What is “Education”?

1. What is “Education”?

2. Two Large Schools of Thought • Traditionalism • Looking to the past for content and for guidance • Can be intellectual (see Hutchins, Maritain, McCambridge): Essentialism • Can be religious or philosophical or political (see Moses): Perennialism

3. Two Large Schools of Thought • Progressivism • Looking to the future • Either to prepare for a predicted future, or • To shape a desired future • Child-Centered Curriculum • Scientific Curriculum-Making • Social Reconstructionism

4. Essentialism • There is a body of knowledge that everyoneshould have: • The best of • Literature • History • Mathematics • Science • The arts

5. Essentialism • Hutchins: • The countries of the West appear determined to become industrial, scientific, and democratic. There have never been countries that were industrial, democratic, and scientific before....(so) the experience of earlier societies would be of little use to us in solving the problems of education

6. Essentialism • And yet there has always been an education that has been regarded as the best for the best. It has been regarded as the education for those who were to rule the state and for those who had leisure. • In the West, this education has gone by the name of liberal education. It has consisted of the liberal arts, the arts of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and figuring, and of the intellectual and artistic tradition that we inherit.

7. Essentialism • liberal education conformed to…the conception of man as a rational animal, an animal who seeks and attains his highest felicity through the exercise and perfection of his reason • Liberal education was characteristically western, because it assumed that everything was to be discussed. Liberal education aimed at the continuation of the dialogue that was the heart of western civilization. Western civilization is the civilization of the dialogue.

8. Essentialism • Liberal education was the education of rulers. It was the education of those who had leisure. Democracy and industry, far from making liberal education irrelevant, make it indispensable and possible for all the people. Democracy makes every man a ruler, for the heart of democracy is universal suffrage.

9. Essentialism • When I urge liberal education for all, I am not suggesting that all the people must become great philosophers, historians, scientists, or artists. I am saying that they should know how to read, write, and figure and that they should understand the great philosophers, historians, scientists, and artists. This does not seem to me an unattainable goal.

10. Essentialism • If it is, unless some better kind of liberal education can be invented than the one that I have described, we shall be forced to abandon universal suffrage; for I do not believe that men can solve the problems raised by their own aggregation unless they learn to think for themselves about the fundamental issues of human life and organized society.

11. Essentialism • ....it will be argued that a program of liberal education for all ignores the most important thing about men, and that is that they are different. I do not ignore it; I deny it. I do not deny that fact of individual differences; I deny that it is the most important fact about men or the one on which an educational system should be erected. • Men are different. They are also the same. And at least in the present state of civilization the respects in which they are the same are more important than those in which they are different.

12. Essentialism • Now, if ever, we need an education that is designed to bring out our common humanity rather than to indulge our individuality....In a modern, industrial, scientific democracy every man has the responsibility of a ruler and every man has the leisure to make the most of himself. What the modern, industrial, scientific democracy requires is wisdom. The aim of liberal education is wisdom. Every man has the duty and every man must have the chance to become as wise as he can.

13. Essentialism • In a single simple sentence, what is the purpose of liberal education/essentialism?

14. Perennialism • 1.    there is a body of moral and ethical beliefs that everyone should have • 2.    there is a set of virtues that everyone should practice • 3.    we know what these beliefs and virtues are • 4.    schools should inculcate these beliefs and encourage these virtues

15. Perennialism • Moses, e.g. • I have taught you decrees and laws…. that you may follow them • Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom • watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget • These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

16. Perennialism • These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. • Impress them on your children. • Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

17. Perennialism • In a single simple sentence, what is the purpose of Perennialism?

18. Child-Centered Curriculum • 1.    children are naturally good • 2.    children will naturally learn what they need to learn, when they need to learn it • 3.    the role of the adult is to "stay out of Nature's way" (G. Stanley Hall)

19. Child-Centered Curriculum 1.    Do away with mandatory teaching. People would get together if they wanted to learn. •         2.    Do away with examinations, grades, and credits. •         3.    The use of self-discovered, self-appropriated methods of learning. •         4.    The removal of traditional teaching methods, which cause the individual to distrust his own experiences, and to stifle learning.

20. Child-Centered Curriculum • Rogers • ....the task of the teacher is to create a facilitating classroom climate in which significant learning can take place. • (The teacher's) basic reliance would be upon the self-actualizing tendency in his students. The hypothesis upon which he would build is that students who are in real contact with life problems wish to learn, want to grow, seek to find out, hope to master, desire to create. He would see his function as that of developing such a personal relationship with his students, and such a climate in his class room, that these natural tendencies would come to their fruition.

21. Child-Centered Curriculum • Key words: • Facilitate • Nurture

22. Child-Centered Curriculum • In a single simple sentence, what is the purpose of the Child-Centered Curriculum?

23. Scientific Curriculum-Making • 1.    school is preparation for adult life 2.    school should be direct preparation for adult life • 3.    scientific means should be used to determine the activities of adult life • 4.    school curricula should be "made" on the basis of these scientific findings

24. Scientific Curriculum-Making • Bobbitt • "Education is primarily of interest to adulthood, not to childhood. We simply utilize childhood as the time of preparing for the fifty years of adulthood.“ • Dewey on SC-C: "the constant impression that nothing is worth doing in itself, but only as a preparation for something else, which in turn in only getting ready for some genuinely serious end beyond….

25. Scientific Curriculum-Making • McCambridge • the real goal….was a modification of the state of things only to the point that would preserve the status quo from the dangers posed by the oligarchy and the mob

26. Social Reconstructionism • 1.    capitalism is destructive, of the individual and of the community • 2.    capitalism will eventually lead to the domination of the many by the few • 3.    schools indoctrinate in something anyway; therefore, schools shouldindoctrinate students into a belief in collectivism and cooperation,rather than a belief in capitalism and competition.

27. Social Reconstructionism • Later versions of SR: • Social racial integration through integration of the schools • Various versions of multi-culturalism

28. Social Reconstructionism • In a single simple sentence, what is the purpose of Social Reconstructionism?

29. Philosophy of Education and Educational Leadership • “Leadership” necessarily implies taking a group of people someplace specific • “Management” means maintaining the status quo • If you choose to lead, the question is, Where? • For educators, the answer to that question comes from a philosophy of education