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Philosophy of education is a field of
inquiry, speculation, and application in which philosophical methods are applied
to the study of a problem, topic, or issue in education. Characteristic of these
methods is the attempt to think as accurately, clearly, coherently, and
systematically as possible. Analytical philosophers would say that philosophy of
education should end with the attempt to clarify and justify educational
statements and arguments. In practice, however, the field includes much more
than that. It considers as relevant material much that has been written on
education by influential philosophers of the past. There is, therefore, much
overlap with the field of history of education, and ultimately no clear
demarcation can be drawn between the two fields, which nourish and illuminate
each other in their interconnectedness (see
EDUCATION, HISTORY OF
). Many philosophers of education also go beyond analysis in being
concerned with establishing a commitment to value judgments and substantive
positions. They take pains to attempt to clarify and justify those judgments and
positions on the grounds that clear and substantiated judgments have greater
probability of being sound. |
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The philosophy of education has a special concern with the applications of
knowledge and theories. Thus, many philosophers of education are especially
interested in the relationship between theory and practice. Moreover, they are
often concerned with the ways in which philosophy relates to other fields of
study in the attempt to shed light on educational problems and issues. This
gives them a wide-angled approach to education, which some philosophers have
called "educational theory" to distinguish it from a more narrowly
analytical form of philosophy of education. |
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With regard to the term "education," there is a similar spectrum of
views ranging from the narrow view of education as that which goes on in schools
and universities to a definition of education as all those experiences that
affect the growth and development of a person throughout life. The former view
has tended to give way, with increased recognition of the crucially important
part that informal experiences and relationships play in determining what and
how an individual learns. |
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10.1.1.1 Symbolization.
First, it is to be noted that human learning is
largely dominated by symbolic processes. Much of the learning that man acquires
during his lifetime is gained through his growing ability to understand and
manipulate symbols--verbal, mathematical, artistic, musical, and so on. This
symbolic emphasis gives human learning much of its power. It brings power
because symbols enable man to deal abstractly
and at a high level of generality with words, data, and ideas. Thus, he can
learn to think rapidly, to link varied items in fruitful ways, and to create
shortcuts to new knowledge. (see also Index: generalization,
thought) |
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The symbolic emphasis also brings dangers. It can trap man into circling
around at a high level of generality without ever feeling the need to tie his
abstractions to concrete applications. Schooling thus can become an apparently
self-justifying cycle, which in fact fails to pay off in terms of improving
men's lives. Moreover, since learners assimilate and master these symbolic
processes at different rates, it is tempting for educators to identify all
education with symbol manipulation, to classify those who take longer to master
the process as inferior, and to reserve the privileges of higher schooling for
those who master this particular process rapidly. This is to mistake a part for
the whole and leads to enormous losses of human power and development. |
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Motivations
to learning are more variable in man than in subhuman species. In other animals
learning patterns develop largely through instinctual motivations. This means
that lower animals need less training than humans before they are independent
and self-reliant. Human beings are the most dependent of creatures when young,
and they take longest to educate for independent activity. It is precisely this
long period of dependence and education that constitutes man's superiority over
lower animals, for it is in this period that the growing human being absorbs
much of his culture and develops the skills and knowledge that enable him to
build on the work of his predecessors. His lower degree of reliance on innate
mechanisms also means that man is more flexible in his responses and is capable
of adjusting those responses in the light of previous experiences. Thus, he is
not condemned to repeat previous patterns of living and thinking but can create
change, both in himself and in his culture. |
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Educators have often acted as if man were a lower animal, for schooling has
often resembled training, with emphasis upon imitation, obedience, repetition,
drill, and control, more than it has resembled education, with emphasis upon
initiative, creativity, choice, decision making, and freedom. As a result,
