6 PHILOSOPHICAL

THOUGHTS
ON EDUCATION
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to discuss
at least 6 philosophical thoughts on education
1. John Locke – The Empiricist Educator
2. Herbert Spencer – Utilitarian Education
3. John Dewey – Experiential Education
4. George Counts – Building a New Social Order
5. Theodore Brameld – Social Reconstructionism
6. Paulo Freire – Critical Pedagogy
 6 Philosophical Thoughts on Education

1. EMPIRICISM
John Locke
•John Locke (29 August 1632 – 28
October 1704) was an English
philosopher and physician, widely
regarded as one of the most influential
of Enlightenment thinkers and
commonly known as the "father of
liberalism".
• Considered one of the first of the British
empiricists, following the tradition of Francis
Bacon, Locke is equally important to social
contract theory. His work greatly affected the
development of epistemology and political
philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire
and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and many
Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as
the American Revolutionaries.
• His contributions to classical republicanism
and liberal theory are reflected in the United
States Declaration of Independence.
Internationally, Locke’s political-legal
principles continue to have a profound
influence on the theory and practice of
limited representative government and the
protection of basic rights and freedoms
under the rule of law.
• EMPIRICISM is a theory that states
that knowledge comes only or
primarily from sensory experience. 
• Empiricism emphasizes the role
of empirical evidence in the
formation of ideas, rather
than innate ideas or traditions. 
• Empiricism is the philosophy of science that
emphasizes evidence, especially as
discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental
part of the scientific method that all
hypotheses and theories must be tested
against observations of the natural world
rather than resting solely on a
priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.
A. John Locke (1632-1704): The Empiricist Educator

•Acquire knowledge about the world

through the senses – learning by
doing and by interacting with the
environment
A. John Locke (1632-1704): The Empiricist Educator

• Simple ideas become more

complex through comparison,
reflection and generalization - the
inductive method
A. John Locke (1632-1704): The Empiricist Educator

• Questioned the long traditional

view that knowledge came
exclusively from literary sources,
particularly the Greek and Latin
classics
• Reject the philosophy that man has innate
ideas
• The beginning of knowledge is through
sensory experience
• Gives the analogy of the man to a blank
slate or Tabula Rasa
• The two fountains of knowledge are
sensation and reflection
•There are two kinds of ideas: The Simple
and the Complex Ideas
•There are degrees of knowledge:
a. Intuitive knowledge
b. Demonstrative knowledge
c. Sensitive Knowledge
Other Teachings of John Locke

•Opposed the “divine right of kings” theory

which held that the monarch had the right
to be an unquestioned and absolute ruler
over his subjects.
Other Teachings of John Locke

• Political order should be based upon a

contract between the people and the
government.
• People should be educated to govern
themselves intelligently and responsibly
(Ornstein, 1984)
Other Teachings of John Locke

•Aristocrats are not destined by birth to be

rulers. People were to establish their
government and select their own political
leaders from among themselves; civic
education is necessary
6 Philosophical Thoughts on Education

2. UTILITARIANISM

Herbert Spencer
• Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) English philosopher, biologist
and sociologist.
• He highly contributed his expertise knowledge in ethics,
religion, anthropology , economics, political theory,
philosophy, biology, sociology and psychology.
• He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992.
• He was the first person to coin the phrase “survival of the
fittest”
• His works were translated into many other languages of the
world including German, Italian, Spanish, French, Russian,
Japanese and Chinese.
• This philosophy aims to educate students to be
useful individuals in society. Utilitarianism also
targets to secure students holistically in the
future. This implies that students under
guidance of this philosophy should be flexible
and adaptive on to different environment he/she
may face in the future.
• Spencer also introduced the statement “Survival
of the Fittest”
•Spencer also introduced the statement
“Survival of the Fittest”
•Survival of the fittest refers to the most
adaptable species being able to live and
reproduce.
•Utilitarianism can be applied in the classroom
through different activities that will develop
students to be useful in the society.
•Spencer also introduced the statement
“Survival of the Fittest”
•Utilitarianism can be applied in the
classroom through different activities
that will develop students to be useful in
the society.
• Different simulations can be useful such as
teaching demonstration or sample job interview.
Activities in classrooms that will improve
interpersonal communication skills (speeches,
essays, etc), computer skills, critical thinking and
problem solving skills can also be used under
utilitarianism since this will be helpful for the
students in the future for them to be adaptive and
useful in the society that we live in
Opposition to Public Schools
• Spencer did not believe in the public school system. His
major criticism of the school system was that it did not
prepare children to live in society. Instead, Spencer
believed in the private school system which competed
for the brightest student. Because of his belief in
competition conflict and struggle Spencer felt that the
most exemplary schools would eventually acquire the
best teachers and students.
B. HERBERT SPENCER – (1820-1903): UTILITARIAN
EDUCATION
• “Survival of the fittest” – human development
had evolved from simple to complex, from
uniform to more specialized activity
• Social development had evolved from simple
homogeneous society to more complex
societal systems characterized by humanistic
and classical education.
B. HERBERT SPENCER – (1820-1903): UTILITARIAN
EDUCATION

