CRITICAL BOOK RIVIEW

Arranged to Fulfill Task

Course : Phylosophy of Education

Lecturer : Rizky Ramadhani , S.Pd, M.Pd

Arranged by :
Name : Lamtiur Paronauli Silaban
Nim : 4203131048
Class : CESP 20

BILINGUAL CHEMICAL EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

DEPARTEMEN OF CHEMISTRY

UNIVESITAS NEGERI MEDAN

BATU BARA

2020/2021
 FOREWORD

Praise the author, pray to God Almighty because for his blessing and mercy, so the
author can complete this Critical Book Riview on Phylosophy Education courses. The
realization of this Critical Book Riview can not be separated from the guidance and direction
of the lectures who teach the courses. For that I thank you for guiding me as writer.

Writing this Critical Book Riview is intended so that readers can better understand the
material that the author has presented. The author realizes that in writing this Critical book
Riview there are many deficiencies. Therefore , the author expect critism and suggestion for
further improvement. Hopefully this Critical Book Riview will provide benefits for
both,readers and writer.

Batu Bara, 3 October 2020

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD…………………………………………………………………………….........1

TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………………...2

CHAPTER I…………………………………………………………………………………...3

1.1 Background of Writing…………………………………………………………….3

1.2 Aim of Writing…………………………………………………………………….3
1.3 Benefits of Writing…………………………………………………………...........3

CHAPTER II………………………………………………………………………………….4

2.1 Identity of Book……………………………………………………………...........4

2.2 Summary of Book…………………………………………………………………4

2.2.1 Chapter I…………………………………………………………………4

2.2.2 Chapter II………………………………………………………………

2.2.3 Chapter III………………………………………………………………

2.2.4 Chapter IV……………………………………………………………

2.2.5Chapter V………………………………………………………………

2.2.6 Chapter VI……………………………………………………………..

CHAPTER III…………………………………………………………………………………

3.1 Book Excess……………………………………………………………………

3.2 Shortage of Books………………………………………………………………

CHAPTER IV………………………………………………………………………………..

4.1 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………….
4.2 Recommendations……………………………………………………………….
 CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARY

1.1 Background of Writing

A student must be sensitive to the times and existing information. Various

ways can be used to obtain information, one of which is by reading books. Not only
reading books, a student can also judge whether the books they read are good or not.
This activity is called the Critical Book Review. Before conducting an assessment,
students must first understand the content of the book being criticized.

1.2 Aim of Writing

In this writing, it is hoped that the objectived will be achieved, namely as

follows :
1. Train to think critically in responding to information
2. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the book
3. Increase knowledge about the Philosophy of Education
4. Finding learning reference sources for deeper understanding of the material

1.3 Benefits of Writing

The benefits that will be obtained later trough this writing, namely :

1. Fulfilling one of the mandatory tasks of the educational philosophy course

2. Improve critical thinking skills in receiving information

3. Train in summarizing books

4. Get new insights

 CHAPTER II

2.1 Identity of Book

Tittle : Philosophy of Education

Edition : First edition
Author : Richard Pring
Publisher : British Library Cataloguing
Place of Publication : New York
Publition year : 2005
ISBN : 0-8264-8708-4

2.2 Summary of Book

2.2.1 Chapter I

Education

Philosophy of education is the branch of applied or practical philosophy concerned

with the nature and aims of education and the philosophical problems arising from
educational theory and practice. Because that practice is ubiquitous in and across human
societies, its social and individual manifestations so varied, and its influence so profound, the
subject is wide-ranging, involving issues in ethics and social / political philosophy,
epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and language, and other areas of philosophy.
Because it looks both inward to the parent discipline and outward to educational practice and
the social, legal, and institutional contexts in which it takes place, the philosophy of
education concerns itself with both sides of the traditional theory / practice divide. Its subject
matter includes both basic philosophical issues (eg, the nature of the knowledge worth
teaching, the character of educational equality and justice, etc.) and problems concerning
specific educational policies and practices (eg, the desirability of standardized curricula and
testing, the social, economic, legal and moral dimensions of specific funding arrangements,
the justification of curriculum decisions, etc.). In all this the philosopher of education prizes
conceptual clarity, argumentative rigor, the fair-minded consideration of the interests of all
involved in or affected by educational efforts and arrangements, and informed and well-
reasoned valuation of educational aims and interventions.
 'Emancipation' is a useful metaphor, for education is to be contrasted with the kind of
enslavement associated with ignorance and with the lack of those mental powers, without
which one is so easily duped and deceived. To be educated, therefore, is at least this - to be in
possession of those understandings, knowledge, skills and dispositions whereby one makes
sense of the world around one: the physical world to be understood through the sciences and
mathematics, the social and political world within which one's life is too often shaped by
others, the moral world of ideals and responsibilities, and the aesthetic world of beauty and
style through which one finds pleasure and delight. But entry into those different worlds is
more than a making sense of that which is inherited from others. It gives access to the ideas,
and thus the tools, through which the learner's own distinctive personal development might
actively take place.