schooling has been more successful in improving man's skill in mechanical and
repetitive activities at the lower end of his capacity scale than in developing
higher qualities of intellect, feeling, and will that constitute his peculiar
humanness. |
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So far there have been discovered no limits to man's capacity to learn. From
earliest times, however, men in positions of power or influence have suggested
that the learning capacity of certain individuals or groups is severely limited
and that they should not be expected to profit greatly, if at all, from
education. These "ineducable" individuals have usually been members of
minority or disadvantaged groups. But, repeatedly, when their cultural
disadvantages have been removed, these groups have shown that their previous
failure to learn has been due not to incapacity but to lack of fully realized
opportunity. (see also intelligence)
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These findings have led educators to be much more modest and less hasty in
their labelling and classifying procedures. It has been realized that labels
affixed to children tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies, that those who
are expected to learn usually do so, and those who are expected to fail to learn
also usually do so. Hence, when educators resort to classifying children at all,
they increasingly tend to use their labels as temporary rather than permanent,
as saying something only about a quality of the child rather than about his
person, and as something to be abandoned as soon as the child's performance
proves the label wrong. |
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Similarly, no one has been able to confirm any certain limits to the speed
with which man can learn. Schools and universities have usually been organized
as if to suggest that all students learn at about the same rather plodding and
regular speed. But, whenever the actual rates at which different people learn
have been tested, nothing has been found to justify such an organization. Not
only do individuals learn at vastly different speeds and in different ways, but
man seems capable of astonishing feats of rapid learning when the attendant
circumstances are favourable. It seems that, in customary educational settings,
one habitually uses only a tiny fraction of one's learning capacities. |
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Human learning is complex rather than simple. Learners are apt to learn more
than one thing at a time. Sometimes this process is conscious, as when one
simultaneously or rapidly assimilates many specific items of a whole. More
often, the process is entirely or partly unconscious, as when the student learns
some "content" consciously but at the same time absorbs unwittingly a
great deal more from interrelationships, tones of voice, and so on. |
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Educators are therefore becoming increasingly concerned with these
concomitant learnings. They are aware that the long-term significance of the
arithmetical skill that the student consciously learns may be nugatory compared
with the importance of what he learns about himself as a learner, about his
capacities and limits, about his relationship with his teacher, about power and
authority, about his relationships with his fellow students, about equality,
collaboration, competition, and friendship. As educators become more
knowledgeable about the importance of learning climates, they are impelled to
abandon simplified techniques of teaching in favour of a more complex approach
that views learning in the context of a matrix of relationships and forces that
act upon the student, the teacher, the school, and the community. (see also pedagogy)
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Human learning concerns the whole person. The intellect is not the only agent
of learning. This activity is shared by the body, the emotions, and the will.
Moreover, the process cannot be limited to any one of these domains without
affecting the others. Educators are most conscious of intellectual learnings,
which tend to play the largest part in their plans and intentions. But there is
increasing evidence that makes clear the folly of attempting to confine
education to the training of intellects. If the teacher does so, he is destined
to fare badly, for the child who is emotionally frozen or whose stomach is empty
or who is determined to thwart the teacher will not perform intellectually as
the teacher intends. |
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Educators are also becoming more aware of the other side of this coin--that
is, that the learner's powers are vastly enhanced when not only is his intellect
stimulated but also his feelings are respected, his body is nurtured, and his
will to learn is strengthened. Effective education, therefore, is found when the
learner is regarded as a person to be respected, nurtured, strengthened, and
stimulated, rather than as an intellect to be trained. |
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10.1.2.1 Model theories of the educated person.
In different historical eras and in different cultures a variety of
conceptions has been put forward concerning the nature of mind, of truth, of
knowledge, of moral goodness, of aesthetic beauty, and of the purposes of life.
