Introduction to Educational Philosophy

In modern times there are opposing views about the practice of education. There is no general agreement about what the young should learn either in relation to virtue or in relation to the best life; nor is it clear whether their education ought to be directed more towards the intellect than towards the character of the soul.... And it is not certain whether training should be directed at things useful in life, or at those conducive to virtue, or at non-essentials.... And there is no agreement as to what in fact does tend towards virtue. Men do not all prize most highly the same virtue, so naturally they differ also about the proper training for it.   Aristotle
 

Aristotle's statement made so many years ago gets to the heart of the intent of educational philosophy.  Educational philosophy poses such questions as:

• What knowledge is of most worth?  (in other words, what should we teach?)
• What should be the aims of education?
• How do people learn?
• What should the relationship between teacher and learner look like?

Attempts to answer these sorts of questions can be divided into a number of philosophically grounded theories of education.  We will look briefly at 6 philosophical perspectives on education: essentialism, perennialism, progressivism, existentialism, reconstructionism, and critical pedagogy.

ESSENTIALISM

 Gripping and enduring interests frequently grow out of initial learning efforts that are not appealing or attractive.  William Bagley
 

Essentialism refers to the "traditional" or "Back to the Basics" approach to education. It is so named because it strives to instill students with the "essentials" of academic knowledge and character development. The term essentialism as an educational philosophy was originally popularized in the 1930s by the American educator William Bagley (1874-1946). The philosophy itself, however, had been the dominant approach to education in America from the beginnings of American history. Early in the twentieth century, essentialism was criticized as being too rigid to prepare students adequately for adult life. But with the launching of Sputnik in 1957, interest in essentialism revived. Among modern supporters of this position are members of the President's Commission on Excellence in Education. Their 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, mirrors essentialist concerns today.
 

Underlying Philosophical Basis

American essentialism is grounded in a conservative philosophy that accepts uncritically the social, political, and economic structure of American society. It contends that schools should not try to radically reshape society. Rather, essentialists argue, American schools should transmit the traditional moral values and intellectual knowledge that students need to become model citizens. Essentialists believe that teachers should instill such traditional American virtues as respect for authority, perseverance, fidelity to duty, consideration for others, and practicality.

Reflecting its conservative philosophy, essentialism tends to accept the philosophical views associated with the traditional, conservative elements of American society. For example, American culture traditionally has placed tremendous emphasis on the central importance of the physical world and of understanding the world through scientific experimentation.  As a result, to convey important knowledge about our world, essentialist educators emphasize instruction in natural science rather than non-scientific disciplines such as philosophy or comparative religion.
 

The Essentialist Classroom

Essentialists urge that the most essential or basic academic skills and knowledge be taught to all students. Traditional disciplines such as math, natural science, history, foreign language, and literature form the foundation of the essentialist curriculum. Essentialists frown upon vocational, lift-adjustment, or other courses with "watered down" academic content.

Elementary students receive instruction in skills such as writing, reading, measurement, and computers. Even while learning art and music, subjects most often associated with the development of creativity, the students are required to master a body of information and basic techniques, gradually moving from less to more complex skills and detailed knowledge. Only by mastering the required material for their grade level are students promoted to the next higher grade.

Essentialist programs are academically rigorous, for both slow and fast learners. The report A Nation at Risk reflects the essentialist emphasis on rigor. It calls for more core requirements, a longer school day, a longer academic year, and more challenging textbooks. Moreover, essentialists maintain that classrooms should be oriented around the teacher, who ideally serves as an intellectual and moral role model for the students. The teachers or administrators decide what is most important for the students to learn and place little emphasis on student interests, particularly when they divert time and attention from the academic curriculum. Essentialist teachers focus heavily on achievement test scores as a means of evaluating progress.

In an essentialist classroom, students are taught to be "culturally literate," that is, to possess a working knowledge about the people, events, ideas, and institutions that have shaped American society. Reflecting the essentialist emphasis on technological literacy, A Nation at Risk recommends that all high school students complete at least one semester of computer science. Essentialists hope that when students leave school, they will possess not only basic skills and an extensive body of knowledge, but also disciplined, practical minds, capable of applying schoolhouse lessons in the real world.

