Why Educate

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Why Educate?

• What Is An Educated Person?

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What is Philosophy of Education?

• The building block of the reflective
  practitioner
• Without your own grounding in your philosophical
  thinking, teaching becomes rote.

• We engage in philosophical inquiry using logic
  and analysis.
• Basically we are asking ourselves-why do I
  teach? What do I teach? How do I teach?
• What constitutes an educated person?
• But, as you can see, philosophy is more than just
  analysis

3
What is Philosophy?

• Philosophers study the nature of our being as
  humansasking questions such as
• What is reality?
• What is knowing?
• What is truth?

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Philosophical Inquiry Happens in 3 areas

• The nature of reality called metaphysics
• The nature of knowledge called epistemology
• The nature of values called axiology

• In education we are mostly concerned with
  epistemological issues, with some exceptions.
• What is the purpose of education? Of schooling?
• What does it mean to be an educated person?
• What is important for my students to know?
• What are the most important things to teach?
• What values to I bring to my classroom?
• What are my beliefs about teaching?
• What do I believe about the nature of human
  beings that I will bring to my classroom?

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Philosophy

• Helps you to understand who you are
• What kind of teacher you are
• Why you do some of the things you do

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Philosophers Historically Have Pondered the
Nature of Reality

• Do we use use reason or empiricism to discover
  the nature of reality?
• Here are what some educational philosophers have
  to say
• Plato-400 B.C.-education should be for the
  highest good. Most important thing to teach is
  values of the highest sort.
• John Jacques Rousseau-1700s in Europe-individuals
  are born good and society corrupts them.
  Education based on natural experiences. Roots of
  Deweys ideas

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Roots of Western Philosophy

• Rests on the Enlightenment-1700s in Europe. Turn
  to science and reason for an understanding of the
  universe
• The early U.S. intellectuals, such as Franklin
  and Jefferson, also were products of the
  Enlightenment.
• The mystery of learning could be put to
  scientific reasoning.
• How would education help benefit society in the
  long-term? Apply scientific principles to this

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• During the 19th century, pragmatism began to
  overrule reason-the belief in unchanging laws of
  nature.
• Emphasize the changing nature of reality.
• This paved the way for the progressives.

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Maria Montessori-early 1900s in Italy

• Uniting of school and home
• Radical for her time-child sized furniture
• Maximize the growth of the child during key,
  sensitive periods
• Children are divine

• Environment should maximize individual expression
• Children can save the world
• Education can lay the foundation for peace

10
Jane Roland Martin

• First educational philosopher to deal with
  differences in experiences of men and women.
• Argued for the experiences of women-nurturing and
  caring for others to be considered part of what
  is important to include in what is taught

• Before that the ideal had been based on knowing
  and understanding concepts in mathematics,
  science, history, literature and philosophy

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• Martin argues that the reproductive processes of
  society had been, up until that point, left out
  of educational philosophical discourse.
• Concerns for personal relationships and feelings
  had no part

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John Dewey
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Dewey

• I believe education is the fundamental method of
  social progress and reform. All reforms which
  rest simply upon the law, or the threatening of
  certain penalties, or upon changes in mechanical
  or outward arrangements, are transitory and
  futile. But through education society can
  formulate its own purposes, can organize its own
  means and resources and thus shape itself with
  definitiveness and economy in the direction in
  which it wishes to moveeducation thus conceived
  marks the most perfect and intimate union of
  science and art conceivable in human experience.

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Key Points of Deweys Philosophy

• Education and life are inseparable
• Education should conform to real life experiences
• Morals are inseparable from educational
  experiences
• Aims of education are for maximum societal
  participation and moral reflection
• Play and work are nearly synonymous

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Dialectic of Freedom (Maxine Greene)

• Tension between schools necessity of balancing
  the needs of society and of individuals

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• Dewey felt schools were ignoring the reality of
  the growing industrial revolution. He was
  attempting to make stronger links between
  classroom and out of classroom learning.
• Educated person is always within a social
  context. Education and morality are linked

• Deweys philosophy reflect a pattern of
  experience, learning (construction), reflection
  and so forth (can be seen in a circle).
• P. 360-stimulation of childs powers

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What is the School?

• What is the school? A social institution.can
  this argument lead one to thinking that it is the
  duty of schooling and education to inculcate
  students with the overarching values of a society
  or culture?
• Teachers role is to select those influences which
  will be most beneficial. (363).

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• Teachers role is to select the appropriate
  experiences for the child. All educational
  experiences in schooling are interrelated.forerun
  ner of interdisciplinary learning.
• Education is the fundamental method of social
  progress and reform.
• Communitys duty to education is a moral one

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2 Purposes for Schooling-Sizer

• We are in an era when school is only one of the
  educational influences on youth
• Education of the intellect
• Education of the character

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Essential Claims of the State on the Minds of
Youth-what should be taught

• Literacy
• Numeracy
• Civic Understanding
• Both minimal and maximal
• Should fit the needs of a particular school

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What is Good Curriculum?

• Put in the Form of questions
• Can graduates teach themselves?
• Are they decent people?
• Can they effectively use the knowledge gained in
  the academic disciplines in which they have been
  steeped?

22
What is My Philosophy of Education?

• What to Teach? The Most Important Things
• Why Teach These?
• One or Two Ways You Will Implement These

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Finally

• What to Take Away With You
• These two questions might serve as a gift to
  yourself as you leave each class
• At the end of class today, what is one thing I
  will take away with me?
• At the end of class, what are one or two
  questions that remain?