These views carry implications for the purpose and nature of the educational
process, the ends toward which one should educate, the means by which one can
best achieve those ends, the degree of consistency between the ends and the
means, and the model, if any, of the ideally educated person that one has in
mind when engaging in the educational process. These relate to some of the
perennial questions that concern the philosopher of education. The following
represent some of the most influential models that have been presented of the
educated person. |
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The first great attempt to create a philosophically coherent model of the
educated person was that of Plato. Reacting against the turbulence and chaos of
his own times, Plato envisaged in The Republic and
the Laws
a permanent, stable, hierarchical society in which those most adept at
education would rule, those moderately adept would become warriors and carry out
the orders of the rulers or guardians, and those least adept at education would
fill the lowliest worker functions in society. The education that would thus
order and segregate the different groups in society would be based upon the
ability to understand the perennial, ideal Forms that, Plato maintained,
underlie the transient, concrete manifestations of those Forms in everyday life.
Since, supposedly, not all people could surmount the difficulties of such an
intellectually demanding program of study, it would be justifiable to select, classify,
segregate, and reject students at the various stages of the educational process.
(see also idea) |
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The Platonic scheme has been enormously influential, especially in the
Western world, during the last 25 centuries. Most educational programs in the
West have consistently reflected this hierarchical pattern. Schooling has
usually been a process of selection and rejection, with great effort and
ingenuity expended on testing, measuring, classifying, and segregating in
accordance with the best available knowledge. Similarly, Plato's concept of mind
has exerted lasting influence on Western education. Patterns of schooling have
reflected the greater prestige accorded to the study of ideas and abstractions
and the lower prestige given to practical studies and manual work. There has
persisted a dichotomy between the so-called liberal arts,
which have been considered suitable educational fare for potential leaders of
society, and so-called vocational studies, which have been considered more
suitable for potential followers. This pattern has lasted to the present day,
not only in Europe and North America, but also in those parts of Asia, Africa,
and Latin America greatly influenced by European culture. Thus, one finds in
many former colonial societies that students often strongly prefer to follow
"liberal" studies, even though the choice may condemn them to genteel
unemployment in a society whose economy cries out for people with technological,
practical, and manual skills. (see also vocational
education) |
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In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas made a monumental attempt to
reconcile the two great streams of the Western tradition. In his teaching at the
University of Paris and in his writings--particularly the Summa theologiae and
the Summa
contra gentiles--Aquinas tried to synthesize reason and faith, philosophy
and theology, university and monastery, activity and contemplation. In his
writings, however, faith and theology ultimately took precedence over reason and
philosophy because the former were presumed to give access to truths that were
not available through rational inquiry. Hence, Aquinas started with assumptions
based on divine revelation and went on to a philosophical explication of man and
nature. The model of the educated man that emerged from this process was the
Scholastic, a man whose rational intelligence had been vigorously disciplined
for the pursuit of moral excellence and whose highest happiness was found in
contemplation of the Christian God. |
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This Scholastic model has greatly affected the development of Western
education, especially in fostering the notion of intellectual discipline.
Aquinas' theological-philosophical doctrine has been a powerful intellectual
force throughout the West and has constituted the official basis of Catholic
theology since 1879. Although Aquinas made an important place in his hierarchy
of values for the practical uses of reason, later Thomists have often been more
exclusively intellectual in their educational emphasis. For Aquinas, the primary
agent of education was the learner, and his model was, thus, a person capable of
self-education. Intellectually autonomous, he should be able to conduct his own
process of research and discovery. The Roman Catholic Church, however, has
usually put the learner firmly under the authoritative superordination of the
teacher. |
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John Locke, the 17th-century English philosopher, has been credited with
formulating the classical liberal defense of individual freedom against the
authorities of state and church. Opposed both to what he deemed the stagnation
of unreflective tradition and the perils of enthusiastic radicalism, Locke saw
science, reason, and experience as the best safeguards against these dangers.
Responding to the rise of the new bourgeoisie and the new science, he became the
principal spokesman for the increasingly powerful middle class, who were
predominantly skeptical and practical in their intellectual temper. The model of
the gentleman had traditionally been the English ideal of the educated person.
