Philosophical Foundation

of Education
Emilio O. Sablayan
Philosophical Foundation of Education
● Basically a sets of belief that would inform us what to teach, how to teach
and why we teach.
● Helps determine the driving purpose of education, as well as the roles of
the various participants.
● These philosophical foundation of education are those from which
education arose and came into being. They are the factors that affected
education so much particularly, curriculum content.
Philosophical Foundation of Education
1. Existentialism
2. Essentialism
3. Behaviorism
4. Perennialism
5. Constructivism
6. Progressivism
7. Pragmatism
8. Idealism
9. Naturalism
10. Realism
EXISTENTIALISM (Jean Paul Sartre and Soren Keirgeraad)

➔ “Existence precedes essence”

➔ Presence comes before significance.

* for them to know their significance, they (students) are given freedom to
choose individuals purpose in life

* they are given freedom to define their own existence by exposing them
to various paths they take in life.
EXISTENTIALISM (Jean Paul Sartre and Soren Keirgeraad)

Why we teach:

➔ The concern of the existentialism is to;

- Help students understand and appreciate themselves, their potentials as
unique individual.
- Help student define their own existence by exposing them to various paths
they take in life.
- By creating an environment in which they freely choose their preferred way.
EXISTENTIALISM (Jean Paul Sartre and Soren Keirgeraad)

What we teach:

➔ Give them a wide variety of options to choose from.

Emphasis – Humanities

How we teach:

➔ Teacher should focus on the individuality of the students.

➔ Learning is self-paced-self directed
➔ STUDENT-CENTERED
ESSENTIALISM (William Bagley and James Koerner)

➔ Essence precedes existence

➔ Essence or purpose comes before existence pre-destined

What to teach:

➔ Only basic or fundamental skills reading-riting (writing) rithmetic & good

conduct
➔ Focus on subject like math, natural science, history, language, literature
ESSENTIALISM (William Bagley and James Koerner)

Why we teach:
➔ To instill essentials
➔ Back to basic approach
How we teach:
➔ Mastery of subject matter (drill method - memorization)
➔ Method: teacher-centered
BEHAVIORISM (John Waston & BF. Skinner)

➔ Acquisition of knowledge based on environmental condition.

➔ Human beings are shaped by the environment

Emphasis - concerned with the modification and shaping of students behavior

➔ Teachers create classroom climate that is conducive to learning

Physical Climate - room management/arrangement (light, temperature etc.)

Psychological Climate - feeling of the students in the presence of teacher and

classmates (respected, welcomed, supported)
BEHAVIORISM (John Waston & BF. Skinner)

➔ Students respond favorably to various stimuli in the environment

➔ Teachers arrange environmental conditions and provide reinforcement and
punishment.
PERENNIALISM (Robert Hutchins & Mortimer Alder)

➔ Ageless, eternal, unchanged

➔ Truth – universal – does not depend on circumstances of time, place, and
pearson (transcendent truths and values)
➔ Ideas that are everlasting

Why we teach?

➔ We are all rational animals. School should, therefore, develop the students’
rational and moral powers
➔ According to Aristotle, if we neglect the students’ reasoning skills, we deprive
them of the ability to use their higher faculties to control their passions and
appetites.
PERENNIALISM (Robert Hutchins & Mortimer Alder)

What we teach?

➔ The perennialist curriculum is a universal one on the view that all human
beings possess the same essential nature.
➔ It focuses heavily on the humanities, on general education.
➔ There is less emphasis on vocational and technical education.
➔ What the perennialist teachers teach are lifted from Great Books
➔ History, religion, literature (Past ideas - relevant), understand the great work of
civilization
➔ Curriculum - based on recurrent themes.
PERENNIALISM (Robert Hutchins & Mortimer Alder)

How we teach?

➔ The perennialist classrooms are “centered on teachers”. The teachers do not

allow the students’ interests or experiences to sustainability dictate what they
teach
CONSTRUCTIVISM (Jean Piaget)
➔ He identified processes of assimilation and accommodation that are key in this
interaction as individuals construct new knowledge from their experience.
➔ Assimilation: absorbing new information and experience and incorporate them
into our pre-existing ideas (schema).
➔ Accommodation: process in which new information replaces old beliefs

Why we teach?
➔ Constructivist sees to develop intrinsically motivated and independent learners
adequately equip with learning skills for them to be able to construct
knowledge and make meaning of them.
CONSTRUCTIVISM (Jean Piaget)
What we teach?

➔ The learners are taught how to learn.

➔ They are taught learning processes and skills such as searching, critiquing and
evaluating information, drawing inferences posing questions out of the
information provided.

How to teach?

➔ In the constructivist classroom, the teacher provides students with data or

experiences that allow them to hypothesize, predict, manipulate objects, pose
questions, research, investigate, image, and invest.
PROGRESSIVISM (John Dewey)

➔ Contrasted - essentialism and perennialism

➔ Change and growth
➔ Learners - enlightened and intelligent to fully live NOW.

Why we teach?

➔ Progressivist teachers teach to develop learners into becoming enlightened

and intelligent citizens of a democratic society.
➔ This group of teachers teach learners so may they may live life fully NOW not
to prepare them for adult life.
PROGRESSIVISM (John Dewey)

What we teach?

➔ The progressivists are identified with need-based and relevant curriculum.

➔ This is curriculum that “responds to students’ needs and they relate to
students’ personal lives and experiences”
➔ Progressivists accept the impermanence of life and the inevitability of change.
➔ Change is only thing that does not change. Hence, progressivist teachers are
more concerned with teaching the learners the skills to cope with change.
PROGRESSIVISM (John Dewey)

How we teach?

➔ Progressivists teachers employ experiential methods – “one learns by doing”

➔ Book learning is no substitute for actual experience. Once experiential
teaching method that progressivist teachers heavily rely on is the
problem-solving method.
➔ Methods: “hands-on-minds-on-hearts-on” teaching methodology such as fields
trips thought provoking games, and puzzles.
PRAGMATISM (John Dewey, Charles Pierce)

➔ Thought must produce actions

➔ Actions are more important than thought
➔ Student centered
➔ Involves students to work in groups
➔ Stresses application of what have learned than the transfer to the organized
body of knowledge.
➔ Curriculum: framed on the principles of utility, interest and experience
➔ Not focused on facts, theories – not help students solve real life problems.
IDEALISM (Socrates, Plato)

➔ Believes in two forms of the world: spiritual and material

➔ Prime aim of life: to achieve Spiritual values of truth, beauty, goodness.
➔ Ideas are the only true reality, more important than objects and materials
➔ Discover - students’ full potential, fullest development of ones personality.
➔ Serve the society better
➔ Emphasis - philosophy, literature, religion, history
➔ Character development: is through emulation of examples and heroes.
NATURALISM (J.j Rousseau, John Lock)

➔ Denies everything that has supernatural significance — dogmas/revelation –

for all can be accounted by scientific law.
➔ Truth can only be found in nature
➔ Focus: human development and growth
➔ Democratic & universal way – everyone must be educated in the same manner
➔ Emphasis: physical development rather than 3rs.
REALISM (Aristotle, St. Thomas )

➔ Actualities of life – what is real

➔ Ultimate reality is the world of Physical object: the world is material
➔ Reality is independent of the human mind.
➔ Most effective way to find about reality – study is through organized, separate
and systematically arranged matter.
➔ Science and mathematics
➔ FocusSS subject: nature, science, vocation
➔ Medium of instruction: mother tongue – foundation for all subjects and
livelihood
➔ Character development is through training in the rules of conduct
Thank you