ED 250-Foundations of

Education
Ashley Swanson
Quote:

“The direction which education starts a man

will determine his future in life.”
-Plato
Today’s Topics:
Educational Pioneers
Philosophy vs. Theory
Group Discussions
Johann Comenius
Johann Comenius
Peace educator

Sensory method of teaching rather than

passive memorization
Rejected the idea of child depravity

Advocate of learning readiness

Teaching a specific skill until it was thoroughly

understood by students
Johann Comenius
Influence on today’s educational practices:
Respect universal human rights &
children’s dignity
Recognize children’s stages of development
and learning readiness
Use objects and pictures to encourage
children to use their senses during the
learning process
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Educating children according to nature

Wrote Emile-the story of a boys

education from infancy to adulthood
Rejected the idea of child depravity

Placed crucial importance on stages of

human development
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Influence on today’s educational
practices:
Argument that curriculum should arise
from child’s interest had a profound
affect on progressive educators
Children should learn from their direct
interaction with the environment-
influenced constructivism
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Schools should nurture children’s holistic
nature
Emphasized the relationship between
families and schools
Direct sensory learning

Dedicated to teaching students with

special needs
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Influence on today’s educational
practices:
Emphasis on having students
manipulate objects in their
environment: process-based learning
Emotional security is necessary for
skill and subject learning
Johann Friedrich Herbart
Johann Friedrich Herbart
Sought to systemize teaching

Instruction was structured into a sequence of 5 steps:

Preparation: prepare students for the information
that is going to be taught
Presentation: clearly present the new concept
Association: new concept is compared and contrasted
to previous knowledge
Generalization: principles are formed that combine
new and previous learning
Application: exams and exercises to assess mastery
Johann Friedrich Herbart
Influence on today’s educational
practices:
Relevant to NCLB guidelines:
Instruction should be efficient and
effective
Students should be tested to assess
mastery of skills
Friedrich Froebel
Friedrich Froebel
Created kindergarten
Games, play, songs, stories, and crafts

Stressed the importance of the

teachers personality
Encouraged teachers to avoid
introducing academic subjects
Friedrich Froebel
Influence on today’s educational
practices:
Kindergarten as part of elementary
school
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
Social Darwinism

Competition within the classroom and

between schools
Utilitarian education

Focus on science and technology to prepare

students to be efficient producers in a
competitive industrial society
Herbert Spencer
Influence on today’s educational
practices:
Contemporary curriculum designers use Spencer’s
rationale when designing curriculum on human needs
and activities
Competition between schools introduced between
standardized testing
School vouchers

Raising standards for pre-service teachers

John Dewey
John Dewey
Curriculum organized into constructive,
experimental, and creative activities that promoted:
Development of senses and physical coordination
Opportunities for children to make and do things
based on their interests
Encouraged students to formulate, examine, and test
their ideas by acting on them

Genuine knowledge is not inert information

transmitted from teachers to students
John Dewey
Knowledge is continually reconfigured and
reconstructed
Educations main purpose is to promote
social growth
Three levels of curriculum:
1) Making and doing
2) Space and time
3) Science
John Dewey
Influence on today’s educational practices:
Ideas about socially expanding children’s
experiences, emphasized children’s
individual interests and needs
Hands on or process oriented learning

Collaborative learning

Opening schools to social reform

Jane Addams
Jane Addams
Socialized education

Hull-House

Teaching with a social justice mission-

teachers need to examine issues of
social justice and change in
relationship to education and schooling
Jane Addams
Influence on today’s educational
practices:
Equal rights for women

Classroom needs to be connected

to the community it serves
Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori
Children possess an inner need to work at what interests
them without needing external rewards and
punishments

Children like to repeat actions until they master a skill

Curriculum included three major types of experiences:

Practical
Sensory
Formal skills and studies

Didactic devices and a prepared environment

Maria Montessori
Influence on today’s educational
practices:
Emphasis on the formative power of early childhood
education over a person’s adult development
Children are capable of self-directed learning of a
particular skill
Emphasis on school as part of the community and
importance of parent involvement
Concept of sensitive periods
Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget
Children create their concepts of reality through
exploration of their environment
Stage-Learning Theory of Development:
Sensorimotor Stage
Preoperational Stage
Concrete-Operational Stage
Formal-Operational Stage

Children’s perceptions of reality often differ from the types

of curriculum and instruction adults create for them

A rich environment can stimulate children to learn, but we

cannot force learning on children
Stage-Learning Theory of
Development
Stage Age Description

Sensorimotor Birth-2 years old Learning by actively

exploring surrounding
environment. Mostly
nonverbal
Preoperational 2 years old - 7 years old Combining exploration with
speech. Reconstruct
concepts by grouping and
naming objects
Concrete- 7 years old – 11 years old Begin thinking
Operational mathematically and logically.
Exercise reasoning skills
Formal- 11 years old- Early adulthood Learn complex processes.
Operational Use multivariate thinking.
Jean Piaget
Influence on today’s educational practices:
Stimulated a movement to make the
classroom less formal and more focused on
how children learn
Encourage children to explore and experiment
Individualize instruction so children can learn
at their own pace
Classroom learning centers stocked with
hands-on activities
Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire
Liberation pedagogy
Critical consciousness-students should
be conscious and critically aware of the
social, political, and economic
conditions that effect their lives
Opposes “teacher talk”

Banking Model
Paulo Freire
Influence on today’s educational
practices:
Transformed teaching and learning
from limited concept of transmitting
information to discovering one’s
identity and meaning in the world

Teachers should help students work

towards social justices by exposing
them to conditions that marginalize
their communities
Choose 3 pioneers that you relate to in terms of your
educational philosophy & jot down what you like
about their ideals
Philosophy vs. Theory
Philosophy vs. Theory
Philosophy Theory