Locke's achievement was to take this ideal and modify it to a form acceptable to
the new bourgeoisie. Originally an aristocratic model, the gentleman ideal
became infused, under Locke's influence, with democratic, Puritan, and practical
characteristics. |
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Locke's notion of the mind at birth as a tabula rasa, a
"blank tablet" devoid of innate ideas, gave enormous importance to the
role of experience and sense perception in the educational process. In Some
Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) and the Conduct
of the Understanding (1706), Locke outlined the heavily experiential
education that would be appropriate for a gentleman. His four cardinal aims of
education, in order of importance, were virtue, wisdom, breeding, and learning.
Some critics have insisted that the order has remained important to the present
day in English education, that learning must always be lightly worn and never
ostentatious. Not only was Locke's thinking influential in shaping the
subsequent development of English educational thought, but his Puritan
individualism also had a considerable effect on the growth of American
educational ideals. Locke's failure to recognize the possibilities of the uses
of institutional power and legislation for interventions that would enhance
rather than restrict freedom was an omission that has often bedevilled American
educational thinking.
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Most movements in philosophy and education have seemed to engender their own
opposition. Hence, the rationalism and scientific objectivity of the
Enlightenment found a reaction in the subjectivity and emotional spontaneity of
romantic naturalism, the principal spokesman of
which was Jean-Jacques
Rousseau. In particular, Rousseau reacted against the excessive formalism
and rationalism of 18th-century France. Out of this reaction there came a model
of the educated person as the natural man, a figure presented in contrast to
what Rousseau saw as the pathetic products of contemporary civilization. Against
civilized values like rationalism, conscious reflection, control, complexity,
and objectivity, Rousseau offered his own values of romanticism, intuitive
spontaneity, freedom, simplicity, and subjectivity. |
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In ?ile (1762), one of the most influential books on education ever
written, Rousseau argued that one should protect the child from the corruptions
of civilization and carefully nurture his natural, spontaneous impulses, which
were always healthy. It was important, he maintained, to avoid premature
intellectualization of emotion so that the child's intellectual powers could
develop without distortion. Feeling should precede thinking, and the child
should be controlled only by things, not by adults' wills. In these ideas lay
some of the germs of progressive education, which spread throughout the world
during the 19th and 20th centuries. Constantly in tension with the classical
demands of reason, discipline, authority, and scholarship, the romantic
naturalism of the progressive-education
movement has continued to remind educators that their ultimate concern should
be the growth of the unique, ultimately unfathomable child. (see also "Emile:
or, On Education," ) |
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Probably the most influential writer of recent times was Karl
Marx, whose writings, mostly in collaboration with Friedrich
Engels, altered the course of history and continue to affect the lives of
millions of people in all parts of the world. A central concern of Marx and
Engels was to cure the alienation and dehumanization of man caused by what they
saw as the exploitative forces of capitalism. In Marx's writings, the material
dimension of history appeared as primary. Economic production was deemed the
basis of life, and the prevailing ideas (religious, educational, and political)
of a society were seen as being determined by its economic structure. The
dominant ideas of an epoch or society were considered to be the ideas of its
ruling class--that is, the class that controlled the means of material
production. In order to find the hidden interest behind an idea, Marx argued,
one had to examine its social function rather than its intellectual content.
Marx saw the need for a proletarian revolution in order to bring about
Communism. Under Communism, he argued, the opposition between the individual and
the group would disappear; each man's interests would be seen to be identical
with the interests of all, and alienation would be banished. (see also Index:
Marxism) |
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In Marx's view, what was needed for man's growth toward maturity was genuine
community; that is, the voluntary drawing together of autonomous and socially
responsible persons. The model of the educated person that Marx put forward was
not the irresponsible individualist nor the coerced collectivist but the
accountable communal man, who attained his freedom not by fleeing from social
relationship but through social relationships. Individual freedom
required social authority. |
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Marx's and Engels' writings, particularly Das Kapital (1867-94), The German Ideology
(London ed., 1938) and The
Communist Manifesto (1848), have reshaped the world. Millions have
been inspired by their vision of unalienated work and education. Unfortunately,
like many influential ideas, they have been abused and distorted. Several states
have tried to bring about a Communist utopia through collectivist coercion and
social manipulation in a distortion of Marx's arguments. There is a need for
state intervention to remove gross inequalities and to expand opportunities, in
Marx's view, but ultimately human regeneration is a task for each individual. |
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Out of the America that was created by immigration, urbanization, and
industrialization in the second half of the 19th century came the philosophy of Pragmatism.