At the heart of one's personal development through education must be an

understanding of the key ideas that make it possible to understand what it means to be
human. Therefore, Bruner 'Man: A Course of Study' course focuses on three main questions:
(1) What is human about humans?

(2) How did he become like that?

(3) How did he become more like that?

(Bruner, 1966) This course is structured around five different ideas about being
human - prolonged parenting, use of tools, mastery and use of language, social organization
and myth creation. These key ideas can be explored at different levels of understanding,
based on personal experience, systematic investigation and theoretical study in anthropology
and other academic disciplines. In keeping with the importance of active inquiry and joint
exploration, this course designs a series of games, simulation exercises and activities, so that
young learners - from different backgrounds and measured intelligences - can work together
and make their separate contributions tentatively. understanding of what makes them human.

The language of education through which we are asked to 'think in business terms' -
the language of inputs and outputs, of valueaddedness, of performance indicators and audits,
of products and productivity, of educational clients and curriculum deliverers constitutes a
new way of thinking about the relation of teacher and learner. It employs different metaphors,
different ways of describing and evaluating educational activities. But, in so doing, it changes
those activities into something else. It transforms the moral context in which education takes
place and is judged successful or otherwise. The effect of this new language is not a matter
for empirical enquiry alone, for that which is to be enquired into has become a different thing.
So mesmerized have we become with the importance of 'cost efficiency', Value for money,
'productivity' and 'effectiveness' that we have failed to see that the very nature of the
enterprise - of an 'educational practice' - has been redefined. Once the teacher 'delivers'
someone else's curriculum with its precisely defined 'product', there is little room for that
transaction in which the teacher, rooted in a particular cultural tradition, responds to the needs
of the learner. When the learner becomes a 'client' or 'customer', lost is the traditional
apprenticeship in which the students are initiated into the community of learners. When the
'product' is the measurable 'targets' on which 'performance' is 'audited', then little significance
is attached to the 'struggle to make sense' which characterizes the learning of what is
valuable.

The early developments of the comprehensive system aimed at the removal of those
differences of provision and treatment which could not be justified - which arose from factors
unrelated to the educational purposes of schooling, such as wealth or class or status. It was
the application of the same principle which, a generation earlier, had been the moral basis for
a differentiated educational system. The achievement of secondary education for all,
following the 1944 Education Act and the scholarship system, whereby anyone of ability
could achieve a grammar school education, were steps in the direction of a more equal
society in this sense. The appeal to equality was really an attempt to remove those
discriminations that denied to deserving individuals access to an appropriate education.
Intelligence, not wealth or social class, was the relevant base for educational opportunities,
and thus measures of intelligence became the appropriate criteria for discriminating between
children.

2.2.2Chapter II

Learning

There is an obvious objection to what has been said so far. It is argued that the pursuit
of equality in schools has caused a decline in standards in the work of the more able pupils -
especially in mathematics and the sciences, but also in literacy and the modern languages.
There are many international comparisons which seem to demonstrate that the products of the
comprehensive system do not do as well as their counterparts in the more selective systems
elsewhere. One pursues equality at the expense of individual quality. These criticisms should
not be dismissed lightly. But they require closer examination of what we mean by standards
and how they are to be defined. Standards are benchmarks; they are the criteria whereby one
assesses or evaluates the quality of a particular activity or process. Strictly speaking there are
as many standards as there are activities and there are as many activities as there are
intentions and values which drive people on. There are standards peculiar to mathematics, to
philosophical argument, to writing sonnets, to giving lectures, to formulating research
proposals. Moreover, just as our values and purposes change, so do standards whereby we
assess those activities. As mathematics educators reflect on the nature and educational value
of mathematical education (practical problem-solving rather than theoretical insight) or as
modern linguists agree that the importance of studying languages is to converse with the
natives rather than to read their literature, so do the standards whereby we judge
mathematical or language performance change. Performance against standards does not go up
or down; standards simply change, because what we think to be important changes.

