention if necessary
 Testing August 1994 December 1997 Ricardo Gloria
Enhance the use of NEAT results for analyzing sub-
sector performance and improving individual school January 1998 June 1998 Erlinda Pefianco
performance.
July 1998 January 2001 Br. Andrew Gonzalez
Development and use of more varied instruments to
measure multi-level intelligence including life skills in February 2001 August 2001 Raul Roco
classroom teaching.
 Secretaries of Education

August 2001 August 2002 Raul Roco

September 2002 July 2004 Edilberto de Jesus

July 2004 July 2005 Florencio Abad

July 2005 September Ramon Bacani OIC

2005
September 2005 July 2006 Fe Hidalgo Acting

July 2006 Present Jesli Lapus