PHILOSOPHIES OF EDUCATION

ESSENTIALISM
THEORY OF TRUTH

 Essentialist believe that the truth lies in

morality, which should be strictly adhered and
taught in schools.
 Moral values are the essence of true value and
the good.
IMPLICATION

 The students would learn passively by sitting in

their desk and listening to the teacher.
HOW TO ARRIVE AT THE TRUTH

 Classrooms should be teacher oriented.

 The teachers or administrators decide what is
most important for the students to learn with
little regard to the student interest.
 Essentialism tries to instill all students with the
most essential or basic academic knowledge
and skills and character development.
WHY TEACH?

 Teachers teach for learners to acquire basic

knowledge, skills and values.

 Teachers teach “ not to radically reshape

society” but rather “ To transmit the traditional
moral values and intellectual knowledge that
students need to become model citizens.
WHAT TO TEACH?
 Emphasis is for students to learn the basic
skills or the fundamental r’s –reading, ‘riting,
‘rithmetic and right conduct.
 These are essential to the acquisition of higher
skills needed in preparation for adult life.
 It includes math, natural science, history,
foreign language and literature.
 Administrators decide what is most important
for the students.
HOW TO TEACH?
 Students in this system would sit in rows and
be taught in masses.
 Mastery of the subject matter. Heavy stress on
memorization and discipline
 Teachers have to observe “core requirements”,
longer school day, longer academic year.
 Teachers rely heavily on the prescribed
textbooks, the drill method and other methods
that will enable them to cover as much
academic content as possible. Lecture Method
GOAL OF TEACHING-LEARNING

 The teacher serves as an intellectual and moral

role model for the students.
 Essentialists hope that when students leave
school, they will not only possess basic
knowledge and skills, but they will also have
discipline, practical minds, capable of applying
lessons learned in school in the real world.
 They want students become model citizens.
PROGRESSIVISM
THEORY OF TRUTH

 The universe is real and is in constant change.

 Accepts the impermanence of life and the
inevitability of change.
THEORY OF WHAT IS VALUABLE/GOOD
 Values differ from place to place, from time to
time, from person to person; what is
considered good for one may not be good for
another.
 Progressivists believe that education should
focus on the whole child, rather than on the
content or the teacher.
 Learning is rooted in the questions of learners
that arise through experiencing the world.
GOAL OF TEACHING-LEARNING

 To help develop students who can adjust to a

changing world and live with others in harmony.
WHY TEACH?

 Teach to develop learners into becoming

enlightened and intelligent citizens of a
democratic country
WHAT TO TEACH?

 Need-based and relevant curriculum

 A curriculum that responds to students and
that relates to students personal lives and
experiences.
 Teaching the learners skills or processes to
cope with change.
 Teach learners with skills in evaluating
information and problem solving
WHAT TO TEACH?

 Subjects include natural and social sciences

 Students solve problems in the classroom
similar to those they will encounter outside of
the schoolhouse.
HOW TO TEACH?

 Employ experiential methods

 Learning by doing – actual experience

 Use of the problem-solving method

 Hands on – minds on - hearts on – field trips,

games, puzzles etc.
PERENNIALISM
THEORY OF TRUTH

 Truths are enduring and constant, not changing

as the natural and human worlds at their most
essential level.
THEORY OF WHAT IS VALUABLE/GOOD

 Humans are rational beings, and their minds

need to be developed.
 All human beings possess the same universal
nature of being rational.
GOAL OF TEACHING-LEARNING

 To ensure that students acquire understanding

about the great ideas of Western Civilization.
WHY TEACH

 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
WHAT TO TEACH?

 Uses a general curriculum not a specialist

 It is heavy on humanities and on general
education.
 There is less emphasis on vocational education
and technical education.
 Teachings of the perennialist are lifted from the
Great Books
HOW TO TEACH?

 Classrooms are centered around the teachers.

 The teachers do not allow the students
interests or experiences substantially dictate
what they teach
 Students are engage in Socratic dialogues
(debate)or mutual inquiry sessions to develop
an understanding of history’s most timeless
concepts.
EXISTENTIALISM
THEORY OF TRUTH
 There is no universal, inborn human nature. We
are born and exist and then we ourselves freely
determine our essence.
 Existentialist believe that there is a common
knowledge that needs to be transmitted to
students in a systematic, disciplined way.
 Teachers are to help students keep their non-
productive instincts in check, such as
aggression and mindlessness.
THEORY OF WHAT IS VALUABLE/GOOD

 An individual is what she/he chooses to

become not dictated by his/her environment.

