Philosophy of Education - Essay Example

? Philosophy of Education Philosophy of Education Philosophical reflection informs the manner of instructive practices as well as the point to which instruction should do so. In the republic, Plato termed education as a practice which stands exclusively necessitating direction from the most embracing as well as refined metaphysics (Blake, Smith & Standish 2006). All past and current human societies have had a vested concentration on education and most of the people have claimed that most educational activities or teaching are the second oldest occupation. Almost every society allocates adequate resources in support of educational institutions and activities as they are very important. Learning institutions are one of the agents of socialization in most societies because all children are born innumerate and illiterate. They are also normally ignorant of the cultural achievements and norms of their society or community of which they are part of. However, with the assistance of teachers, the rest of the society and educational resources, they learn to read, write, and act in ways that are culturally appropriate. Most of the people learn these skills with more education facilities than other people. Education equips people with substantive knowledge and skills that enable them to identify and pursue their own aspirations and take part in their community life as independent and full-fledged citizens. In his educational philosophy, Plato argued that a person is served best when he or she is subordinated to a just society. Plato promoted the notion that children should be removed from the care of their mothers and raised as state wards with a lot of care being taken to tell apart children suitable to the different castes, the highest attaining most education, to ensure that they act as city guardians and care for the less fortunate (Rozema 1998). Plato further argued that education would be holistic including physical discipline, skills, facts, art and music which he took as the utmost form of undertaking. He believed that talents were not distributed genetically and thus they had to be found in any social class. There have been other philosophies of education after Plato. Freire (2002) attacked the ‘banking concept of education’. In this concept, students are viewed like an empty account that should be filled by the teachers. Freire suggested that a deep reciprocity should be inserted into people’s idea of student and teacher. He rejected the teacher –student dichotomy and encouraged the role of participants in the classroom as the student teacher (a student who teaches) and teacher student (a teacher who learns). Freire (2002) kind of classroom was at times criticized because it can disguise the authority of the teacher rather than overcome it. Freirian education philosophy has been extremely important in academic debates over participatory development and overall development. Dewey (1916) argued that the basic ineluctable birth and death facts of every member of a social group make education a necessity because in spite of this genetic inescapability, the community has to continue. The immense societal significance of education is highlighted by the fact that when people are taken aback by a predicament, it is regularly viewed as a sign of fail and teachers and the system of education become scapegoats. On the other McLaren argued that education should bring about social and self empowerment. He criticized the conventional American tradition in which schools try to establish and develop an egalitarian and democratic society, with the conventional humanities curricula informing learners about the ethical standards and human values. McLaren saw modern schools as doing precious little to encourage the Western humanist traditionist. Schools produce economic and social which has to be weighed against a real record of serving the affluent interests. This condition by McLaren has been in latest conservative developments where the curriculum and aims are geared to the worldwide economic competition and the marketplace (McLaren 2001). The dominant interests in controlling education makes the assumption that the current educational arrangement are indispensable, schools have to serve the status quo and each and every person should depend on scientific measurement and predictability to make instructive choices. Students ought to become educated in technical and social knowledge before they develop into useful moral agents according to some postmodernists (Barrow & Wood 2007). McLaren (2001) commented negatively in some postmodern unfairness in criticizing cultural texts; he wanted critical pedagogy to presume that education for social and self empowerment is ethically prior to knowledge accumulation, although the acquisition of knowledge takes place along with empowerment. McLaren (2001) main point was that the main objective of social and self empowerment is to develop the commitment of students’ to a social transformation which promotes minor groups especially those which are oppressed. Education is a very important social realm which has fascinated philosophers’ attention for many years, particularly because there are many intricate issues which have great philosophical interest. Education transmits knowledge and also promotes reasoning and inquiry skills which are favorable to the growth of independence; this is generally the apprehension linking ‘education as progressive’ and ‘education as conservative’. The postmodern philosophy of education has multiple views. Critical theory and critical pedagogy are some of the postmodern views on education. Critical theory has strong features of Marxism. Pierre Bourdieu offered the perspective that learning institutions reproduce cultural capital for the people who occupy positions of power (Murphy 2006). Giroux perspective showed that the philosophical undertaking is to rethink the meaning and purpose of education like a convergence of modernism and postmodernism. Alternatively, Giroux retained the modernists’ principle in human way of thinking to overcome suffering, however without its universality pretensions. He valued the modernists’ emphasis on historical, ethical as well as political discourse and also sought social justice and change by laying emphasis on political of difference and marginal discourse to redefine the relationship between the center of the society and the margins. Michael Apple (1999), a critical theorist