Necessity of Philosophy of Education for Teachers or Educators - Essay Example

?A. Necessity of Philosophy of Education for Teachers or Educators There are essential differences between man and animal, which makes “education’ possible for man and one can only train animal (Vargas, 1994, p.273). It makes possible The philosophy of education can be of forms as realism, idealism, existentialism or pragmatism and implications can be drawn by one for teaching, education, curriculum, learning or other important issues of education (Orteza and Miranda, 2001, p.3). There are four major educational philosophies on the properties of knowledge and the way of knowing it within the frame of epistemology. These approaches of educational philosophy are recently used in the classrooms widely all over the world. These philosophies are Perennialism, Essentialism, Progressivism and Reconstructionism. These philosophical issues concentrate heavily on the curriculum aspects of WHAT should be taught (Crookes, 2009, p.85). Perennialism: The aim of this education is to consolidate the fact that teachers or educators gain knowledge of great Western civilization ideas. The ways to solve problems in any era is hidden in these ideas. The aim is to share ideas that are everlasting, to search for enduring truth that are constant, as the human and natural world at the most essential level remain unchanged (Ornstein, 2012, p. 431). Essentialism: It is believed by the essentialists that there is a common cluster of knowledge that should be transmitted to teachers in a constructive way. Intellectual and moral standards are the two bases in the conservative perspective on which emphasis is given. Essential knowledge and academic rigor and skills are the major arena of the curriculum. Essentialists accept the idea of probable changes in the core curriculum (Ornstein, 2012, p.431) Progressivists: Progressivists believes that the whole child should be focused for the education, rather than focusing on the content or the teacher. Reconstructionism: Social Reconstructionism, a philosophy that put stress on the quest and addressing of social questions to construct worldwide democracy and better society (Cohen, 1999). Teachers do teaching and the institutions where they work have a purpose that deeply concerns education (Langford, 1978, p.3). Successful teachers do have their respective philosophies and they are quite strong ones. Sometimes, the teachers themselves are not aware of their own philosophy or the reason behind their success. But it is the philosophy that affects everything they do all the day. It would be amazing if all teachers “flowed through the day” to handle all our tasks with great ease and naturally, but it is us who have to do all our appointed works. Today in several occasions, the beliefs of parents and students are really strong and presume an important influence on what a teacher can do and cannot do. A part of those beliefs are cultural, some are religious and some others are utter nonsense, but all of them must be confronted, handled and addressed individually. A teacher could face a situation in the class to which might have no clue and probably he is not going to learn about how to handle them. This is where an essentiality for philosophy lies for the educators. If teachers make too many hard and fast rules for which they are not willing, ready or able to back up, consequence might push them right into a corner. Because there will always be someone to test the teachers regarding their rules to see if they really mean it. A teacher will be tested everyday, in fact many a times in a day. If they do not follow through, they are not only going to lose the battle, but also a lot of respect as well. Among the first things that teachers need to do first is to determine the kind of things that are important enough to have a strong philosophy about. New teachers build up their philosophy slowly at first, as they start gaining confidence and strength they will make choices and changes in their beliefs that are well thought out, based on good judgments, innovated in experience and beneficial to them and theirs. As a result, the teachers will pleasantly observe that students will gratefully accept their philosophy because it proves that teachers have a human side and are not scared of making adjustments, especially when students realize that these modulations are made best in their interest. To add more to it, those modulations will turn out to be a very workable philosophy and the teachers will find them very comfortable and easy to live with it. It implies the probability of the teachers becoming effective and successful increases greatly. In order to make intelligent decisions, the teachers drag line from a wide mixture of their experiences for sustenance. Few lines can greatly influence teachers and work as a major factor in making them a successful summer camp counselor and can help them determining their own personal philosophy for living. The lines quoted by Mertz as follows, “I have to live with myself and so, I want to be fit for myself to know. I don’t want to stand with the setting sun and bet myself for the things I’ve done. I want to be able as years go by, always to look myself straight in the eye.” (Mertz, 2010, p. 17) Mertz describes teaching as a beautiful art. He says it is not only a scope to help others, but also a marvelous opportunity for them to grow further, unstoppably. There are various kinds of people who come in contact with the teachers who would play a major role in formulating the philosophy of them. All of those people will be instrumental in how a teacher thinks and put him to the test regarding their beliefs. A major section of these people are students. A teacher must ask himself about what he believes about himself. Most of those beliefs will relate the teacher to his school days. But things change. Comparing the students of his own time with