Associated with such thinkers as C.S.
Peirce, William James, and John Dewey,
Pragmatism, as the dominant American philosophy, exerted a strong influence on
the shape of education in the United States, and affected educational ideas and
practices in Europe and Japan. In the hands of Dewey, Pragmatism evolved into a
philosophy that saw man as formed through interaction with his natural and
social environment. The educated person was always viewed by Dewey in a social
context. Neither the individual nor society had any meaning without the other.
Dewey created a model of the educated person as the reflective man, one who was
critical of the authority of custom and tradition as the determinant of belief
and action and who preferred the method of science, of "organized
intelligence" as the best way to solve his problems. |
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In My
Pedagogic Creed (1897), How We Think (1910), Democracy
and Education (1916), Human Nature and Conduct (1922), and a stream
of other philosophical and pedagogic writings, Dewey formulated a viewpoint that
constituted a rigorous intellectual core of the progressive-education movement,
although he criticized many of the manifestations of progressive pedagogy in
practice. For example, he viewed the child's interests as vitally important and
to be neither repressed nor humoured. To repress them was to commit the fault of
much traditional education by ignoring the child's unique bent. But to humour
them was to commit the fault of some progressive education by failing to
discover the underlying power below the passing whim. Subject matter, Dewey
argued, should consist of activities that enabled the child to reflect upon his
social experiences. When subject matter preceded or was unrelated to the child's
experiences, it was largely meaningless. It gained meaning through being made
the medium for continued reflection upon, and reconstruction of, experience.
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In the 20th century, the use of science has been extended to the study of
virtually all aspects of human affairs. The possibilities of scientific control
of men and events have brought profound changes in philosophy and education. By
studying only the behavioral aspects of man, science has been able to predict
and control in ways that have powerful and sometimes frightening implications.
The behaviourist view has been most notably represented by the American
psychologist
B.F. Skinner. In his writings, including the
utopian novel, Walden Two (1948),
Science and Human Behavior (1953), and Beyond
Freedom and Dignity (1971), he has firmly rejected the conventional
model of man as a free agent who acts in
accordance with the decisions of an inner self that is neither fully explicable
nor fully controllable by scientific means. Instead, Skinner envisages the use
of scientific knowledge about the control of human behaviour to create a planned
man, one who will be conditioned to behave in the way best calculated to achieve
society's goals. Behavioral engineering will have removed all of his antisocial
tendencies, and he will want only what is good for himself and his society.
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Behaviourism
in general and Skinner in particular have exerted considerable influence on
Western, and especially American, education through developments that range from
the invention of programmed instruction (or the so-called "teaching
machine") to the widespread emphasis on behavioral objectives in
educational programs. The philosophy of Behaviourism compels one to examine
carefully the issue of control in education. Skinner wants to use scientific
control to bring about a society in which it will be easy to be good and to
bring about an educational process through which it will be easy to be
excellent. There is no alternative to control, in his view. It is simply a
matter of who is to control. One does not grant the child
"freedom" merely by leaving him alone. To refuse to use scientific
control to shape human behaviour is, for the Behaviourist, a failure in
responsibility. |
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The application of science to ever more aspects of the study of man has been
particularly marked in the West; but, in reaction to this trend, there has
developed some criticism of the scientific way of viewing man as an object to be
categorized, studied objectively, or subsumed under a generalization. Prominent
in this reaction have been Existentialist
philosophers, among whom the Jewish philosopher, Martin
Buber, played an outstanding role in deepening contemporary understanding
of man and education. In such books as I
and Thou (1923) and Between Man and
Man (1947), Buber's model of the educated person appeared as one whose life
was shaped by existential decision making. Such a person did not determine
choices in advance of existential situations. He used principles and traditions
only as checks or reminders, not as infallible guides. His values were created
in the concrete here and now and were manifested as he related to other men.
