MODULE 2
PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE
CURRICULUM
INTRODUCTION
A critical function of the philosophy of education is to give guiding
principles and directives to knowledge concerning the aims of education by
which they are actualized. Such a philosophy should necessarily give the basic
principles to give an answer to the philosophical question, “What subject matter,
experiences, and worthwhile activities are essential to realize the raison d’etre
(reason for living) of the school?”
The curriculum is considered an important aspect of the science of
education. It is the content of education. It is the medium through which a
philosophy of life is transformed into reality. It converts potency into act. It
mirrors the wisdom of the ages and the findings of thinkers, educators, and
researchers in the field of education. The curriculum is held to reflect the values
of society and the medium through which those values are being transmitted from
one generation to the next.
The curriculum includes all the experiences of the learner for which the
school assumes responsibility. In its broadest sense, the curriculum can be
defined as the organized experiences that a student has under the guidance and
control of the school. In a more precise and restricted sense, the curriculum is
the systematic sequence of the courses or subjects that form the school’s formal
instructional program.
For the traditional philosophies, the major goal of education is the
transmission and preservation of the cultural heritage. A curriculum consists of
skills and subject matter, the necessary tools in transmitting, in learnable units,
to the immature for the survival of civilization. The subject matter is arranged in
a hierarchy, with priority given to subjects regarded as more general, hence,
more significant. The more recent philosophies are more concerned with the
process of learning. The curriculum which follows this idea makes use of
activities and projects, and experimental and problem solving modes that are
determined by the learner’s interests and needs.
General Objective
To know and understand the philosophy of education as a foundation to
the study of curriculum development.
Specific Objectives. After reading this module, you are expected to:
1. Know and understand the major philosophies and theories of
education.
2. Analyze the major philosophies and theories of education in three
aspects: aim, curriculum, and methods of instruction.
3. Explain the relationship between the philosophical foundation of
education and the curriculum.
4. Answer the questions found at the last page of this module number.
Philosophy
Meaning of Philosophy
Philosophy in its literal sense means love of wisdom. In its broadest
sense, philosophy is man’s attempt to think most speculative, reflectively, and
systematically about the universe in which he lives and his relationship to that
universe. Its remarkable feature is its effort to evaluate the sum total of human
experience. Philosophy adds no new facts to existing knowledge. It examines the
facts provided by scientists and analyzes the meaning, interpretation,
significance and value of these facts. Most will accept the ideas that philosophy
is a systematic and logical examination of life so as to frame a system of general
ideas of which the sum total of human experience may be evaluated.
If education is to promote change for the better, than education has to turn
to philosophy to determine what that “better” is for a particular segment of
society or for society as a whole. Educational philosophy then is the application
of philosophy to the study of all factors affecting the aims and goals of education,
its method, content and organization in terms of human values as they affect the
nature and purpose of man and society.
Areas of Philosophy
Metaphysics deals with the nature of reality and existence. Idealists see
reality in non-material or spiritual terms; realists see reality in an objective
order in educational philosophy; metaphysics relates reality to the content,
experiences and skills in the curricula. The social and natural sciences are good
venues in teaching reality to the learner.
Epistemology deals with the nature of knowledge and knowing and is
closely related to methods of teaching and learning. Idealists see knowing or
cognitive learning as the recall of ideas that are latent in the mind. The most
appropriate method is the Socratic-method where the teacher stimulates the
students by asking leading questions which elicit, ideas hidden in the learner’s
mind. A teacher who used the realist’s formula of sensation and abstraction
would develop classroom activities that utilize sensory stimuli. The pragmatists
believe that people learn by interacting with the environment; hence, problem
solving is a very appropriate method of teaching and learning.
Axiology deals with values. Axiology is divided into ethics and aesthetics.
Ethics examines moral values and the rules of right conduct. Aesthetics deals
with values, in beauty and art Parents, teachers and society reward certain
preferred behavior and punish behavior that deviates from the concept of what is
good, right and beautiful. Idealists and realists agree that the good, the beautiful
and the right are universally valid in all places at all times while pragmatists
believe that values are relative and vary in time and place.
