Name: Princess Alyssa V.

Gacayan
Student Number: 18-6523-918

Transition of Education to Empiricism

Change is the only constant thing in this vast universe. Admit it or not, these changes are
inevitable in developing new ideas that helps us in making our lives better. We develop and
progress as years go by. We observe and experience how things work for us, may it be easier or
how hard it is. Through these experiences we start to make innovations and collaborations so we
can cope up to these changes.

When it comes to education, we always say experience is the best teacher. Most especially
when it comes to learning the essential skills you need to survive in this modern era. You cannot
always relay on the books and written journals or articles. That’s how the K-12 curriculum works.
It provided us the opportunity to learn holistically to adopt to the changing world with mastery
and skills. If we take a look at our philosophical foundations, it has developed from the simple
ideas to a more complex, specific and dynamic approach, which we consider the basis of these
changes.

“Empiricism is a philosophical belief that states your knowledge of the world is based on
your experiences, particularly your sensory experiences. According to empiricists, our learning is
based on our observations and perception; knowledge is not possible without experience.”

– (Study.com, n.d.)

If we take a closer look, learners nowadays learns best when they experienced it in their
own way, of course as much as possible teachers as their facilitators. They learn through
modelling, observations and first hand experiences. We have adopted the differentiated
instructions based on where the learners learns best based on their strengths or weaknesses. From
teacher-centered approach to student-centered approach, we allow the learners to explore and
give them all the opportunity to learn in their own pace to give a concrete learning experiences
rather than just giving them the idea. We also give them the opportunity to find similar
experiences in their lives about the lesson/topic so they can relate one idea to another.

How the philosophical foundations does helped us to achieve the education that we have
now?

“A thinker who idolizes ‘Mind and Self’ is an idealist. Idealism is one of the oldest schools
of philosophy. In all, we can say that idealistic approach to education has its own merits and
shortcomings. It should, therefore, be supplemented by other philosophy or philosophies of
education.” – sooraj
 Why is there a need of supplement of other philosophies? In idealism, teaching methods
focus on handling ideas through lecture-discussion and Socratic approach. Idealism neglects
aspects of life. It gives too much emphasis on values as it aims to discover and develop individual’s
moral and abilities to better serve the society. Using idealism as basis of learning, it sets an
unobtainable goals that would be hard for the learners to achieve. That’s when Realism arises.

Realism focuses on reality or objective reality, which made it more possible to attain
certain achievable goals.

“The Realist curriculum emphasizes the subject matter of the physical world, particularly
science and mathematics. The teacher organizes and presents content systematically within a
discipline, demonstrating use of criteria in making decisions. Teaching methods focus on mastery
of facts and basic skills through demonstration and recitation. Students must also demonstrate
the ability to think critically and scientifically, using observation and experimentation.
Curriculum should be scientifically approached, standardized, and distinct-discipline based.
Character is developed through training in the rules of conduct.” – Oregonstate.edu

From Socratic approach to the ability of the learners to think critically and scientifically,
it was possible that there is more than what was just being taught. Opinions and theory appeared
as people observe and experiment on new ideas. Realism aimed to understand the objective reality
through observable data.

Perrenialism was also based on Realism. Ideas that are soon to be outdated or may be
found to be incorrect are shouldn’t be taught. This is what perennials meant by evergreen ideas
which is meant that ideas should last for a very long time. Only those ideas that lasts were critically
analyzed and the ideas/data proven to be incorrect in the least term are disregarded.

“Perennialism is the classroom is focused on the curriculum and nature need. Curriculum
will focus on attaining cultural literacy, stressing students’ growth in enduring disciplines. They
stress learning through reading and analyzing the works by history’s finest thinkers and writers.
Perennialists believe that reading is to be supplemented with mutual investigations with teacher
and minimally directed discussions through the Socratic Method in order to develop historically
oriented understanding of concepts. Less emphasis on vocational and technical education and
more on the humanities.” – Study.com

Perrenialism is a teacher-centered approach. It also uses Socratic approach and there was
no assurance that learning will always takes place. It was more on spoon feeding and mutual
inquire (Q and A) are used only to confirm not to question the idea.

Different Philosophical views were created following the previous philosophical views that
leads to the current education system that we have now, particularly Pragmatism, Progressivism
and Social Reconstructionalism. These views have almost the same goals, which is to adopt to the
changing reality equipped with the essential skills to survive. It is all student-centered and allowed
the learners to create concrete ideas based on their own experiences. The methods of teaching
used is student-engaging activities namely, group activities, problem solving, analysis, evaluating
and with the modern era we have come up with the internships and mock up activities for the
learners to have the first-hand experience.

Realism was the turning point in which different approach and views are created based on
the observations of these famous Philosophical theorists. With the never ending changes brought
to us by the will to survive and compete globally we have innovated hundreds of ideas into
something more real and concrete.

Theories, research and findings, experiments as well as different practices contributed in

the kind of Education system that we have now. It may be requiring a lot of effort both from the
learners and the teachers, but it was necessary in contributing data for the improvement – not
only of the system but of one-self, only if the data is proven to be relevant in the development
process, to have better understanding on what we basically need in order to cope up with
inevitable changes.

There are yet a lot of things that needs improvement but as humans have the ability to
think critically there will always be a room for new ideas, especially with the help of modern
technology.

References:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/perennialism-overview-practical-teaching-examples.html

https://graduatefoundationsmoduleela.wordpress.com/perennialism/

https://study.com/academy/lesson/empiricism-definition-meaning-philosophy.html

https://educational-system.blogspot.com/2011/09/implications-of-idealism-in-
educational.html

https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/ed416/PP2.html

https://study.com/academy/lesson/perennialism-overview-practical-teaching-examples.html

https://www.d.umn.edu/~fguldbra/educ1101/chapter8.html

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/