PERENNIALISM

The Paideia Program seeks to establish a course of study that is general, not specialized; liberal, not vocational; humanistic, not technical. Only in this way can it fulfill the meaning of the words "paideia" and "humanities," which signify the general learning that should be in the possession of every human being.    Mortimer Adler
 

The great books of ancient and medieval as well as modern times are a repository of knowledge and wisdom, a tradition of culture which must initiate each generation. Mortimer Adler
 

Textbooks have probably done as much to degrade the American intelligence as any single force.  Robert Hutchins
 

Perennial means "everlasting," like a perennial flower that comes up year after year. Espousing the notion that some ideas have lasted over centuries and are as relevant today as when they were first conceived, perennialists urge that these ideas should be the focus of education.  Perennialists believe that they should teach the things of everlasting importance to all students, regardless of their backgrounds or interests. They believe that the most important topics develop a person. Since details of fact change constantly, these cannot be the most important. Therefore, education should teach principles, not facts. Since people are human, one should teach first about humans, not machines or techniques. Since people are people first, and workers second if at all, one should teach liberal topics first, not vocational topics.

A particular strategy with modern perennialists is to teach scientific reasoning, not facts. They may illustrate the reasoning with original accounts of famous experiments. This gives the students a human side to the science, and shows the reasoning in action. Most importantly, it shows the uncertainty and false steps of real science.

The roots of perennialism lie in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, as well as that of St. Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century Italian whose ideas continue to shape the nature of Catholic schools throughout the world.
 

Similarities to Essentialism

While Hutchins and Adler quoted above regard perennialism as a badly needed alternative to essentialism, the two philosophies have many similarities. Both aim to rigorously develop all students' intellectual powers, first, and moral qualities, second. Moreover, both advocate classrooms centered around teachers in order to accomplish these goals. The teachers do not allow the students' interests or experiences to substantially dictate what they teach. They apply whatever creative techniques and other tried and true methods are believed to be most conducive to disciplining the students' minds.

As with essentialism, perennialism accepts little flexibility in the curriculum. For example, in his Paideia Program, published in 1982, Mortimer Adler recommends a single elementary and secondary curriculum for all students, supplemented by years of pre-schooling in the case of the educational disadvantaged. He would allow no curricular electives except in the choice of a second language.

The perennialists base their support of a universal curriculum on the view that all human beings possess the same essential nature: We are all rational animals. Perennialists argue that allowing students to take vocational or life-adjustment courses denies them the opportunity to fully develop their rational powers. As Plato might claim, by neglecting the students' reasoning skills, we deprive them of the ability to use their "higher" faculties to control their "lower" ones (passions and appetites).
 

Differences from Essentialism

Although perennialism may seem similar to essentialism, perennialism focuses first on personal development, while essentialism focuses first on essential skills. Essentialist curricula thus tend to be much more vocational and fact-based, and far less liberal and principle-based.

Unlike essentialism, perennialism is not rooted in any particular time or place. The distinctively American emphasis on the value of scientific experimentation to acquire knowledge is reflected in essentialism, but not in perennialism. Similarly, while essentialism reflects the traditional American view that the "real" world is the physical world we experience with our senses, perennialism is more open to the notion that universal spiritual forms--such as those posited by Plato or by theological philosophers--are equally real.

Perennialists seek to help students discover those ideas most insightful and timeless in understanding the human condition. The study of philosophy is thus a crucial part of the perennialist curriculum. Perennialists regard essentialism, and its view that knowledge stems primarily from the empirical findings of scientists, as undermining the importance of our capacity to reason as individuals; that is, to think deeply, analytically, flexibly, and imaginatively.

Recognizing that enormous strides have been made in our knowledge about the physical universe, perennialists teach about the processes by which scientific truths have been discovered. Perennialists emphasize, though, that students should not be taught information that may soon be obsolete or found to be incorrect because of future scientific and technological findings. They would not be as interested as the essentialists, for example, in teaching students how to use current forms of computer technology.

Like progressivists, perennialists criticize the vast amount of discrete factual information that educators traditionally have required students to absorb. Perennialists urge schools to spend more time teaching about concepts and explaining how these concepts are meaningful to students. Particularly at the high school and university levels, perennialists decry undue reliance on textbooks and lectures to communicate ideas. Perennialists suggest that a greater emphasis be placed on teacher-guided seminars, where students and teachers engage in Socratic dialogues, or mutual inquiry sessions, to develop an enhanced understanding of history's most timeless concepts. In addition, perennialists recommend that students learn directly from reading and analyzing the Great Books. These are the creative works by history's finest thinkers and writers, which perennialists believe are as profound, beautiful, and meaningful today as when they were written.