• Industrialized society requires vocational and

professional education based on scientific
and practical (utilitarian) objectives.
• Curriculum should emphasize the practical,
utilitarian and scientific subjects that helped
human kind master the environment.
B. HERBERT SPENCER – (1820-1903): UTILITARIAN EDUCATION

•Was not inclined to rote learning;

schooling must be related to life and to
the activities needed to earn a living.
•Curriculum must be arranged according
to their contribution to human survival
and progress.
B. HERBERT SPENCER – (1820-1903): UTILITARIAN EDUCATION

•Science and other subjects that sustained

human life and prosperity should have
curricular priority since it aids in the
performance of life activities.
•Individual competition leads to social
progress. He who is fittest survives.
(Ornstein, 1984)
Specialized Education vs. General Education

• To survive in the complex society, Spencer favors

specialized education over that of general
education.
• The expert who concentrates on a limited field is
useful, but if he loses sight of interdependence of
things he becomes a man who knows more and
more about less and less. We must be warned of a
deadly peril of over-specialism.
 JOHN DEWEY

3. EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION
“Experiential education is more efficient than passive
learning like reading or listening”
 “Education is not
preparation for life;
education is life itself.”

John Dewey
EDUC LIFE

EDUC = LIFE
 JOHN DEWEY
• Born in 1859 in Burlington, Vermont, and died in New
York City in 1952. He was married twice and had 6
children.
• Graduated from the University of Vermont in 1879.
• Received PhD in John Hopkins University
• From 1884 to 1894 had a faculty position at the
University of Michigan.
• Moved to University of Chicago and developed his
Pragmatic Philosophy
 JOHN DEWEY

Major Educational Theories:

1. My Pedagogic Creed (1897)
2. The School and the Society (1900)
3. The Child and the Curriculum (1902)
4. Democracy and Education (1916)
5. Experience and Education (1938)
 Dewey's Theory of Experiential Education

• Dewey's thoughts on education, published in

his 1938 work Experience and
Education, analyzed
both traditional and progressive education.
• Traditional education's focus was more on
curriculum and heritage, defining a student's
learning path for them.
 Dewey's Theory of Experiential Education

• A progressive education focused on the student's

interest rather than that of the instructor or
subject. In Dewey's opinion, neither of these
schools of thought were sufficient. Dewey believed
that traditional education was too strict and
progressive education too spontaneous. He
believed that traditional education left little regard
for the learner's interests and progressive education
was too individualized.
 Dewey's Progressive Outlook

•Traditional education, in its rigid

requirements of standards and conduct,
encourages learners to be docile and
obedient, producing an environment
where learners are encouraged to listen
and learn but not necessarily to think for
themselves.
 Dewey's Progressive Outlook

•Progressive education provides learners to

think and grow but forced them to enact
adult standards, producing an
environment where learners would be
encouraged to think on their own without
understanding the reasoning behind their
thinking.
• John Dewey expressed his ideas about the need to
have experience as central in the educational
process; hence, experiential education is referred
to as a philosophy.
• Dewey criticized public education pointing out that
the authoritarian, strict, pre-ordained knowledge
approach of modern traditional education was too
concerned with delivering knowledge, and not
enough with understanding students' experiences.
John Dewey saw weaknesses in both
the traditional and progressive styles of
education. In essence, he did not
believe that they met the goals of
education.
• His solution was experiential education where
learning occurs through experience and requires
hands-on activities that directly relate to the learner's
life.
• In experiential education, learning occurs through
actually doing something and then reflecting on- and
learning from- the process. It combines active learning
with concrete experience and reflection. Service
learning, adventure learning and workplace
internships are all examples of experiential education.
 Dewey's Theory of Experiential Education

• For an experience to be educational, Dewey believed

the experience should have continuity and
interaction.
• Continuity is the idea that the experience comes from
and leads to other experiences, propelling the person
to learn more.
• Interaction is when the experience meets the internal
needs or goals of a person.
 What is Experiential Education?