The place of learning : monastery or marketplace?

The monastery was a place where people could get away from the world of business
and commerce and, through concentration upon salvation, ensure the safety of their own
soul - and, through prayer rather than social interaction, help too with the salvation of others.
Therefore, schools and universities have sometimes been likened to monasteries, places, like
our major and prestigious private schools and like the old 'new' universities, set apart in a
rural idyll, undistracted by the affairs of commerce and industry. There intellectual excellence
might be pursued, and individual salvation found. And the people so educated would also be
of value to others, since they would constitute the guardian class, the clerisy, as Coleridge
argued, who would be the leaders of society.

The control of learning: politicians or teachers?

There are two aspects of this new language as a basis of social control which I wish to
expand upon further. The first lies in the underlying concept of learning whereby the
relationship betweenteacher and learner is defined. The second lies in the role of the teacher
in interpreting and defining the values which shape the task of teaching.

There is a distinction between 'education' and 'training'. 'Education' is an evaluative

word. Education lays down broad criteria which any activity, which one claims to be
educational, must conform to. Such activities must bring about learning; that learning must be
significant - it transforms the understanding of the learner in a valuable way and is not simply
stuck on superficially; the value of that learning lies in the deepening and broadening of
understanding.

Behind this distinction lies different understandings of learning. On the one hand, it is
an achievement, a change of consciousness which meets certain standards, those standards
being defined by the nature of knowledge or of that which is to be learnt. That is why
learning theory should not be (as it often is) divorced from the philosophical analysis of what
it means to have understood a particular concept or a particular principle or a way of doing
things. There is a logical structure to learning which defines the standards whereby success is
assessed. On the other hand, learning is associated with changed behaviour, with whatever
measurable outcomes that the trainer wishes to see. There is no claim to understanding in the
successfully changed behaviour of the circus animals. And there is no need to refer to the
processes of learning or to the depth of understanding or to the mode of seeing in the
input/output model through which educational institutions are now to be audited.

2.2.3 Chapter III

Child-centredness

If we examine closely what is often referred to as the child-centred philosophy of

education, we do in fact detect many quite different traditions. Especially is it important to
distinguish between that which was represented by such people as Froebel and Montessori,
and that with which Dewey is associated. Put crudely, the distinction is between, on the one
hand, those who emphasize the individual nature of growth - the gradual development of
potential that is there waiting to be recognized, fertilized, watered, or just allowed to grow
(the horticultural metaphor is powerful among the followers of Froebel and Pestalozzi) - and,
on the other hand, those who stress the social context of development. In the former case,
there has always been a strong idealist (in the case of Froebel, Hegelian) pedigree, as
education was conceived as 'leading man, as a thinking intelligent being, growing into self-
consciousness to a pure and unsullied, conscious and free representation of the inner law of
Divine Unity, and in teaching him ways and means thereto' (Froebel, 1986: 2).

In the latter case, however, the social nature of this process of growth is emphasized.
Growth is not an unfolding of what is already there. Rather is it a gradual expansion of one's
experience and understanding through the interaction between a person (with a particular set
of perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, values) and the social and cultural environment in which he
finds himself. 'Experience', 'connectedness' and 'enquiry' are the keywords, and education is
concerned with the facilitation of that interaction making possible that 'experiential
continuum' which Dewey talks about. And that will include, as top priority, the establishment
of links between the learner (the thinker, the enquirer) and those social understandings of
experience that are embodied within different subjects.

It embraces a set of ideas that could help us make sense of the current stress upon
'experience', 'community links', the 'process of learning', 'project work', 'integration',
'relevance' - which characterize various current pre-vocational innovations, but which are so
often seen as undermining the liberal ideals represented by the subject-based curriculum.

2.2.4 Chapter IV

'Education' is often seen as a tool for developing desirable attitudes, imparting

essential knowledge, training in economically relevant skills, altering anti-social behaviours.