todays, a teacher will find many similarities between the students of two different times, yet they are not similar in many cases as well. Teachers are bound to face new problems and many of the problems that those teachers faced in their time, will not seem to be a problem for the students they have now. There are language differences, cultural differences, moral differences, new methods of teaching, new methods of learning and new tools of the trade and new social values that a teacher must learn to use. There would be tools of a sort that a teacher might never have a minimum inkling about when he was a student. Yet, some things will never change and the winning teachers reaching students will depend on the successful practice of those tools. There can be prejudices at which teachers need to take a hard and long look upon and need to get rid of them before entering the classrooms, since they can be killers (Mertz, 2010, pp.14-22). In Mexico, teachers study philosophy for approximately 35 hours to take an introductory class of philosophy for the children. During this training in philosophy for children of 35 hours, a supportive input of philosophy is given to the teachers. This involves logic and epistemology and reasoning with ethics as an introduction (Hannam and Echeverria, 2009, p.141). Again, according to Steven M. Calm (2004), philosophy is structured in one of four ways by teachers. The first of which uses readings drawn from contemporary and historical sources and grouped by topic. The second approach is about studying numerous major historical works that consist of the curriculum. The third alternative offers a constructive study of philosophical history with the focus on historical perspective (Calm, 2004, p.4). The teachers need to know that administrators are the people like them only. It is just that the administrators have different problems to solve than the problems of the teachers. So it is very important that teachers and administrators understand and respect the philosophies of each others. It is not necessary that the beliefs of both the administrators and teachers are right always, it is possible for both of them to be wrong at the same time. Nevertheless, teachers should understand what their administrators believe. If a teacher has four administrators, he might face a conflict of thoughts, since they all are different individuals with different thoughts and different backgrounds. But it can be realized how on these multitude of beliefs and thoughts of how things should be done, schools are running successfully just as the teachers live their own lives. Today in many schools, a noble effort is there on the part of administrators to impose as much teacher input as possible into their decision (Airalsinen and Gasparski, 1993, p.274). Sometimes it works strongly and sometime it does not work well. As a teacher stays in a school for many years, they will realize that their philosophy and that of administrators’ may change, especially where the administrators change frequently. Teachers should be aware of those changes and ensure that growth is happening on the parts of both teachers as well as administrators and necessary adjustments should be made (Danielson, 2008, p.19). However in this respect an appropriate quotation can be cited, “Teachers are likely to be better leaders in their schools and districts if they understand how educational philosophy affects education and if they are able to share this understanding with other teachers, parents, school administrators and school boards” (Katzenmeyer and Moller, 2009, p.162) Other than parents, students and administrators, a teacher also has to deal with other faculty members and classified personnel. These are the people with whom the teacher deals with everyday. They all have their own respective philosophies and egos as the teacher himself has (Mertz, 2010, pp. 20-21). However in many cases, an ancestry and a common pool of knowledge is shared by two art teachers (Daichendt, 2010, p.3). Most faculty members are there for the same reasons and they work really hard and sincerely to build their philosophy which is workable. They do their jobs in the best possible ways and try applies their best skill, knowledge and experiences to get them done. Some of them get the best result because they are natural. If a teacher is not natural, it could be suggested that he/she should work harder. The easiest way to recognize the teachers’ own philosophy is to sit back, relax and think deeply about what exactly run their life and how their believes can work them do better. If teachers give these meditative moments an opportunity, it can bring them a great clarity of understanding (Mertz, 2010, p.22). It is amazing to see the extent to which a good teacher can store knowledge and acquire perfect moral attributes (Sands, 1860. p.7) B. The key themes of the article by Charles C. Verharen and the implications of his position Charles C. Verharen is a professor at Harvard University. He inaugurated a course on Africana Philosophy and film at that university. In his paper “Philosophy’s Roles in Afrocentric Education” the major highlighted issue is the discussion for the need of philosophy in Afrocentric schools through various horizons and opinions of masterminds and greatest philosophers like Aristotle and Plato are also countered here by the author. Verharen says the aversion to philosophy of U.S. public schools is so pervasive that educators of Afrcontric schools should reconsider whether they have accepted this bias fully or not. This essay takes into account the probable roles of Greek philosophy towards its construction. The absence of philosophy in public schools are discussed here through structural similarities between contemporary United States and ancient Greeks before he challenged the arguments of Plato and Aristotle against need of philosophy education before the age 30. The objective of the essay