Perennialists lament the change in universities over the centuries from places where students (and teachers) pursued truth for its own sake to mere glorified training grounds for the students' careers. University students may learn a few trees, perennialists claim, but many will be quite ignorant about the forests: the timeless philosophical questions.
 

PROGRESSIVISM

We may, I think, discover certain common principles amid the variety of progressive schools now existing. To imposition from above is opposed expression and cultivation of individuality; to external discipline is opposed free activity; to learning from texts and teachers, learning through experience; to acquisition of' isolated skills and techniques by drill is opposed acquisition of them as means of attaining ends which make direct vital appeal; to preparation for a more or less remote future is opposed making the most of the opportunities of present life; to statistics and materials is opposed acquaintance with a changing world.   John Dewey

Progressivism's respect for individuality, its high regard for science, and its receptivity to change harmonized well with the American environment in which it was created. The person most responsible for the success of progressivism was John Dewey (1859-1952). Dewey entered the field of education as a liberal social reformer with a background in philosophy and psychology. In 1896, while a professor at the University of Chicago, Dewey founded the famous Laboratory School as a testing ground for his educational ideas. Dewey's writings and his work with the Laboratory School set the stage for the progressive education movement, which, beginning in the 1920s, has produced major lasting innovations in American education.

The progressivist movement stimulated schools to broaden their curricula, making education more relevant to the needs and interests of students. Its influence waned during the 1950s, particularly after the 1957 launching of Sputnik by the Soviets prompted schools to emphasize traditional instruction in math, science, foreign languages, and other defense-related subjects. In the late 1960s and 1970s, under the guise of citizenship education and educational relevance, many of Dewey's ideas enjoyed a renewed popularity that decreased again during the education reform movement of the 1980s.
 

The Roots of Progressivism: John Dewey's Philosophy

Dewey regarded the physical universe as real and fundamental. He also claimed that the one constant truth about the universe is the existence of change. For Dewey, change was not an uncontrollable force; rather, it could be directed by human intelligence. He explained that as we alter our relationship with our environment, we ourselves are made different by the experience.

Dewey not only believed in the existence of change but welcomed it. He regarded the principles of democracy and freedom espoused in America as representing tremendous progress over the political ideas of earlier times. Nevertheless, Dewey found much that was wrong with American society, and he had little affection for the traditional American approach to education. He hoped that his school reforms would alter the social fabric of America, making it a more democratic nation of free thinking, intelligent citizens.

Dewey taught that people are social animals who learn well through active interplay with others and that our learning increases when we are engaged in activities that have meaning for us. Book learning, to Dewey, was no substitute for actually doing things. Fundamental to Dewey's epistemology is the notion that knowledge is acquired and expanded as we apply our previous experiences to solving new, meaningful problems. Education, to Dewey, is a reconstruction of experience, an opportunity to apply previous experiences in new ways. Relying heavily on the scientific method, Dewey proposed a five step method for solving problems:

  1.  Become aware of the problem

  2.  Define it

  3.  Propose various hypotheses to solve it

  4.  Examine the consequences of each hypothesis in the light of previous

  5.  Experience

  6.  Test the most likely solution

Progressivism in the Classroom

Believing that people learn best from what they consider most relevant to their lives, progressivists center the curriculum around the experiences, interests, and abilities of students. Teachers plan lessons that arouse curiosity and push the students to a higher level of knowledge. In addition to reading textbooks, the students must learn by doing. Often students leave the classroom for fieldtrips during which they interact with nature or society. Teachers also stimulate the students' interests through thought-provoking games. For example, modified forms of the board game Monopoly have been used to illustrate the principles of capitalism and socialism.

In a progressivist school, students are encouraged to interact with one another and to develop social virtues such as cooperation and tolerance for different points of view. Also, teachers frequently integrate their curricula, encouraging students to see connections across disciplines and to combine learning from several different subjects in one lesson.

Progressivists emphasize in their curricula the study of the natural and social sciences. Teachers expose students to many new scientific, technological, and social developments, reflecting the progressivist notion that progress and change are fundamental. Students are also exposed to a more democratic curriculum that recognizes accomplishments of women and minorities as well as white males. In addition, students solve problems in the classroom similar to those they will encounter outside of the schoolhouse; they learn to be flexible problem solvers.

