4 Educational Philosophies

Jan 22, 2019 Before continuing with this read, please answer the quiz here to know which education philosophy you may belong to. I learned in my Instructional Design class that there are four main educational. That said, read on to learn about the various educational philosophies in existence. Perenialists tend to believe that the aim of education should be to make students understand the ideas of Western civilization. They think these ideas can solve all problems. Major Philosophies of Education - Chapter Summary and Learning Objectives. Through the years, various theories of education have fallen in and out of favor. Download FIVE EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHIES There are many kinds of educational philosophies, but for the sake of simplicity it is possible to extract five distinct ones. These five philosophies are (1) perennialism, (2) idealism, (3) realism, (4) experimentalism.

• Educational Learning Theories
• 4 Educational Philosophies

Educational Learning Theories

After submitting my answers to Group Discussion 2, I started reading the educational philosophies. I tried to follow how I was supposed to do the learning activities by answering all the study questions for each philosophy one by one.

The first reading is the ” Philosophical Roots of Education”. This reading provided an opportunity to review what I have learned in module 2 and 3. Both modules 2 and 3 discussed world philosophies, so I thought of them, although separated by modules, as of the same category, world philosophies. However, the ones that I was able to review using the first reading were the Western philosophies only. I was able to finish and answer the study guide for Module 4A as I was already familiar with the topic. I would say that I used both bottom-up approach and top-down approach of reading alternately. When I couldn’t understand a particular word, I used the top-down approach where I looked at the content and the words surrounding the word I didn’t know so as to get the meaning of the sentence as a whole. In short, I used the interactive approach of reading. The schema theory was also in action as I was reading the educational philosophies as all these philosophies are all connected or related to the world philosophies in module 2. While attacking this learning task, I tried to apply all the things that I know about learning strategies and reading strategies with the purpose to effectively learn what I needed to learn.

After reading the first reading, I then moved to read the readings for Essentialism and Perennialism. According to the reading, Essentialism is the educational philosophy of the conservatives. Essentialism holds the view that the goal of education is to teach what are essential for the learners to learn. Simply put, they believe that the ” basics” should be taught to the learners. Perennialism on the other hand holds the belief that the goal of education is to teach evergreen ideas that have stood the test of time.

Essentialist and Perennialist can be a Realist and or Idealist in the sense that both philosophies hold the belief that schools’ aim is to transmit the accumulated knowledge and traditions of the past. While these educational philosophy also agree with the Perennialist assertion that ideas that have stood the test of time are worth teaching for, Essentialist also believe that there are certain core or ” basics” that learners should learn. Hence, this Essentialism stresses the fundamentals or the basic skills. These fundamentals are skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. Children according to this philosophy should learn arts, reading, writing, spelling, measurement, computation in elementary school.

Both Essentialism and Perennialism believe that learners should master the subject matter given of a given grade before going to the next grade. Simply put, they believe in pass or fail system of grading. If you pass, you can move up, if you fail, you have to stay at the level you are in. Reading this, I remember myself when I was in elementary. When I was a child, it was put in my mind by my parents that staying at the same grade level is a shame, so I should study hard, and I did.

Moving on, the desks in Essentialist and Perrenialist teachers’ classroom are arranged in rows, and the seating pattern are in rows. This seating arrangement discourages pupil interaction. Moreover, these educational philosophies also believe in rules and penalties to control students. This reflects that the teacher in Essentialist and Perennialist classroom are the center in the classroom. As the teacher is the centre, he/she is the most knowledgeable person in the classroom. When I was in elementary, this was the seating arrangement we had. My teacher came to our house to tell my mother that I talk a lot during lesson. I was scolded. The following day, I was scolded again because I raised my hand not because I wanted to answer the question from my teacher but because I asked her a question. As a child, I liked asking my teachers about things that were not in the lesson. This was not welcomed. In fact, I was discouraged to ask question.

They favour lecture as a teaching method wanting the students to master the subject. To assess they use recitation. They use objective test such as true or false, multiple choice, completion and others. As such, the textbook is the most useful teaching tool for the essentialist teacher. Reading about Essentialism and Perennialism reminded me one of the Japanese teachers I worked with a few years ago. While I focus on the communicative aspect of language teaching when I teach, when this teacher focused on the grammar or on the structural part of language learning. This teacher just taught grammar and literally kept on talking from the start to the end of the lesson. The class was very silent and most of the students were bored. In short, he focused on the intellectual benefits that learners could get by learning language and not on the functional side of it. I felt like it was kind of off balance, but of course did not say anything about it. I was am I am still and will always be a learner anyway.

After reading about the two teacher-centred educational philosophies, I moved on to student- centered philosophies; progressivism and reconstructionism. Progressivism is the educational philosophy that maintains that ideas should be tested by active experimentation. It has its roots in Pragmatism. On the other hand, Reconstructionism is the educational philosophy that maintains that the quest for the creation of a better society and worldwide democracy. It has its roots in Existentialism and Pragmatism. Upon reading these two educational philosophies, I was able to connect what I do in the classroom as like what Reconstructivist asserts, I believe that my goal when I teach is to contribute to the betterment of the society . I am a language teacher and I focus on the communicative aspect of language. In short, I am more inclined to focus on the practical side and on the experiences of using the language. While a form-focused instruction is substantially important in language teaching, the ability to use the language in authentic situation is of paramount imporatance in my view. Connecting this to Idealism, Perrenialism and Essentialism I think that these educational philosophical approaches are reflected in the Grammar -Translation Method of language teaching. The method of language teaching which focuses on translation, and was used to learn the Latin language so as to be able to read and learn from the classic books like Homer , the Bible and other classic books. In short, like Idealism and Perrenialism, the Grammar -translation method was also more on the theoretical aspect of the language, and not on the experience and practical side of language teaching and learning.

CONCLUSION

In the light of the educational philosophical approaches and connecting all these educational philosophies in my life as a language teacher, I conclude that the underlying philosophies of language teachers can be used as a benchmark against which to measure goals for language learners.

4 Educational Philosophies