General Specific

Wide-ranging, systematic, complete Focused on education, no complete

system offered

Components related to metaphysics, Components related to specifics of

epistemology, axiology, and logic education

Insights come from the general Insights derived from general

philosophical system philosophies or school contexts
Philosophies vs. Theories
Philosophies-highly generalized views of
reality, knowledge, and values that include
education
Theories-derived from philosophies, but
focus more specifically on education,
schools, curriculum, learning, and
teaching
General philosophies link to more specific
theories
Educational Philosophies
Philosophy Terminology
Metaphysics: considers questions about ultimate reality
 Relates to education: determining which knowledge has
the most worth when creating the curriculum
Epistemology: deals with knowledge
 Relates to education: influences methods of teaching and
learning
Axiology: ethics and aesthetics
 Relates to education: classroom environment
Logic: correct and valid thinking-deductive and
inductive logic
 Relates to education: how lessons are organized
Answer the Following Questions:
What is knowledge?

What is the purpose of school?

Who should attend school?

How should we teach?

Idealism
What is knowledge?
 Knowledge is about universal ideas and education is the intellectual
process of bringing those ideas out in the consciousness of the learner
What is school?
 Place to explore the questions of Socrates and Plato: What is truth?, What
is beauty?, What is the good life? These questions can be answered
through the study of quality books and works of art
Who should attend school?
 Everyone-students should have an education that will take them as far as
their intellectual abilities will allow
How should we teach?
 Teaching is the process of bringing existing ideas into conscious reflection
 Socratic method: teacher stimulates learners awareness of these ideas
through questioning
 Teachers should be good role models
Realism
What is knowledge?
 Knowledge is about the world we live in and always
corresponds with objects
What is school?
 A place to obtain knowledge that is organized into disciplines
Who should attend school?
 Everyone-oppose sorting students into separate academic
tracks
How should we teach?
 The curriculum should be organized into separate subjects
 Focus should be on cognitive learning-teaching skills
(reading, writing, computation, etc.) and subjects (history,
math, science, etc.)
Pragmatism
What is knowledge?
 Process of constructing, using, and testing ideas
What is school?
 Three major functions: simplify, purify, and balance cultural
heritage
 Local community of learners and their teachers connected to
the larger society
Who should attend school?
 Everyone
How should we teach?
 Interdisciplinary education rather than departmentalized
subject-matter curriculum
 Using the scientific method
Existentialism
What is knowledge?
 Knowledge is created through our own personal choices
 Individuals will choose the knowledge that pertains most to his/her life
What is school?
 An opportunity for teachers and students to engage in discussion about their
lives and their choices
Who should attend school?
 Everyone
How should we teach?
 Purpose of education is to awaken consciousness about freedom to create own
sense of self
 Students encouraged to participate in discussions about hopes, fears, desires,
living, loving, and dying
 Valuable subjects include literature, biography, drama, and film because they
reveal people making choices
Example: Summerhill School
Postmodernism
What is knowledge?
 Constructed based on our experiences from interacting with our
environment
What is school?
 View public schools are a contested arena-argue that public schools
help reproduce a society that is patriarchal, Eurocentric, and
capitalist.
Who should attend school?
 Everyone
How should we teach?
 Encourage deconstruction of texts and teaching materials
 With cultural diversity at the core
 Conscious of bias
Educational Theories
Perennialism
Education needs to be universal and authentic during
every period of history, throughout every culture
Believes that truth is in the classics
Primary purpose is developing students’ intellect
Truth is unchanging, so curriculum should consist of
permanent themes recurrent in human nature
Curriculum includes: history, language, math, logic,
literature, humanities, and science
Education should develop the mind, not one’s specific
needs
Disagree with tracking
Essentialism
Role of schools is to teach the basics, so students can
function in democratic society
Schools should not promote specific ideologies
Skills and subjects in a curriculum should be well
defined in a scope and sequence
Teacher directed instruction
Students are promoted on the basis of academic
achievement, not social considerations
Progressivism
Prolonging childhood-child should be free to develop
naturally
Children’s readiness should determine curriculum
Children learn best when exploring their environment
and constructing their own views of reality
Teacher facilitated, activity-based curriculum1
Importance of relationship between the school, home,
and community
Resist standards set outside of school from
government agencies
Critical Theory
Raise consciousness about marginalization and
empowerment
Knowledge is about issues of social, political, economic,
and educational power and control
Dominant classes control schools and use them to
reproduce and maintain their privileged position.
Formal curriculum mandated by the state and “hidden
curriculum” (what students learn from the school
environment)
Teachers should focus on issues of power and control in
school and society
Creating Your Own Philosophy of
Education
Questions to consider:
 Do you believe that knowledge is based on universal and
eternal truths or is it relative to different times and places?

 What is the purpose of education? To transmit culture,

provide economic and social skills, to develop critical-
thinking skills, or to criticize and reform society?

 What are schools for? To teach skills and subjects,

encourage personal self-definition, develop intelligence, or
create patriotic and economically productive citizens?
Creating Your Own Philosophy of
Education
Questions to consider:
 What should curriculum contain? Basic skills and
subjects? Experiences and projects, classic literature,
inquiry processes, critical dialogues?

 What should the relationship be between teachers and

students? Transmitting the heritage, teaching and
learning skills and subjects, examining great ideas,
encouraging self-expression, constructing knowledge,
solving problems?
Main Sources
Ornstein, A.C., Levine, D.U., Gutek, G.L., & Vocke, D.E. (2014).
Foundations of Education. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
Cengage Learning.
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