PHILOSOPHIES OF EDUCATION
Idealism
Idealism is a philosophy that proclaims the spiritual nature of men and the
universe. Its basic viewpoint stresses the human spirit, soul or mind as the most
important element in life. It holds that the good, true, and beautiful are
permanently part of the structure of a related coherent, orderly, and unchanging
universe. In idealism, all of reality is reducible to one fundamental substancespirit. Matter is not real. It is only the mind that is real.
Educational Implications of Idealism:
Aim of Education – to contribute to the development of mind and self, the
school should emphasize intellectual abilities, moral, judgments, aesthetics, selfrealization, individual freedom, individual responsibility and self-control.
Curriculum – a body of intellectual subject matter which is ideational and
conceptual on subjects which are essential for the realization of mental and moral
development. Subject matter should be made constant for all. Mathematics,
history, and literate rank high in relevance since they are not only cognitive but
value-laden.
Methodology – methods to be used in instruction should encourage
accumulation of knowledge and thinking and must apply criteria for moral
evaluation. Although learning is a product of learner’s own activity, the learning
process is made more efficient by the stimulation which comes from the teacher
and school environment. The idealist teacher should be conversant with a variety
of methods and should use the particular method that is most effective in
securing the desired results. Suggested methods are questioning and discussion,
lecture and of course, the project, whether done singly or in group.
Teacher-Learner Relationship. The teacher must be excellent mentally and
morally in personal conduct and convictions. The teacher must exercise creative
skills and providing opportunities for pupil’s minds to analyze, discover,
synthesize and create. The learner is immature and is seeking the perspective
into his own personality. The teacher should see his role in assisting the learner
to realize the fullness of his own personality.
Realism
Realism may be defined as any philosophical position that asserts:
1. The objective existence of the world and begins in it and relations between
these begins independent of human knowledge and desires;
2. The know ability of these objects as they are in themselves;
3. The need for conformity to the objective reality in man’s conduct.
Realists refer to those universal elements of man that are unchanging
regardless of time, place and circumstance. It is these universals that make up
the elements in the education of man. According to the realists, education implies
teaching, teaching implies knowledge, knowledge is truth and truth is the same
everywhere. Hence, education should be everywhere the same.
Educational Implications of Realism
Aim of Education
The aim of the education is to provide the student with the essential
knowledge he will need to survive in the natural world.
Curriculum
The realists believe that the most efficient and effective way to find out
about reality is to study it through organized, separate, and systematically
arranged subject matter. This is called the subject-matter approach to
curriculum which is composed of two basic components, the body of knowledge
and the appropriate pedagogy to fit the readiness of the learner. The liberal arts
curriculum and the math science disciplines consist of a number of related
concepts that constitute the structure of the discipline.
Methodology
The teacher is expected to be skilled in both the subject matter that he
teaches and the method of teaching it to students. Formal schooling means the
transmission of knowledge from experts to the young and immature. The school’s
task is primarily an intellectual one. The administrator’s role is to see to it that
the teachers are not distracted by recreational and social functions from
performing their intellectual task of cultivating and stimulating the learning
students. In the elementary level, emphasis is on the development of skills for
reading, writing, arithmetic and study habits. In the secondary and collegiate
level, the body of knowledge regarded as containing the wisdom of the human
race will have to be transmitted in an authoritarian manner. Students will be
required to recall, explain, compare, interpret and make inferences. Evaluation is
essential, making use of objective measures. Motivation will be in the form of
rewards to reinforce what has been learned.
Teacher-Learner Relationship
The teacher is a person who possesses a body of knowledge and who is
capable of transmitting it to students. This is the kind of relationship stressed in
realism. Teaching should not be indoctrinating. Learning should be interactive.
The teacher utilizes pupil interest by relating subject matter to student
experiences. The teacher maintains discipline by reward, and control the pupil by
activity.
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is derived from the Greek word pragma, meaning ‘a thing done,
a fact that is practiced’. This doctrine claims that the meaning of a proposition or
idea lies in its practical consequences. This philosophy stresses that education
has been in vain if it does not perform the social functions assigned to it, and
unless it is considered as a social institution in itself.