is to formulate an explicit philosophy of Afrocentric, to compare contemporary philosophy of Africa with ancient African philosophies in Nubia and Egypt and to impose some concentration on African Historic philosophies that are being imparted on their students. The creativity of Africa in the context of new description of African development is discussed in the conclusion of the essay. The task of this essay presumes that the working definition of the term “Philosophy” is shared by Afrocentrists and a consensus on how the students of Afrocentric schools are introduced with can be reached. Afrocentrists on an explicit, autonomous philosophy have not yet agreed from which four basic questions of philosophy can be answered. They are what is valuable, how we can know it, what exists and how we should live our lives. The author believes that thinkers like Molefi Asante (1990) are guided by Afrocetric philosophies. Author also believes that epistemology of Asante is one of his vital attempts to medicate the conflicts of culture. The second objective of this article is to stimulate the educators of Afrocentric schools for the formulation of an explicit Afrocentric philosophy by which the four basic questions can be answered (Verharen, 2002, pp.295-296). The presumption of the article is that all cultures practice philosophy just like they do in case of all other subjects. The author also frames Eurocentric histories here, according to which Greeks created the philosophy, after all “the love of wisdom” expression is coined by them. If wisdom is termed as knowledge, that is foundational, synoptic and self correcting, then philosophies of the earliest civilization is to be followed, the thought of which we can translate. The author then concentrates on the third task of the article which should stimulate the educators of Afrocentric schools to contrast and compare other African philosophies that are recently available for scholarship through practices of cultures in contemporary traditions of Africa that claim long histories with ancient philosophies of Africa in Egypt and Nubia. The final task of the article, according to the author is to motivate Afrocentric educators focus on the Africana historical philosophies which they are going to impart on their students. The philosopher Diop having agreed with another philosopher, Fanon, has argued that we humans are obliged to overcome the constraints of environment in pursuit of creativity and survival (Verharen, 2002, pp.296-297). The conclusion of the article has examined the unique creativity of Africa in the frame of African development’s new explanations. In order to estimate the roles that philosophy must play in the education system of Afrocentric schools, the author first defined ‘philosophy’. The author risked the criticism that his methodology is Eurocentric and began with an examination of Aristotle and Plato’s definition of the term ‘philosophy’ for two reasons. At first, he said that Aristotle and Plato’s education philosophies constantly dominate public education of U.S. and the influence should be identified by the educators of Afrocentric schools. Secondly the author said that scholars of Afrocentric schools can use Aristotle and Plato’s formulations to demonstrate that how their methods are diverged from Eurocentric models. The philosopher Marimba Ani (1994) extensively relied on this technique. The author now reflected on the claim of Aristotle and Plato which says that philosophy is indispensable to a god life. But they suggested to waiting until the age of 30 to educate 1 out 100 with values of philosophies. Verharen believed that Aristotle and Plato’s sense of elitism, is made in an Athenian culture, which in turn supported by slavery. The education of philosophy is restricted to talented one hundredth by them by the force of that Athenian culture. In order to put a contrast on his own arguments for philosophy in Afrocentric schools, Verharen framed arguments of Plato against philosophy education before the age of 30. Plato viewed that the necessity of keeping forbidding nature of philosophy out of a young’s hands. According to Plato’s opinion regarding the dialectician who embodies philosophy’s true spirit explains why it is too hard for young to accept philosophy as a part of education. Wisdom must be possessed in a sense of total knowledge by those persons who are able to explain and know the necessity of everything. By Plato, such persons are very rare. This definition of philosophy by Plato sets the subject “above all other studies to be as it were the coping stone”, and “no other higher kind of study could rightly be placed above it” (Verharen, 2002, p.298). Republic by Plato defines an education course starting with physical arts like gymnastic and dance and shift towards more abstract kind of studies like mathematics, music and sciences like astronomy. High-minded studies like these are companied by more barbaric thoughts like “conduct[ing] children to war on horseback to be spectators, and wherever it may be safe, bring them to front and give them a taste of blood as we do with whelps” (Verharen, 2002, p.299). The children who excel in both the arts of war and abstractions of the mind are allowed finally to study something that is a gateway of philosophy but not the proper philosophy. The survivors’ very best, the talented tenth at their age of 20 are given awards. Then they require “to gather the studies which they disconnectedly pursued as children in their former education into a comprehensive survey of their affinities with one another and with the nature of things” (Verharen, 2002, p.299). The author points that Asante (1990) believed Afrocentric method known as Africology is an analogue for the phase discussed above of Platonic education. Then he tries to visualize and reflects the point to us as how it would be to see Afrocentric educators are waiting to introduce their students