took exception and maintained that class is more important than post modernists recognize and that race and gender cannot be alienated from class. Apple noted that there are notable features among the marginalized people; a greater percentage of unemployment and low incomes among people and women of color. It is evident that gender and race are not separate from class and postmodernists make a mistake when they fail to be aware of this. Apple argued that attention should be given to social structures, class conflict and material conditions that support them. The educational theories that do not recognize this is therefore weakened. Critical pedagogists challenge the manner learning institutions support those in power and uphold existing inequalities and they envision these institutions as agencies in which social and self empowerment can be improved (Darder, Baltodano and Torres, 2003). Critical pedagogy is devoted to the oppressed side. It goes up against ahistorical, depoliticized and positivistic education and is especially in sync with the power relations politics found in school that is part and parcel of the larger society. McLaren has over and over again called for more unity among critical pedagogists and utilizing Marxists elements concern for socioeconomic stipulations; he calls for more social activism and less cultural criticism concerning social and educational transformations. Giroux argued that ethics has to be a fundamental concern to critical education especially the diverse ethical discourses that provide learners a richer fund of meanings and assist them relate to the larger society diversity. This allows students to comprehend the ways a person’s experience is affected by diverse ethical discourses and the way ethical relations are created between the person and other people, including other people of varied origin, background and perspective. This process engages learners in social discourse that assists them to disallow unnecessary human exploitation and suffering and the aim is to build up a social sense of others responsibilities including the people who are taken as outsiders on the social life margins (Barrow 1983). It also develops learners’ identities that enable them to fight against inequality and to increase indispensable human rights. Critical pedagogists see the aim of education as liberation from domination. They advocate for the inclusion of students’ everyday experiences as legitimate constituents of study. This incorporates the cultural traditions, competing identities and political point of view that learners bring in. Critical pedagogy does not reduce the issues of equality, justice and power to one master discourse. The critical pedagogists’ argument that students’ personal identities develop in due time and are influenced by numerous factors such as individual experience is true. The everyday individual experience and the officially authorized knowledge can be utilized as serious study objects. In critical education, the curriculum is used as constituents of the continuing commitment of learners with various narratives that can be reformulated and reinterpreted politically and culturally (Carr 2007). While making a curriculum for a particular subject or the entire variety of offerings in a system or education systems, there are numerous difficult choices that should be made. Matters such as correct sequencing or ordering of topics in a particular subject, time set for every topic, projects appropriate for certain topics are all technical matters that are resolved well by educationists with a profundity of knowledge with the age group that is targeted. However, there are profound matters regarding the legitimacy of the validations which have been offered for certain topics of matters in the learning institutions. The diverse rationalizations for various curriculum items proposed by philosophers as well as other people from Plato’s time all implicitly or explicitly draw upon the perspectives that philosophers have about no less than three concerns. The aims and functions of education or the constituents of human success and good life are the first concern of philosophers and other people. The aims and functions are interrelated, because apparently learning institutions endeavor to endow persons the capacity to live a good life. Human success include the ability to act independently and/or rationally and thus learning institutions and their curriculum should endeavor to organize or assist to organize independent persons. According to Hirst, knowledge is important in developing a beginning for a superior life (Hirst 1965). Second, educational institutions curriculum should be taken as instruments for advancing the socio-political goals as well as the interests of the powerful in the society. Most learning institutions reflect the interests of those in power. The third concern is whether educational programs at the secondary or elementary levels should comprise of various different offerings so that persons with diverse abilities, affinities and interests for learning can follow suitable curriculum or whether every student should pursue a similar curriculum. In the past a similar curriculum was pursued by all students however in the modern era education program comprise of various different offerings. References Apple, M 1990, Ideology and Curriculum, New York, Routledge, 2nd. Editon. Barrow, R & Wood, R 2007, An Introduction to Philosophy of Education, 4th Ed, Routledge, London  Blake, N., Smeyers, P., Smith, R & Standish, P 2006, The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Education, Blackwell Publication  Carr, W 2007, The Routledge Falmer Reader in Philosophy of Education, London, Routledge. Darder, A., Baltodano, M & Torres, R 2003, The Critical Pedagogy Reader, London, Routledge Falmer.  Dewey, J 1916, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, New York, Macmillan. Freire, P 2002, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Continuum; 30th Anniversary edition McLaren, P 2001, Revolutionary multiculturalism: Pedagogies of dissent for the new millennium, Boulder, CO , Westview. Murphy, M 2006, The History and Philosophy of Education: Voices of Educational Pioneers, New Jersey, Pearson Robin, B 1983, Does the Question ‘What Is Education?’ Make Sense? Educational Theory: 191–195. Rozema, D 1998, Plato’s Theaetetus: what to do with an Honours student, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 32(2): 207–23. Read More