The pragmatists claim that society cannot fulfill an educational task
without an institution designed for this purpose. The school must maintain
intimate relations with society if its role is to be played well. They also assert
that the school should aim to be specialized institution with three features: (1)
designed to represent society to the child in simplified forms; (2) selective in a
qualitative, if not ethical, manner as it represents society to the young; and (3)
responsible in giving the child a balanced and genuinely representative
acquaintance with society.
Educational Implications of Pragmatism
Aim of Education
The aim of education, as far as the pragmatists are concerned, is the total
development of the child either through experience, self-activity, or learning by
doing.
Curriculum
The pragmatists suggested that the curriculum must offer subjects that
will provide opportunities for various projects and activities that are relevant to
the needs, abilities, and interest as well as the socio-economic conditions of the
learners.
Methodology
Pragmatists believed that the learner must be made the center of all
educative processes – a concept based on Dewey’s tenet that education is life,
education is growth, education is a social process, and education is the
construction of human experience.
EDUCATIONAL THEORIES
Perennialism
“Human nature never changes; therefore good education should not
change either”. The perennialist believes that the great ideas, which have lasted
for centuries, are still relevant today and should be the focus of education.
Perennialism is an educational theory that is greatly influenced by the principles
of realism. It has a conservative/traditional view of human nature and education.
Perennialists contend that truth is universal and unchanging, and, therefore, a
good education is also universal and constant.
Aim of Education
For Perennialists, the aim of education is to ensure that students acquire
understandings about the great ideas of Western civilization. These ideas have
the potential for solving problems in any era.
The perennialists have for their aim the education of the rational person.
The central aim of education should be develop the power of thought. They view
the universal aim of education as the search for and dissemination of truth. They
look up to the school as an institution designed to develop human intelligence.
Robert Hutchins, a most articulate spokesperson of perennialism, argued
that education ought to cultivate the intellect as well as the harmonious
development of all human faculties. The central aim of education should be to
develop the power of thought. He also described the ideal education as one that
develops intellectual power.
Curriculum
The focus is to teach ideas that are everlasting, to seek enduring truths
which are constant, not changing, as the natural and human worlds as their most
essential level, do not change. Teaching these unchanging principles is critical.
Humans are rational beings, and their minds need to develop. Thus, cultivation of
the intellect is the highest priority in a worthwhile education. The demanding
curriculum focuses on attaining cultural literacy, stressing students’ growth in
enduring disciplines. The loftiest accomplishments of humankind are emphasized
– the great works of literature and art, the laws or principles of science.
The perennialist view education as a recurring process based on eternal
truths; thus, the school’s curriculum should emphasize the recurrent themes of
human life. It should contain cognitive subjects that cultivate rationality and the
study of moral, aesthetic, and religious principles to develop the attitudinal
dimension. The perennialists prefer a subject matter curriculum which includes
history, language, mathematics, logic, literature, the humanities, and science.
Robert Hutchins’ educational philosophy is based on the premise that
human nature is rational, and knowledge resides in unchanging, absolute, and
universal truths. He stressed that education must be universal because the
rationality of human nature is universal. Hutchins advocated a curriculum that
consisted of permanent, of perennial studies. He strongly recommended the
study of the classics, or the great works of Western Civilization. He believed that
reading and discussing great books cultivated the intellect and prepared students
to think carefully and critically. In addition to these classics he advocated the
study of grammar, rhetoric, logic, mathematics, and philosophy.
Summing up, perennialism represents a conservative theoretical view
centered in the authority of tradition and the classics. Among its major
educational principles are:
1. Truth is universal and does not depend on the circumstances of place,
time, or person;
2. A good education involves a search for and an understanding of the
truth;
3. Truth can be found in the great work of civilization; and
4. Education is a liberal exercise that develops the intellect.
Method
The curriculum of a perennialist education would be subject-centered,
drawing heavily upon the disciplines of literature, mathematics, language, history
and the humanities. The perennialists suggest that the best means to attaining
this enduring knowledge is through the study of the great books of Western
Civilization. The method of study would be the reading and discussion of these
great works which, in turn, discipline, discipline the mind. The teacher,
accordingly, must be the one who has mastered discipline, who is a master
teacher in terms of guiding truth, and whose character is beyond reproach. The
teacher is to be viewed as authority and his expertise not to be questioned. The
role of the school becomes one of training intellectual elite who will one day take
charge of passing this on to a new generation of learners.