 The emphasis in this conservative perspective

is on intellectual and moral standards that
schools should teach.
WHY TEACH?
 Help students understand and appreciate
themselves as unique individuals who accept
complete responsibility for their thoughts feelings
and actions.
 Help students define their own essence by
exposing them to various paths they take in life
and by creating an environment in which they
freely choose their own preferred way.
 It demands the education of the whole person not
just the minds.
WHAT TO TEACH?

 Students are given a wide variety of options

from which to choose.
 Humanities are given tremendous emphasis to
provide students with vicarious experiences
that will unleash their own creativity and self-
expression.
WHAT TO TEACH?

 Vocational education is regarded as a means of

teaching students about themselves and their
potential than of earning a livelihood.
 In teaching art, existentialism encourages
individual creativity and imagination more than
copying and imitating established models.
HOW TO TEACH?

 Method focus on the individual.

 Learning is self-paced, self-directed.

 It includes a great deal of individual contact

with the teacher, who relates to each student
openly and honestly.
 Teachers employ values clarification strategy to
help students know themselves.
BEHAVIORISM
THEORY OF TRUTH
 Human beings are shaped by their own
environment. Change of environment can
change a person.
 Behaviorist theorists believe that behavior is
shaped deliberately by forces in the
environment and that the type of person and
actions desired can be the product of design.
 Behaviorism is linked with empiricism, which
stresses scientific information and observation,
rather than subjective or metaphysical realities.
THEORY OF WHAT IS VALUABLE/GOOD

 Behavior is determined by others, rather than

by our own free will.
WHY TEACH?

 Behaviorist school are concerned with the

modification and shaping of students behavior
by providing for a favorable environment.
 They are after students who exhibit desirable
behavior in society.
WHAT TO TEACH?

 Behaviorist teachers teach students to respond

favorably to various stimuli in the environment.
HOW TO TEACH?

 Teachers ought to arrange environmental

conditions so that students can make
responses to stimuli.
 Physical variables like light, temperature,
arrangement of furniture, size and quantity of
visual aids have to be controlled to get the
desired responses from the learners.
HOW TO TEACH?

 Teachers ought to make the stimuli clear and

interesting to capture and hold the learners’
attention.
 They ought to provide appropriate incentives to
reinforce positive responses and weaken or
eliminate negative ones.
LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY
THEORY OF TRUTH

 The truth shines in an atmosphere of true

dialogue.
 Linguistic philosophy describes the view that
philosophical problems are problems which
may be solved ( or dissolved) either by
reforming language, or by understanding more
about the language we presently use.
THEORY OF WHAT IS VALUABLE/GOOD

 The ability to articulate, to voice out the

meaning and values of things that one obtains
from his/her experience of life and work is the
very essence of man.

 Our language and communication of ideas,

whether said or unsaid, would lead us to the
wisdom of truth.
WHY TEACH?

 To develop the communication skills of the

learner because the ability to articulate, to
voice out the meaning and values of things that
one obtains from his/her experience of life and
the world is the very essence of man.
 Teachers teach to develop in the learner the
skill to send messages clearly and receive
messages correctly.
WHAT TO TEACH?

 Learners should be taught to communicate

clearly – how to send clear, concise messages
and how to receive and correctly understand
messages sent.
COMMUNICATION TAKES PLACE IN 3 WAYS:

 Verbal Component – refers to the content of

our message, the choice and arrangement of
the words.
 Nonverbal Component – refers to the
messages we send through our body language.
 Paraverbal Component – refers to how we say
what we say – the tone, pacing and volume of
our voices.
WHAT TO TEACH?

 Teach learners to use language that is correct,

precise, grammatical, coherent, accurate so
that they are able to communicate clearly and
precisely their thoughts and feelings.
 There is a need to help students expand their
vocabularies to enhance their communication
skills.
 There is a need to teach learners how to
communicate clearly through non-verbal means
and consistently through para-verbal means.
 Teach them as many language as you can.
HOW TO TEACH?