Experiential Education is a philosophy of education

that describes the process that occurs between a
teacher and student that infuses direct experience with
the learning environment and content. The term is not
interchangeable with experiential learning.
Experiential learning is a sub-field and operates under
the methodologies of experiential education.
 direct experience
with the learning
Teacher Student
environment and
content
 Dewey's Theory of Education

• Dewey also categorizes experiences as possibly being

mis-educative and non-educative. A mis-educative
experience is one that stops or distorts growth for
future experiences. A non-educative experience is
one in which a person has not done any reflection
and so has obtained nothing for mental growth that is
lasting.
 John Dewey and Experiential Education

• John Dewey was the founder of a theory he referred to as

instrumentalism, also called pragmatism.
• Instrumentalists believe that in order to be considered correct,
a theory must be successfully applied. In other words,
instrumentalism is a belief that practice and theory are linked.
• Dewey applied his pragmatic beliefs to education, and his ideas
forever changed the landscape of education. His impact even
earned him the name 'The Modern Father of Experiential
Education.'
•For experiential education to become
efficient pedagogy, physical
experience must be combined with
reflection.
•Dewey taught that experiences should
be valuable and useful. Some
experiences are merely passive affairs,
pleasant or painful but not educative.
• Reflective thinking and the perception of
relationships arise only in problematical
situations. As long as our interaction with our
environment is a fairly smooth affair we may
think of nothing or merely daydream, but when
this untroubled state of affairs is disrupted we
have a problem which must be solved before the
untroubled state can be restored.
• Experiential education informs many educational
practices underway in schools (formal education) and
out-of-school (informal & nonformal education)
programs. Many teaching methods rely on
experiential education to provide context and
frameworks for learning through action and reflection
while others at higher levels (university and
professional education) focus on field skills and
modeling. Examples of specific methods are outlined
below.
• Outdoor education uses organized learning activities
that occur in the outdoors, and uses environmental
experiences as a learning tool.
• Service learning is a combination of 
community service with stated learning goals, relying
on experience as the foundation for meaning.
• Cooperative learning alters homogeneous groupings
in order to support diverse learning styles and needs
within a group.
• Active learning, a term popular in US education circles in the
1980s, encourages learners to take responsibility for their
learning, requiring their experience in education to inform
their process of learning.
• Environmental education is based in educating learners
about relationships within the natural environment and how
those relationships are interdependent. Students participate
in outdoor activities as part of their learning experience.
• Vocational education involves training for an occupation.
• Sandwich degrees involve a year working in industry during
academic study.
ROLE OF CURRICULUM
• Deliver knowledge while also taking into account the interests and
experiences of the student.
• He rejected curriculum-centered view of education rather than
student-centered curriculum.
• Active curriculum should be integrated, rather than divided into
subject matter segments.
• Flexible and changeable according to child’s interest.
• Reflect social life and social activities.
 George Counts

4. Building a New Social

Order
GEORGE COUNTS
 GEORGE COUNTS
• Born and raised in Baldwin, Kansas. His family was Methodist.
• Finished B.A. from Baker University in 1911 with a degree in
classical studies.
• A high school math and science teacher, an athletic coach, and
principal before beginning postgraduate studies in education at
the University of Chicago in 1913, at the age of 24.
• After receiving a Ph.D. degree with honors, Counts taught
University of Delaware as head of the department of education.
 GEORGE COUNTS
• Taught educational sociology at Harris Teachers College in St.
Louis, Missouri (1918–1919), secondary education at the
University of Washington (1919–1920), and education at Yale
University (1920–1926) and at the University of Chicago (1926–
1927).
• For nearly 30 years, Counts taught at Teachers College, Columbia
University in New York (1927–1956). After being required to
retire at the age of 65 from Teachers College, Counts taught at
the University of Pittsburgh (1959), Michigan State University
(1960), and Southern Illinois University (1962–1971).
• Counts was interested in the study of social conditions and
problems and their relationship to education. Heavily
influenced by Albion Small and other Chicago sociologists,
Counts saw in sociology the opportunity to examine and
reshape schools by considering the impact of social forces
and varied political and social interests on educational
practice.
• Because schools were run by the capitalist class who wielded
social and economic power, Counts argued, school practices
tended towards the status quo, including the preservation of
an unjust distribution of wealth and power.
• Counts's educational philosophy was also an
outgrowth of John Dewey's philosophy. Both
men believed in the enormous potential of
education to improve society and that schools
should reflect life rather than be isolated from
it.
• But unlike Dewey's Public and Its Problems,
much of Counts's writing suggests a plan of
action in the use of schools to fashion a new
social order.
 BUILDING A NEW SOCIAL ORDER
• Education is not based on eternal truths but is relative to a
particular society living at a given time and place.
• By allying themselves with groups that want to change society,
schools should cope with social change that arises from the
technology.
• Instruction should incorporate a content of a socially-useful
nature and a problem-solving methodology. Students are
encouraged to work on problems that have social significance.
• There is a cultural lag between material progress and social
institutions and ethical values.
• “The Egyptians had their horses. Modern man has his
jets but today it is still the same moral problems that
plague humankind.”
• Indeed with science and technology, we have become
powerful yet powerless. We have conquered a number
of diseases and even postponed death for many, we
have conquered aging, the planets, the seas but we
have not conquered ourselves.
 BUILDING A NEW SOCIAL ORDER
• Schools become instrument for social improvement rather
than an agency for preserving the status quo.
• Teachers should lead society rather than follow it. Teachers
are agents of change.
• Teachers are called to make important choices in the
controversial areas of economics, politics and morality
because if they failed to do so, others would make the
decisions for them.
• Schools ought to provide an education that afford equal
learning opportunities to all students.
THEODORE BRAMELD (1901-1987)