Advocates of this educational philosophy are Robert Maynard Hutchins
who developed a Great Books program in 1963 and Mortimer Adler, who further
developed this curriculum based on 100 great books of western civilization.
Essentialism
Essentialism is a traditional approach to education that is often referred to
as “Back to the Basics”. Basically, the essentialists were concerned with a revival
of efforts in the direction of teaching the fundamental tools of learning as the
most indispensable type of education. Essentialists believe that there is a
common core of knowledge that needs to be transmitted to student in a
systematic, disciplined way. The emphasis in this conservative perspective is on
intellectual and moral standards that schools should teach.
Aim of Education
The essentialists have as there ultimate aim “to fit the man to perform.
Justly, skillfully and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of
peace and war”.
The indispensable cultural objectives of humanity, the essentials are goals
that must be achieved – sometimes incidentally – but more often by direct
instruction. Informal learning helps, but this should only be supplementary and
secondary. The essentialists believe that the essential skills, knowledge and
attitude needed by the individual in making has adjustment to the realities of life
should be systematically planned so that these recognized essentials will be
recognized. They emphasize the authority of the teachers and the value of a
subject matter curriculum.
The essentialists prescribe the following rubrics for their educational
program:
1.A fix curriculum
2. Certain minimum “essentials” literature, mathematics, history, etc
3. Preconceived educational values; and
4. Education as individual adaptation to an absolute knowledge which
exists independently of individuals.
Curriculum
The core of the curriculum is essential knowledge and skills and academic
rigor. Although, this educational philosophy is similar in some ways to
perennialism. Essentialists accept the idea that this core curriculum may change.
Schooling should be practical, preparing students to become valuable members of
the society. It should be focus on facts – the objective reality out there – and
“the basic”, training students to read, write, speak, and compute clearly and
logically. Schools should not to set or influence policies. Students should be
taught hard work, respect for authority, and discipline. Teachers are to help
students keep their non-productive instincts in check, such as aggression or
mindlessness.
The essentialist curriculum includes the traditional disciplines of math,
history, natural science, foreign languages and literature. Vocational education
and philosophy are considered unnecessary. An essentialist curriculum
emphasizes the importance of traditional moral values that students need to
become upstanding citizens. The essentialist academic program is quite rigorous.
The essentialists believe that the intellectual disciplines are the necessary
foundations of modern life. The school has the responsibility to channel the
accumulated experiences of humankind into organized, coherent and
differentiated disciplines. Mastering these basic disciplines will enable the
student to use them in solving personal, social and civic problems.
Among the common themes found in the essentialists point of view are:
(1) the elementary school curriculum should aim to cultivate basic tool skills that
contribute to literacy and mastery of arithmetical computation; (2) the secondary
curriculum should cultivate competencies in history, mathematics, science,
English and foreign languages; (3) schooling requires discipline and a respect for
legitimate authority; and (4) learning requires hard work and disciplined
attention.
Method
Classrooms are oriented around the teacher with little concern for student
interests. Achievement test scores are relied on as a means of evaluating
progress. The intent of an essentialist curriculum is to mold students, who upon
graduation, will possess basic skills, have knowledge of a variety of subjects and
be ready to apply what they have learned to the real world.
Essentialists do not believe in building up generalization by the slow
method of induction, but rather in properly guiding pupils in a few hours or days
in the acquisition of general laws and principles then using these laws and
principles in the solution of immediate and pressing problems. The essentialists
are concerned with the most effective methods of forming habits and developing
skills; thus, drill has a definite place in the classroom.
The essentialists emphasize the necessity of teaching pupils how to think
systematically and effectively. They believe that effective thinking cannot take
place by looking at the world en masse or by picking up knowledge piecemeal.
Methods of systematic analysis and systematic synthesis must be used; the
essential elements of knowledge must be separated from the worthless chaff, and
these essentials must be organized into meaningful wholes, with close attention
to the interrelationships of each these entities.