In this paper, I wish to examine and to question the notion of the curriculum as a 'tool'
to impart knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours, which the government or anyone in
power believes to be important - especially in what is broadly conceived to be political
education. Political education may be, as has been frequently argued (Crick, 1977; Crick and
Porter, 1978; White, 1983), one of the most important areas of education to be encouraged -
concerned with the knowledge, skills and attitudes which are fundamental to living a
distinctively human form of.

Teachers are now seen to deliver the curriculum - the curriculum being defined in
terms of a content and a set of outcomes which are decided upon outside the context in which
teachers engage with students in their attempt 'to make sense' or in their 'struggle to
understand'. Performance indicators are identified with outcomes, and successful teaching
lies in the effectiveness with which those outcomes are reached - after certain measurable
inputs have been taken into account. Indeed, it is through a comparison of an agreed set of
inputs with the prespecified outcomes that valueaddedness is measured. The system of
relating means to ends, process to product, inputs to outcomes needs to be regularly audited,
and thus the increasingly complex system of quality control and assurance based on external
inspections and audits. In delivering a curriculum according to detailed specifications, the
teacher is accountable to the customers who might, if not satisfied, take their custom
elsewhere. In fact, the teacher is promoting a product or at least the effective delivery of that
product, because the product itself has been decided by government. Such a framework,
within which to talk about education, is political in that it redefines the authority and power
over learning between government and teacher and between teacher and learner. First, the
definition of educational ends has been formally removed from the professional group of
educators and placed in the hands of politicians. But this is much more significant than a shift
of power. In separating the ends of education from the means of reaching those ends, it has
removed from educational discourse, and thus from those thinking professionally about
educational matters, what has traditionally been at the very heart of education, namely,
deliberation over the values worth pursuing, the sort of society we should be endeavouring to
create, the personal qualities and understandings which should be developed. It is as though
the aims of education are no longer the very stuff of educational and professional discourse,
this latter being confined to the most appropriate means of achieving ends already decided
upon.

Positive directions for curriculum studies

This section is to be brief partly because the position that I wish to argue has already
emerged through the previous criticisms, and partly because I am not as sure as I thought I
would be, when I started writing, how to articulate that position clearly. My problem, as I
stated it at the beginning, concerned the relationship of the accounts given by curriculum
theorists (the language they employed, the knowledge they claimed) to the accounts, the
language, the understanding of the curriculum reality of the practitioner. And this problem
was sharpened by the ever-present possibility of new bodies of knowledge that had, as in my
dream, an internal coherence certainly but didn't really connect up with anything - they
weren't knowledge of anything. The problem then was how do we decide what is spurious, or
what is mere theory (as the practical teacher says), and distinguish that from the genuine
theoretical advance? The general answer was that any theoretical position had to make sense
of practical reality, and that this practical reality is already picked out, categorized in all sorts
of subtle ways for countless different purposes, by ordinary everyday language we all share.
Teachers are frequently criticized for not respecting, for not starting from, the common-sense
language and understanding of the children.

My criticism of curriculum theory is that it too frequently does not respect, does not
start from, the commonsense language and understandings of the teacher, and the practical
reality in which this language and these understandings apply. The language of practice is
rich, diverse and highly complex. Any body of knowledge that attempts to reduce this
richness, diversity and complexity to a more simple theoretical account has a philosophical
job to do of explaining the relationship of the latter to the former, and of explaining the
superiority of one over the other.

Furthermore, because concerned with practical matters, curriculum theory needs to be

tested out in the practical world. And by this I mean not simply 'does it work?' but 'does it
help to make sense of the practical reality the teacher is working in?' What is necessary for
me to do at this stage if I am to develop a more positive thesis is to say a little more about
what it is to be practical and thus what must be the touchstone of any theoretical attempts to
help one be more intelligently practical. I want to say that there is no alternative but to
practise. But that is so far just a statement, not an argument. What, however, lies behind this
statement, even if I cannot argue for it very well at this stage? There seem to be certain
features of practical reasoning that should enter into our thinking about practice, and that
would indicate (I cannot put it more strongly than that at present) involvement in practice as
prerequisite to thinking intelligently (i. e. theoretically in the loose sense) about practice.