Progressivists believe that education should be a perpetually enriching process of ongoing growth, not merely a preparation for adult lives. They also deny the essentialist belief that the study of traditional subject matter is appropriate for all students, regardless of interest and personal experience. By including instruction in industrial arts and home economics, progressivists strive to make schooling both interesting and useful. Ideally, the home, workplace, and schoolhouse blend together to generate a continuous, fulfilling learning experience in life. It is the progressivist dream that the dreary, seemingly irrelevant classroom exercises that so many adults recall from childhood will someday become a thing of the past.
 

EXISTENTIALISM

Childhood is not adulthood; childhood is playing and no child ever gets enough play. The Summerhill theory is that when a child has played enough he will start to work and face difficulties, and I claim that this theory has been vindicated in our pupils' ability to do a good job even when it involves a lot of unpleasant work.     A. S. Neill
 

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism.   Jean Paul Sartre
 

Existentialism as a Philosophical Term

The existentialist movement in education is based on an intellectual attitude that philosophers term existentialism. Born in nineteenth-century Europe, existentialism is associated with such diverse thinkers as Kierkegaard (1813-1855), a passionate Christian, and Nietzsche (1811-1900) who wrote a book entitled The Antichrist and coined the phrase “God is dead.”  While the famous existentialists would passionately disagree with one another on many basic philosophical issues, what they shared was a respect for individualism. In particular, they argued that traditional approaches to philosophy do not adequately respect the unique concerns of each individual.

Jean Paul Sartre's classic formulation of existentialism--that "existence precedes essence"--means that there exists no universal, inborn human nature. We are born and exist, and then we ourselves freely determine our essence (that is, our innermost nature). Some philosophers commonly associated with the existentialist tradition never fully adopted the "existence precedes essence" principle. Nevertheless, that principle is fundamental to the educational existentialist movement.

Existentialism as an Educational Philosophy

Just as its namesake sprang from a strong rejection of traditional philosophy, educational existentialism sprang from a strong rejection of the traditional, essentialist approach to education. Existentialism rejects the existence of any source of objective, authoritative truth about metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Instead, individuals are responsible for determining for themselves what is "true" or "false," "right" or "wrong," "beautiful" or "ugly." For the existentialist, there exists no universal form of human nature; each of us has the free will to develop as we see fit.

In the existentialist classroom, subject matter takes second place to helping the students understand and appreciate themselves as unique individuals who accept responsibility for their thoughts, feelings, and actions. The teacher's role is to help students define their own essence by exposing them to various paths they may take in life and creating an environment in which they may freely choose their own preferred way. Since feeling is not divorced from reason in decision making, the existentialist demands the education of the whole person, not just the mind.

Although many existentialist educators provide some curricular structure, existentialism, more than other educational philosophies, affords students great latitude in their choice of subject matter. In an existentialist curriculum, students are given a wide variety of options from which to choose.

To the extent that the staff, rather than the students, influences the curriculum, the humanities are commonly given tremendous emphasis. They are explored as a means of providing students with vicarious experiences that will help unleash their own creativity and self-expression. For example, rather than emphasizing historical events, existentialists focus upon the actions of historical individuals, each of whom provides possible models for the students' own behavior. In contrast to the humanities, math and the natural sciences may be de-emphasized, presumably because their subject matter would be considered "cold," "dry," "objective," and therefore less fruitful to self-awareness. Moreover, vocational education is regarded more as a means of teaching students about themselves and their potential than of earning a livelihood. In teaching art, existentialism encourages individual creativity and imagination more than copying and imitating established models.

Existentialist methods focus on the individual. Learning is self-paced, self directed, and includes a great deal of individual contact with the teacher, who relates to each student openly and honestly. Although elements of existentialism occasionally appear in public schools, this philosophy has found wider acceptance in private schools and ill alternative public schools founded in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
 

RECONSTRUCTION

Although reconstruction finds some of its roots in existentialism, it is primarily grounded in the work of pragmatists.  The commonalities are found in the beliefs that everything in the world is relative and that human beings process that world in order to understand and change it.  Reconstruction differs from progressivism in the area of educational roles.  Unlike the perennialists, who emphasize the transmitting of the knowledge of the existing culture, and the progressivists, who emphasize evaluating the existing culture, the reconstructionists want to transform the existing culture based upon their analysis of its inequities and fundamental flaws.  They are critical of contemporary society and are viewed as social activists who address international as well as national concerns.  If human beings are to become change agents, they must be equipped to do so; reconstructionists believe it is the responsibility of the school to provide them with the tools that will enable them to transform the contemporary world.