The essentialists recognize that interest is a strong motivating force in
learning. Learning, however, that is not immediately appealing and interesting to
the child should not be totally eliminated from the child’s education. The more
valuable and more permanent interests may grow out of efforts that are at first
disagreeable and monotonous. It is the duty of the teacher to help the learner
grow into these higher interests rather than limit all school activities to those
ephemeral things that appeal only to natural and childish interest. During the
immature years of childhood and youth there is a need for competent,
sympathetic and firm teachers to help them see the truth and to help them adjust
themselves to inexorable facts.
In this view, teachers should be restored to instructional authority. They
must be well-prepared, and held accountable for the children’s failure to learn.
Instruction should be geared to organized learning. The method of instruction
should center on regular assignments, homework, recitations, and frequent
testing and evaluation.
Proponents of Essentialism are: William Bagley, James D. Koerner, H.G.
Rickover, Paul Copperman, and Theodore Sizer.
Progressivism
The educational theory of progressivism is in contrast to the traditional
views of essentialism and perennialism. Thaïs movement was a part of a larger
sophisticated movement of general reform that characterized American life in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries. This movement often associated with John
Dewey’s pragmatism or experimentalism, stressed the view that all learning
should center on the child’s interests and needs.
In Dewey’s “Democracy and Education” he expounded that a truly
progressive education needed a philosophy based upon experience, the
interaction of the person with his environment. Such an experiential philosophy
should have not set of external aims, but, rather, the end product of education
was growth-an-on-going experience which led to the direction and control of
subsequent experience. Truly progressive education should not ignore the past
but use it to direct future experiences.
Aim of Education
The aim of progressive education is to meet the needs of a growing child.
The school should be a pleasant place for learning. While the progressivists
differed in many of their theories and practices, they were united in their
opposition to the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Extreme reliance on bookish methods of instruction
Obtaining learning by memorization of factual data
The use of fear as a form of discipline; and
The four-walled philosophy of education that isolated the school from
the realities of life.
Curriculum
Curriculum content is derived from student interests and questions. The
scientific method is used by progressivist educators so that students can study
matter and events systematically and first hand. The emphasis is on processhow one comes to know. John Dewey was its foremost proponent. One of his
tenets was that the school should improve the way of life of our citizens through
experiencing freedom and democracy in schools. Shared decision making,
planning of teachers with students, student-selected topics are all aspects. Books
are tools, rather than authority.
Progressivists generally were not interested in a prepared, prescribed
curriculum to transmit knowledge to students. Rather, the curriculum was to
come from the child so that learning would be active, exciting and varied. The
content of subject matter was done by the teacher and the students as a group
project or cooperative effort. Students’ projects were based of their common
shared experiences thereby rejecting barriers of class, race, or creed. The
teacher served as facilitator while the students worked on their projects and
suggested other ways of pursuing the project.
Progressive education left a legacy characterized by:
1. Emphasis on the child as the learner, rather than on the subject matter;
2. Stress on the child as the learner, rather than on textbook reliance and
memorization;
3. Cooperative learning, rather than competitive lesson learning;
4. Absence of fear and punishment for disciplinary purposes.
Method
Progressivists believe that education should focus on the whole child,
rather than on the other content or the teacher. This educational philosophy
stresses that students should test ideas by active experimentation. Learning is
rooted in the questions of learners that arise through experiencing the world. It
is active, not passive. The learner is a problem solver and thinker who make
meaning through his or her individual experience in the physical and cultural
context. Effective teachers provide experiences so that students can learn by
doing.
Reconstructionism
While the progressivists emphasized the individuality of the child, the
reconstructionists were more concerned with social change. Reconstructionists
believe that schools should originate policies and progress which would bring
about reform of the social order, and teachers should use their power to lead the
young in the program of social reform. Reconstructionists agree the educational
philosophies are culturally based and grow out of a specific cultural pattern
conditioned by living at a given time in a particular place. They believe that
culture is dynamic, that man can re-shape his culture so that it promotes
optimum possibilities for development.
Reconstructionists say that mankind is in a state of cultural crisis. If
schools are to reflect their culture, then education will merely transmit social ills.
As society moves from the agricultural and rural to the technological and urban,
there is a serious lag in cultural adaptation to the realities of a technological
society.