2.2.5 Chapter V

Key concepts in educational research

Because of the importance of philosophy and the social sciences to an understanding

of any social phenomenon or practice, educational research is necessarily caught up in the
controversies which affect the nature and validity of the social sciences. These controversies
reflect quite fundamental ways of conceptualizing our understanding of the world, especially
the social world of people and institutions. These concepts or ideas provide the basic
framework of intelligibility. And, therefore, the divisive controversies, which prevail in
educational research, might best be approached through an examination of these key
concepts. By referring to them as 'key concepts' I am pointing to their indispensability in our
communication with other people and in our thinking about, and ordering of, our experience.
Despite, however, their indispensability, the appropriate application is a matter of
controversy, and where one positions oneself in these controversies affects one's views about
the practice and the validity of research.

Some of these key and fundamental concepts which we need to consider are:

1. reality and objectivity: what is the case independently of the researcher's personal or
socially constructed ideas; and the procedures for understanding that reality
2. truth: what is being claimed when we say something is true or when we assume or
assert the truth of an explanation
3. fact: what counts as fact as opposed to fiction or social construction, and the nature of
the distinction made between 'fact' and 'value'
4. theory: as opposed to common sense or practical understandings; and the validity or
truth of theoretical explanations
5. knowledge: what constitutes knowing (as opposed to merely 'believing' or 'having an
opinion'), the growth of knowledge, and the links between 'knowledge', 'truth',
'certainty' and 'verification'.

Of course, it is artificial to split key concepts up like this. Making sense of the one
requires reference to the others. Theories of truth have implications for what we mean by the
'objectivity' of statements and enquiries. There is a logical geography' in which these different
concepts have their interconnected places and provide an indispensable framework of
intelligibility for research. And it is the aim of this paper to map out these interconnections.

2.2.6 Chapter VI

Knowledge A criticism of educational research is that it does not create a body of

knowledge upon which policy-makers and professionals can rely. First, a lot of the research is
small-scale and fragmented and there is no cumulative growth of such knowledge. Second,
educational discourse seems to be full of people criticizing others' research such that there is
nothing conclusively verified - no knowledge. Research conclusions seem more like transient
beliefs than well-established knowledge. One philosophical analysis of knowing that
something is the case goes like this, 'x knows that p' (where p stands for any statement) if,
and only if, (i) x believes that p, (ii) x is justified in believing that p, and (iii) p is true. (See
for variations of this analysis Ayer, 1956; Scheffler, 1965; Woozley, 1949. ) For example, a
teacher's claim to know that a pupil would do well in examinations is refuted if (i) the teacher
demonstrates lack of belief by giving basic remedial lessons, or (ii) the grounds for believing
it were mistaken - he was confusing the student's work with someone else's, or (iii) the
student eventually failed the examinations. The teacher had a tentative but mistaken belief;
but he lacked knowledge. To claim that I know something to be the case does imply that I
could have been wrong but that, in the light of relevant evidence or argument, I have good
reason for so believing. Furthermore, it turns out that I was not wrong. The proposition 'p'
was true. Thus, 'knowledge' would, on this analysis, be logically related to 'truth' and, indeed,
to a 'reality' which makes my claim a true one and to a mode of enquiry and verification
which constitutes, objectively speaking, a justification for that belief. Knowledge is not a
description of a psychological state of mind - a strong belief. It depends on a publicly agreed
framework of justification, refutation and verification.
 CHAPTER III

EXCESS AND SHORTAGE

3. 1 Excess of Books

Advantages of Books such as :

1. Book discussions are arranged systematically

2. The language used can be understood

3. The existence of research or data that accompanies the opinion

3.2 Shortage of books

This book also has some shortage such as :

1. Books are less attractive because there is no schematic or table or graphic to be an

attraction

2. Composing monotone to sentence as a whole

 CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

4.1 Conclusions

This book discusses and explains how the philosophy of education, learning, learning
control, child centering, positive direction curriculum. And the thing that dances in my
opinion from this reading is the opinion and criticism of the author of the educational
philosophy and system. The author also delivers research on each educational system and
controls learners to develop intellectually or in the context of social development. This book
is more critical of existing education and current behavior and the facts on the ground.

4.2 Reccomendations

As a reader, I would like the writer to further make some points into tables or graphics
or even schemes. So that it will add to the appeal of the reader and not monotonous.
 DAFTAR PUSTAKA

Pring,Richard.2005.Phylosophy of Education.New york : British Library cataloguing.