5. SOCIAL
RECONSTRUCTIONISM
THEODORE BRAMELD
 SOCIAL
RECONSTRUCTIONISM
is a philosophy that emphasizes
the reformation of society.
• The social reconstructionists contend that:

. . . . humankind has moved from an agricultural and rural

society to an urban and technological society. There is a
serious lag in cultural adaptation to the realities of a
technological society. Humankind has yet to reconstruct its
values in order to catch up with changes in the technological
order, and organized education has a major role to play in
reducing the gap between the values of the culture and
technology. (Ornstein, 1984)
So the Social Recontructionist Asserts that School Should:

• Critically examine present culture and

resolve inconsistencies, controversies and
conflicts to build a new society not just
change society.
• Do more than reform the social and
educational status quo. It should seek to
create new society.
So the Social Recontructionist Asserts that School Should:

• The only legitimate goal of a truly human

education is to create a world order in which
people are in control of their own destiny.
• In an era of nuclear weapons, the social
reconstructionists see an urgent need for society
to reconstruct itself before it destroys itself.
(Ornstein, A. 1984)
So the Social Recontructionist Asserts that School Should:

• Technological era is an era of

interdependence and so education must
be international in scope for global
citizenship.
• Education is designed “to awaken students’
consciousness about social problems and to
engage them actively in problem solving.
So the Social Recontructionist Asserts that School Should:

• Social reconstructionists are firmly committed to

equality or equity in both society and education.
Barriers of socio-economic class and racial
discrimination should be eradicated.
• They also emphasize the idea of an
interdependent world. The quality of life needs
to be considered and enhanced on a global
basis.
Comments:
• Like John Dewey and George Counts, Brameld
believe in active problem-solving as the method
of teaching and learning,
• Social reconstructionists are convinced that
education is not a privilege of the few but a
right to be enjoyed by all.
• Education is a right that all citizens regardless of
race and social status must enjoy.
PAULO FREIRE (1921 – 1997)

6. CRITICAL
PEDAGOGY
Pedagogy – is the method and practice of
teaching especially as an academic subject or
theoretical concept.
 CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND DIALOGUE VERSUS
THE BANKING MODEL OF EDUCATION
• Paulo Freire, a critical theorist, like social
reconstructionists, believed that systems must be
changed to overcome oppression and improve human
conditions.
• Education and literacy are vehicles for social change. In
his view, humans must learn to resist oppression and not
become its victims, nor oppress others. To do so requires
dialogue and critical consciousness, the development of
awareness to overcome domination and oppression.
 CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND DIALOGUE VERSUS
THE BANKING MODEL OF EDUCATION
• Rather than “teaching as banking”, Freire saw teaching and
learning as a process of inquiry in which the child must invent
and reinvent the world.
• Teachers must not see themselves as the sole possessors of
knowledge and their students as empty receptacles. He calls
this pedagogical approach the “banking method” of education.
• A democratic relationship between the teacher and her
students is necessary in order for the conscientization process
to take place.
CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND DIALOGUE VERSUS
THE BANKING MODEL OF EDUCATION
• Freire’s critical pedagogy is problem-posing education.
• A central element of Freire’s pedagogy is dialogue. It is love
and respect that allow us to engage people in dialogue and
to discover ourselves in the process and learn from one
another.
• Dialogue is the basis for critical and problem-posing
pedagogy, as opposed to banking education, where there is
no discussion, only the imposition of the teacher’s ideas on
the students.
CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND DIALOGUE VERSUS
THE BANKING MODEL OF EDUCATION
•Teachers must not see themselves
as the sole possessors of knowledge
and their students as empty
receptacles. He calls this
pedagogical approach the “banking
method” of education.
CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND DIALOGUE VERSUS
THE BANKING MODEL OF EDUCATION
•A democratic relationship between the
teacher and her students is necessary in
order for the conscientization process to
take place.
•Freire’s critical pedagogy is problem-
posing education.
 CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND DIALOGUE VERSUS
THE BANKING MODEL OF EDUCATION
• A central element of Freire’s pedagogy is dialogue. It is
love and respect that allow us to engage people in
dialogue and to discover ourselves in the process and
learn from one another.
• Dialogue is the basis for critical and problem-posing
pedagogy, as opposed to banking education, where
there is no discussion, only the imposition of the
teacher’s ideas on the students.
Teacher

Banking Method
Student

Teacher Student Critical Pedagogy

END