Society has to reconstruct its values, and education has a major role to
play in bridging the gap between the values of culture and technology. It is the
school’s task to encourage the critical examination of the cultural heritage and
find the elements that are to be discarded and those that have to be modified.
Aim of Education
Education, for the reconstructionists, aims awaken the students’
consciousness about social problems and to actively engage them in problem
solving. Teachers and schools should initiate a critical examination of their own
culture. The schools should identify controversies and inconsistencies and try to
solve real life problems. Reconstructionists believe that there is now a need for
international independence. Pollution and nuclear wars are not restricted to a
single place but are international in scope.
Curriculum
The reconstructionist curriculum should include learning to live in a global
milieu. As a result of this orientation, reconstructionists propose educational
policies related to national and international problems as a means of reducing
world conflict.
The school, therefore, becomes the center of controversy where students
and teachers emphasize and encourage discussion of controversial issues in
religion, economics, politics and education; these discussions are not simply
intellectual exercises.
Method
The reconstructionist generally would seek to internationalize the
curriculum so that men and women would learn that they live in a global village.
Schools and teachers become social engineers plotting the course of action to
arrive at the defined goal. Classroom methods will be problem oriented –
students are asked to critically examine cultural heritage. Teachers as well as
students discuss controversial issues and they are encouraged to commit
themselves and become active in social change. Students and teachers
participate in a definite program of social, educational, political and economic
change as a means of total cultural renewal. The classroom becomes s laboratory
to experiment on school practices which will enable man to deal with problems of
acute cultural crisis and social disintegration.
Existentialism
Existentialism is a way of viewing and thinking about life in the world so
that priority is given to individualism and subjectivity. The existentialists believe
that the human being is the creator of his own essence; he creates his own
values through freedom of choice or individual preference. The most important
king of knowledge is about the realities of human life and the choices that each
person has to make. Education is the process of developing awareness about the
freedom of choice and the meaning and responsibility for one’s choice.
Aim of Education
Education should cultivate an intensity of awareness in the learner.
Students should learn to recognize that as individuals they are constantly, freely,
baselessly, and creatively choosing. Education should be concerned with
effective experiences, with these elements of experience which are subjective
and personal. The goals of education cannot be specified in advance nor can they
be imposed by the teacher of the school system. Each man has the responsibility
for his own education.
Curriculum
Subjects are merely tools for the realization of subjectivity. Learning is
not found in the structure of knowledge nor in organized discipline, but in the
student’s willingness to choose and give meaning to the subject. Literature and
the humanities are important in the existentialist curriculum. Literature is useful
and relevant for awakening choice-making in basic human concerns. History is
important in finding out how men in the past have faced and answered recurrent
human questions like guilt, love, suffering or freedom. The arts stimulate
aesthetic expression, not merely imitate styles of selected models. Humanistic
studies are rich sources of ethical values.
Method
Stressing individual subjectivity, the existentialist educator aims to
develop a sense of awareness and responsibility in students. The teachers may
choose a variety of methods, although whatever method is used should not
obscure the relationship between teacher and learner. In questions and answers,
sometimes the teachers does not know the answer, but the best question would
be one that awakens the students’ awareness of the ethical and aesthetic aspects
of existence. The school, therefore, is a place where teachers and learners
discuss human life and where they are given opportunities to choose solutions.
Summary
Philosophy provides a framework for organizing schools and individual
learning activities. It answers questions about the school’s purpose, subjects, and
how students learn. Moreover, it is the base or starting point in curriculum
development.
There are three major branches or areas of philosophy; metaphysics,
epistemology, and axiology.
Metaphysics is concerned with questions about the nature of reality.
Metaphysics literally means “beyond the physical”’ and deals with such questions
as, “What is reality?” Metaphysics is the attempt to find coherence in the whole
realm of thought and experience.
In the world of the classroom teacher, classroom management is probably
most affected by metaphysical beliefs.
Epistemology is concerned with questions about the nature of knowledge.
Epistemologist attempts to discover what is involved in the process of knowing.
Is knowing a special type of mental act? Can people know anything beyond the
objects with which their senses acquaint them?