 The most effective way to teach language and

communication is the experiential way.
 Teacher should make the classroom a place for
the interplay of minds and hearts.
 The teacher facilitates dialogue among learners
and between him or her and his/her students
because in the exchange of words there is also
an exchange of ideas.
CONSTRUCTIVISM
THEORY OF TRUTH

 The truth can be discovered as the reality is

constructed and understood through
interaction with objects, events and people in
the environment and reflecting on these
interactions.
THEORY OF WHAT IS VALUABLE/GOOD

 Each learner constructs his or her own

understanding of reality through interaction
with objects, events and people in the
environment and reflecting on these
interactions.
WHY TO TEACH?

 To develop intrinsically motivated and

independent learners adequately equipped
with learning skills for them to be able to
construct knowledge and make meaning of
them.
WHAT TO TEACH?

 Learners are taught how to learn

 Learners are taught learning processes and
skills such as searching, critiquing, and
evaluating information, reflecting, relating and
making meaning out of them.
 Drawing insights, posing questions,
researching, constructing new knowledge
HOW TO TEACH?

 Teacher provides students with data or

experiences that allow them to hypothesize,
predict, manipulate objects, pose questions,
research, investigate, imagine and invent.
 The constructivist classroom is interactive.

 It promotes dialogical exchange of ideas among

learners and between teacher and learners.
The teacher’s role is to facilitate this process.
CONFUCIANISM
THEORY OF TRUTH

 It theorizes that man is originally good.

THEORY OF WHAT IS VALUABLE/GOOD

 Being innately good rests on the belief that

human beings are teachable, improvable and
perfectible through personal and communal
endeavor especially self-cultivation and self-
creation.
GOAL OF TEACHING-LEARNING

 Confucian thought focuses on the cultivation of

virtue and maintenance of ethics.
ROUSSEAU’S PHILOSOPHY
THEORY OF TRUTH
 We evolved from nature; we are a part of
nature, only by understanding this can we truly
understand ourselves. To understand nature
and thus to be well educated and wise.
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French) his political
philosophy influenced the French Revolution as
well as the overall development of modern
political, sociological, and educational thought.
Humanist believe that the learner should be in
control of his or her own destiny.
THEORY OF WHAT IS VALUABLE/GOOD
 Understanding our connection to nature is
central to a good education.
 When the mind’s eye rests on objects
illuminated by truth and reality, it understands
and comprehends them, and functions
intelligently; but when it turns to the twilight
world of change and decay, it can only form
opinions, its vision is confused and its beliefs
shifting and it seems to lack intelligence…and
is there anything more closely connected with
wisdom than truth.
HOW TO ARRIVE AT THE TRUTH

 Humans have free will, moral conscience, the

ability to reason, aesthetic sensibility and
religious instinct.
 He advocated that the young should be treated
kindly and that learning should not be forced or
rushed, as it proceeds in stages.
HOW TO ARRIVE AT THE TRUTH

 He emphasized nature and the basic goodness

of humans, understanding through the senses,
and education as a gradual and unhurried
process in which to the development of human
character follows the unfolding of nature.
 Recent applications of humanist philosophy
focus on the social and emotional well-being of
the child, as well as the cognitive.
GOAL OF TEACHING-LEARNING

 The focus of teaching is personal freedom,

choice and responsibility.

 The learner is self-motivated to achieve the

highest level possible.

 Motivation to learn is intrinsic in humanism.

RECONSTRUCTIONISM
THEORY OF TRUTH

 Social reconstructionism is a philosophy that

emphasizes the addressing of social questions
and a quest to create a better society and
worldwide democracy.
THEORY OF WHAT IS VALUABLE/GOOD

 Systems must be changed to overcome

oppression and improve human conditions.
HOW TO ARRIVE AT THE TRUTH

 Focus on a curriculum that highlights social

reform as the aim of education.
 Education and literacy are vehicles for change.

 Teaching and learning is seen as a process of

inquiry in which the child must invent and
reinvent the world.
 Community-based learning and bringing the
world into the classroom are also strategies.
GOAL OF TEACHING-LEARNING

 Recognizes that education was the means of

preparing people for creating this new social
order.
SOCRATES PHILOSOPHY
THEORY OF WHAT IS VALUABLE/GOOD

 He provides a new method of approaching

knowledge, a conception of the soul as the seat
both of normal waking consciousness and of
moral character, and a sense of the universe as
purposively mind-ordered.
HOW TO ARRIVE AT THE TRUTH

 Dialectic method, consisting in examining

statements by pursuing their implications on
the assumption that if a statement were true it
could not lead to false consequences.
END…..