with Africology until they turn 20 (Verhante, 2002, p.299). The author further talked about Plato’s education system which says dialectic is practiced by students for 5 years and then they return for 15 years of public life by the means of becoming a civilian leaders and military (Republic, 539e). Finally, the survivors at their age of 50, the true men of renaissance, the talented one out of hundredth, may assume the mantle of the philosopher-kings (Verharen, 2002, pp298-301). After reflecting Plato’s version of seeing philosophy as education, the author also added the beliefs of Aristotle to consolidate the contrast of his own beliefs. Aristotle believed that knowledge of essence is aimed at by philosophy. The essences of Aristotle were not in the pure forms. In some sort of mythical hyperspace it existed. He also believed that children cannot be philosophers because their respective abstractions must be performed by philosophers over the all of their experience and that children cannot have experience’s merest taste (Verharen, 2002, pp.301-303). Author summarized the arguments against precollege philosophy as follows. a) Experience is the base of philosophy and children do not have enough experience. b) Abstraction is another base for philosophy. Though children might have remarkable power of abstraction, the whole of experience are not commanded by children. c) Both Aristotle and Plato believed knowledge to be the power. Philosophy promises power in search of total knowledge, and to handle such power, the children do not have the discretion. Now Verharen completely focuses on his own explanation against that of Aristotle and Plato regarding philosophy education at an early age (Verharen, 2002, p.303). He being agreed with Plato and his student about philosophy’s fundamental methods, necessitates the fact that philosophy should be started culturing as early as possible knowing the difficulty level of the subject. Based on the beliefs of Aristotle, the author claims that experiences get connected only through abstraction’s acts. He then considered philosophy as a part of thinking that focuses on maximum abstraction, simplicity and universality. The most tenuous human thoughts are massive abstractions and there are riddles of ambiguity in philosophy. By highlighting this massive nature of philosophy, the author claims that “a project that can never be completed had best begin at an early age” (Verharen, 2002, p.308). The author now summarizing his beliefs claims that philosophy is not a sacred texts’ canon or a special subject. According to him, it is our thought’s ungrounded, universal foundation which needs to be revised through constant discoveries of all other kinds of thoughts. He also doubts that children do not revise their thoughts, and it is manifest that by anti-philosophical education, such inclination can be reduced (Verharen, 2002, p.309). The author next framed the philosophy in Afrocentric education in order to represent it as a demonstration of the necessity of philosophy at an early age. Introducing the new philosophies of Africana history, the author suggests that the work of Allen (1988), Hornung (1971/82) and Assman (1989) should be imparted in Afrocentric philosophival curriculum. He also thinks that philosophical reflection should not be constrained within Egypt alone the Afrocentric curriculum should offer both microhistories and macrohistories of Africana experience (Verharen, 2002, pp.313-318). Before concluding this section it may be useful to provide some remarks about parents who educate their children. Parents understand that education is the most important issue for the welfare of their children and they try to help the teachers in their best possible way. Some parents are always on a witch hunt and look forward to put the blame on the teachers in all and any directions when they find child to be not as successful as he/she could be. When parents come, it is a best opportunity for the teachers assess their own beliefs and work and see if they really deserve to be ineligible for the job they are not doing in the best possible way. Teachers should understand the mindset of the parents and act accordingly. If they think what they are doing is right, then they should stand firm and people with true spirit and values will understand it. References 1. Airalsinen, T. and W. Gasparski, (1993), Practical Philosophy and Action Theory, Transaction Publishers. 2. Cohen, L.M. (1999) Section III- Philosophical Perspective in Education, oregonstate, available at http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/ed416/PP3.html (accessed on July 26, 2013) 3. Crookes, G. (2009), Values, Philosophies, and Belief in TESOL, Cambridge University Press 4. Danielson, C. (2008), The Handbook of Enhancing Professional Practice, ASCD 5. Daichendt, G. J. (2010), Artist Teacher, UK, Intellect Ltd. 6. Hannam, P., Echeverria, E. (2009), Philosophy with Teenagers, London, Continuum International Publishing Group 7. Katzenmeyer, M. and V. Moller, (2009), Awakening the Sleeping Giant, Corwin Press. 8. Kasachkoff, T. (2004), Teaching Philosophy, United States of America, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC. 9. Langford, G. (1978), Teaching as a Profession, Manchester, Manchester University Press 10. Mertz, J. C.(2010), So, You Want To Be a Teacher, United States of America, Xlibris Corporation 11. Orteza, E., M., and Miranda, Y. (1999), Readings in Philosophy of Education, Rex Book Store, INC. 12. Ornstein, A.C. (2012), Foundations of Education, Cengage Education 13. Sands, N. (1869),The Pupil, The School, New York, Harper & Brothers Publishers 14. Vargas, S. A. (1944), Psychology and Philosophy of Teaching, According to Traditional Philosophy and Modern Trends, United States, Catholic University of America Press 15. Verharen, C. C. (2002), Philosophy’s role in Afrocentric Education, Journal of Black Studies, 32(3), pp. 295-321 Read More