Thus, each man was seen as a unique person rather than as a member of a
category.
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A vital concept for Buber was responsibility, viewed in terms of one's
response to another. Thus, the dialogue became a central focus in his
educational philosophy. The educated person was one who could listen as well as
talk. And since genuine dialogue depended upon authenticity, upon being rather
than seeming, one needed the courage to be oneself in relationships.
Buber also urged the recognition of a continuity between learning and life,
rather than the encouragement of knowledge for its own sake. He insisted that
learning be related to consequent action. Thus, for Buber, the educated person
was not one who merely had had his cognitive faculties trained but one whose
inmost spirit had been infused by what he had learned. |
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10.1.2.2.1
Conceptions
of what constitutes knowledge.
Although there is wide agreement that the assimilation of knowledge by the
learner is a principal goal of education, this agreement is more apparent than
real, because there is much disagreement about what constitutes knowledge.
Clearly, if one person identifies knowledge with information, his pedagogic
approach is likely to differ from that of one who identifies knowledge with a
process of thinking. Some philosophers have attempted to clarify a distinction
between "knowing that" (something is true or false) and "knowing
how" (to do or learn to discover something). The former emphasis is common
in educational programs that focus on the product--that is, on the information
that the learner has amassed and can reproduce at the end of his program. The
latter emphasis is common in programs that focus on the process--that is, on the
skills and attitudes that the learner has adopted that enable him to learn more. |
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Throughout history, the commonest way for knowledge to be communicated has
been through what can be loosely called apprenticeship. The one who does not
know (the apprentice) watches the one who does (the master); he imitates the
master, probably fails, watches again, tries again, and so on until he knows
what the master knows. This is primarily the way young people learn role
identity, for example--what it means to be a husband or wife, a father or
mother, a male or female. It is not an effective method for stimulating the
growth of new knowledge. A second method, one that has been time-honoured in
institutions of formal schooling, is telling. The one who knows (the teacher)
tells the one who does not (the student). The student listens, tries to
remember, and is usually required to reproduce his memorizations at some stage
so that the teacher can judge whether or not the knowledge has been assimilated.
This method is a much less effective way of communicating knowledge than would
be guessed from its prevalence as an educational practice. Other methods try to
remove the difficulties of human relationships from the act of communication by
removing one party from the scene. For example, the apprentice can watch the
master on film or videotape. Or the teacher can write his lectures in a book,
which the student can then read. Another method is that of the dialogue. Unlike
the previous methods, which imply superiority-inferiority relationships, this
method implies equality between the members of the dialogue. All may at
different moments be teachers or learners. The method assumes that all have some
knowledge to give and that all need to learn. |
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One of the commonest areas of disagreement among educational theorists
concerns what education should be for. Two broad divisions of opinion can be
identified. They are, first, that education should serve the needs of the
individual and second, that it should serve the needs of society. In
industrialized nations it is common for both of these goals to be held but for
different classes of the population. For the elite, the needs of the individual
tend to prevail, and thus upper-class schooling often tolerates diversity and
encourages idiosyncrasy. For the masses, the needs of society tend to dominate,
and schooling usually serves to prepare children to become obedient,
well-drilled, uncomplaining workers in industry and agriculture. In addition to
this dichotomy, there are many national and cultural variations. In France and
Germany, for example, there is a strong tendency to see the primary purpose of
education as some form of intellectual development, with the French lyc? and
the German Gymnasium
serving as characteristic institutions. In England, education has usually
been seen as primarily serving the purpose of character building. The English
public school is sometimes taken as an epitome of this emphasis. In Roman
Catholic and Communist countries, moral or religious training is usually the
primary purpose of education. Hence, every subject is imbued with religious (or,
if it is Marxism-Leninism, quasi-religious) content, and there is a constant
attempt to draw moral lessons from educational material. In the United States,
where large-scale immigration once brought the fear of social disintegration,
preparation for citizenship and development of national consciousness have
tended to be emphasized. Even today, nationalistic rituals such as displaying
flags and reciting the "Pledge of Allegiance" in classrooms
distinguish American schools from those in most other countries. |
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One of the controversies that most consistently divides educational theorists
is whether students should be clustered together with similar students for
instruction or whether instructional groups should be made deliberately diverse.