Epistemological beliefs surface in curricular and instructional decisions.
Teachers must understand how students learn and what the curriculum dictates
they need to learn.
Axiology is concerned with questions about the nature of values. This
study of values is divided into ethics (moral values and conduct) and aesthetics
(values in the realm of beauty and art).
Classroom teachers must decide if ethics should be taught in school.
Teachers’ ethical beliefs effect decisions concerning discipline and grading.
Aesthetics can effect decisions concerning what types of art/artistic endeavors
should or should not be a part of the curriculum.
There are eight major philosophies and theories of education: Idealism,
Realism,
Pragmatism,
Perennialism,
Essentialism,
Progressivism,
Reconstructionism, and Existentialism.
Idealism. Idealists believe that the material word is constantly changing,
that ideas are not only true reality, and that ideas endure through time.
Idealist teachers see certain subjects as especially powerful in stimulating
thinking and developing identification with cultural heritage. A body of
intellectual subject matter which is ideational and conceptual on subjects which
are essential for the realization of mental and moral development. Subject matter
should not be made constant for all. Mathematics, history, and literature rank
high in relevance since they are not only cognitive but value-laden.
Realism. Realists refer to the universal elements of man that are
unchanging regardless of time, place and circumstance. Education implies
teaching, teaching implies knowledge, knowledge is truth and truth is the same
everywhere.
The realists believe that the most efficient and effective way to find out
about reality is to study it through organized, separate, and systematically
arranged subject matter. This is called the subject-matter approach to
curriculum which is composed of two basic components, the body of knowledge
and the appropriate pedagogy.
Pragmatism. The pragmatist teacher believes strongly the importance of
the practical application of knowledge. Students in a pragmatic classroom
demonstrate success through such skills as problem solving and application of
the scientific method. Constructivism is based on pragmatism.
Perennialism. Perennialism represents a conservative theoretical view
centered in the authority of tradition and the classics. Among its major
educational principles are: (1) truth is universal and does not depend on the
circumstances of place, time, or person; (2) a good education involves a search
for and an understanding of the truth; (3) truthcan be found in the great work of
civilization; and (4) education is a liberal exercise that develops the intellect.
Essentialism focuses on teaching whatever academic and moral knowledge
is needed for children to become productive citizens. Essentialism is another
conservative educational theory and arose in opposition to progressive
education. Essentialists urge that schools get back to the basics. They believe in the
strong core curriculum and high academic standards. Essentialism’s goals are to
transmit the cultural heritage and develop good citizens. School is s place where
children come to learn what they need to know, and the teacher is the person
who can best instruct students in essential matters. Concentrates on subject
matter that includes literature, history, foreign languages, mathematics, natural
sciences, and religion.
Progressivism is based largely on the belief that lessons must seem
relevant to the students in order for them to learn. Consequently, the curriculum
of a progressivist school is built around the personal experiences, interests, and
needs of the students. The teaxher is the “guide on the side”, not the “sage on
the stage.” Progressivists favor instructional strategies such as cooperative
learning and stimulations where students take the lead.
Reconstructionism is an educational theory that calls on schools to teach
people to control institutions and to be organized according to democratic ideals.
Contemporary reconstructionists view schools as vehicles for social change.
Students should be taught to analyze world events, explore controversial issues,
and develop a vision for a new and better world.
Existentialism. The existentialists believe that the human being is the
creator of his own essence; he creates his own values through freedom of choice
or individual preference. The most important kind of knowledge is about the
realities of human life and the choices that each person has to make. Education is
the process of developing awareness about the freedom of choice and the
meaning and responsibility for one’s choice. Subjects are merely tools for the
realization of subjectivity. Learning is not found in the structure of knowledge
nor in organized discipline, but in the students’ willingness to choose and give
meaning to the subject. Literature and the humanities are important in the
existentialist curriculum.
Questions to Answer
1. How does philosophy influence the curriculum?
2. What are the principles of educational philosophies such as Idealism,
Realism,
Pragmatism, Perennialism, Essentialism, Progressivism,
Reconstructionism, and Existentialism?
3. Which educational philosophy is best suited of today’s curriculum in the
elementary, secondary schools? Why?