Instructor Comments: Student Name, You did not use the correct philosophies to evaluate your
movie. The page numbers were listed in the assessment packet. The philosophies you want to
concentrate on, are perennialism, essentialism, progressivism, existentialism and social
reconstructionism. I am going to allow you to rewrite this paper and send it back to me. You also need
to identify the type or types of philosophies you might follow when you are teaching. I would like to
have the new paper posted by the end of this week, April 1, 2011 at 5:00 P.M. Please post it on
Taskstream again.
Criteria
Score
Understanding of Material
1.00
Focus
1.00
Support
1.00
Mechanics
1.00
Structural Organization
1.00
5.00
Student Name
Instructor Name
EDCI 201
Thoughts on Education
March 1, 2011
Philosophy
In the movie Karate Kid, I am expecting the movie to have many different philosophies
such as: metaphysics, Ethics, and Epistemology. I never watched a movie and pointed out all the
Different philosophies that are in the movie so it should be interesting on what I come up with.
The Karate Kid has a lot epistemology philosophy from what I remember, he is always
questioning what is going on and is kind of unsure about what his sensei is teaching him at first.
Throughout the movie Karate Kid I noticed that there is a lot of ethics philosophy at the
beginning of the movie, for example when Daniel Larusso the main character of Karate Kid
moves to California from New Jersey. He is the new kid in his neighborhood so he is getting
picked on by his class mates who are attending a Karate School. At first Daniel gets into a lot of
fights because he does not fit in, but then the handy man at his apartments Mr. Miyagi tells
Daniel not to solve his problems by getting in fights, this is the first signs of philosophy I noticed
in the movie. There are also many different scenes that you will see that has to do with Ethics,
for example Mr. Miyagi is telling Daniel and asking him what is good and bad in this situation?
He makes Daniel think before he chooses to go out on his actions.
The Ethics in this movie has a huge part in Karate Kid. In the movie it shows a lot of
Daniel learning from his mistakes and learning what is valuable to him. Throughout the movie
Mr. Miyagi is showing Daniel how he has to thinks things through before he does it. Towards the
end of the movie you can see what he learned from Mr. Miyagi. The ethics Mr. Miyagi shows in
this movie helps and improves the way Daniel will live.
Daniel also experiences with metaphysics which is questioning what is going on. When
he first got there all of his class mates are picking on him he doesn’t know why? They all kept
following him and picking on him, the main reason they always made fun of him was because of
the way he talks and dresses. When he got there he questioned why he had to move to
California. He also questioned why everything seemed to happen to him. So those are just a few
examples from the movie of metaphysics.
Towards the middle of the movie I also noticed that there is epistemology philosophy,
which he is having a hard time seeing that Johnny is not a nice guy after all, he also notices that
his sensei isn’t so nice either. At first he thinks Johnny can be somewhat good and that he isn’t a
bad guy after all but after he keeps picking on him over and over again he realizes that he won’t
change. What he figured out he needed to do to figure out is that he needs to determine what will
make him better and not go down to his level. He starts knowing and figuring more out once Mr.
Miyagi starts telling him to start focusing.
In Karate Kid I also noticed that there is a lot of four shadowing as well, when Johnny
and his friends start telling him that he is going to pick on him. Than after they see that Daniel
went into the expensive karate school, Johnny saw that he wanted to start learning so he would
not get picked on as much if he could defend himself. So Johnny and his friends find him after
practice and they lead him on his bike down a hill, which leads him to fall and crash on his bike.
Than once he gets back up he throws his bike away and then continues to yell at his mom saying
why did we have to move here New Jersey was better which is another example of metaphysics.
He was questioning why everything seemed to happen the way it does.
So far in Karate Kid I did not notice much of aesthetics, there was not anything that had
to do with the art of music art or drama that I noticed. What I did notice a lot was logic, at first
Daniel wanted to get revenge but than Mr. Miyagi talked to him in his senses and told him to
find a valid conclusion to his problems and to not keep running or trying to solve them with
fighting. At first Daniel wanted to get revenge and learn karate for defending himself against
Johnny. But towards the end he wanted to get the art of Karate and not just use it for hurting or
getting revenge on anyone who picked on him. Once he starts learning karate from Mr. Miyagi,
he learns to deal with the process of reasoning, and Mr. Miyagi identifies rules that he needs to
learn if he wants to learn from him.
The last philosophy I noticed in the movie was axiology; I noticed when Mr. Miyagi had
an interest to teach Daniel. I knew it for a fact because he did not give up on him on Daniel. Mr.
Miyagi always wanted to help Daniel with his karate, but I noticed that he really had an interest
when he came into his shop and he caught a fly with two chop sticks on his fourth try. Daniel
also took interest in his plants when he was at his house. Daniel had an interest to learn, and Mr.
Miyagi was willing to help him as long as he stayed focused and did not fight or get into any
other trouble with Johnny and his friends. The axiology was clear, that Mr. Miyagi wanted to
teach and Danielson wanted to learn.
Throughout Karate Kid there were a lot of different philosophies that I recognized such
as metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, axiology and there was even logic. The main philosophy I
noticed throughout the movie was ethics, when he does not fit in with all of the other kids
because of the way he talks and the way he dresses. Once I knew what the different philosophies
were and meant it was a lot easier to notice in the movie to recognize. I was not much familiar
with all the different names of philosophy but now that I do know, I know it will help me in the
future when I want to become a teacher.