The criteria that are employed for differentiating students are manifold. They
include chronological age, mental age, IQ, skin colour, sex, social class,
geographical location, parental income, performance ability on various tests,
and so on. Some of these criteria, such as skin colour, are used
"officially" in some countries, such as South Africa, and
"unofficially" in others, such as the United States. Other criteria,
such as parental income, are used overtly in some schools (expensive, private
schools) and covertly in others (public schools located in expensive suburbs).
Some criteria, such as mental age, IQ, and performance ability, often have the
effect of separating rich from poor or elites from cultural minorities because
of the cultural content of the tests used. The customary arguments used in
favour of homogeneous grouping tend to emphasize speed and efficiency in
instruction and learning. Arguments in favour of heterogeneous grouping tend to
emphasize social outcomes, such as an enhanced understanding of others and
tolerance of diversity. |
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When education is viewed as a transaction between superior (the teacher) and
inferior (the student), questions of control invariably arise; e.g., can
students be relied upon to do what is best if they are not controlled by
teachers? Answers to this question refer back to assumptions about the nature of
man as learner. Those theorists who tend to see man as basically untrustworthy
will tend to find justification for a regimen of strict control over students,
in order to prevent their natural impulses from harming themselves and others.
Theorists who view man as basically trustworthy will tend to justify more
lenient, loose, and permissive systems of control. Most theorists would agree
that an important goal of discipline would be for the student to develop
self-discipline. But disagreement arises over whether one best learns
self-discipline through practice in obeying others or through practice in
commanding oneself. |
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In most cultures of the world, children from an early age seek to compete
against and to surpass their fellows. Whether this competitive spirit is innate
or whether it is acquired through the culture is at present unverifiable. The
question that divides education theorists, however, is whether these existing
competitive strivings should be encouraged or reduced. Some argue that, since
competition is endemic in the culture and since schooling should assimilate the
child to the culture, the school should encourage individual competition and
help children to develop the strengths necessary to compete successfully. On the
other hand, others argue that competitiveness in the culture is pernicious and
that schooling should not serve to adjust children to harmful aspects of the
culture but should foster cultural progress. Usually, the school is in conflict
over these two attitudes and gives mixed messages to students. As a result, the
students often suffer the double strain of trying to compete successfully but to
do so without appearing to compete. |
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Considerable disagreement exists over what should legitimately be studied in
formal institutions of learning. Usually some topics or subjects are considered
taboo. These taboos may come about through interpretations of the law, as in the
case of the exclusion of religious teaching from public schools in the United
States. Or they may come about as a result of pressure from interest groups, as
in the attempts to exclude sex education, teaching about Communism, and
sensitivity training from American schools. The major considerations are that
young children are not well equipped to resist heavy bias in teaching and that
they are usually compelled by law to attend school and thus constitute a captive
audience. It is sometimes argued, therefore, that they should be protected
against religious and political propaganda and against material or experiences
that require greater maturity to be handled creatively. On the other side, the
danger in such arguments is that they can be used to keep all controversy out of
schools and to render them places characterized by dull uniformity of thought.
(see also curriculum)
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