Most of the reconstructionist literature is found in the works of George Counts,  Theodore Brameld, and Ivan Illich, and Paolo Freire.  The work of Counts provided the key issue for reconstructionism when he posed the question, "Dare the school build a new social order?"  His concern that America's schools did not serve the needs of most of the children arose from the impact of the Great Depression in the 1930s and his belief that only a small, favored group was being prepared for the challenges of a technological and global future.  One could argue that Counts was well ahead of his time when he wrote in 1952:

The supreme task of the present and the coming generation in all countries, surpassing any domestic issue, is the development of the institutions, the outlook, the morality and the defenses of a world community.  All geographical barriers, including distance, have been surmounted.  Retreat into the past is impossible; perpetuation of the present means chaos and disaster.

He further believed that teachers play a critical role in shaping culture, for if they are interested in the lives of children--the central responsibility with which they are charged by the state--they must work boldly and without ceasing for a better social order.

Brameld championed the educational role of transforming the existing culture and the need for students to be able to establish useful goals.  In his work (1950), Education for the Emerging Age, Brameld suggested that we "give (goals or objectives) not for the sake of credits or even knowledge as such; we give them so that people of all races, creeds, classes, and cultures may realize a more satisfying life for themselves and their fellows.  Knowledge, training, skill -- all these are means to the end of such social self-realization."

Illich's contribution is found in his class work Deschooling Society (1970).  Illich was a worldly man who had been educated in Europe and had worked in Puerto Rico, the US, and Mexico.  His experiences led him to question whether the world could afford schools that, in his opinion, excluded most of its children, made dropouts of the lower classes, and served as straitjackets for thinking about education.  In Deschooling Society, he answers this question by showing that the institutionalization of values leads inevitably to physical pollution, social polarization, and psychological impotence: three dimensions in a process of global degradation and modernized misery.  Therefore, Illich's contribution to the reconstructionist movement is not an attempt to abolish schools but is an effort to deinstitutionalize the educational experience.

Finally, in the world of Freire, we find a method that provides the tools with which common people can transform the existing culture.  Freire saw a connection between language and power and believed if people had a command of language and a high degree of literacy, they could become agents of change.  Working mostly in Brazil and Chile, Freire developed a central argument, expressed in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1995)which stated that the important thing, from the point of view of libertarian education, is to develop people's ability to identify and question their own assumptions about the nature of the world through dialogue and discussion.
 

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY

The work of Freire has been the impetus for a number of leftist educators today in developing a new permutation of reconstructionism called critical pedagogy.  Some of the leading spokespersons for critical pedagogy are Peter McLaren, Ira Shor, Jonathan Kozol, and Henry Giroux.  Since the mid-1070s, they have tried to fuse progressive pedagogy and radical politics, acknowledging the influence of Dewey, Counts, and other society-centered progressives. Both the notion of student empowerment and developing students' ability to problem solve and think critically emerge from critical pedagogy.  Giroux, in his 1997 book, Pedagogy and the Politics of Hope: Theory, Culture, and Schooling, clearly identifies the aims of critical pedagogy:

I believe that schools need to be reconceived and reconstituted as democratic counterpublic spheres, as places where students learn the skills and knowledge needed to live in and fight for a viable democratic society. Within this perspective, schools will have to be characterized by a pedagogy that demonstrates its commitment to engaging the views and problems that deeply concern students in their everyday lives. Equally important is the need for schools to cultivate a spirit of critique and respect for human dignity that will be capable of linking personal and social issues around the   pedagogical project of helping students become active citizens (p. 143).

Giroux writes that "the dominant school culture generally represents and legitimates the privileged voices of the white middle class and upper classes.  In order for radical educators to demystify the dominant culture and to make it an object of political analysis, they will   need to master the language of critical understanding. If they are to understand the dominant ideology at work in schools, they will need to attend to the voices that emerge from three different ideological spheres and settings: these include the school voice, the student voice, and the teacher voice" (p. 141).  As pedagogical practice, critical pedagogy underscores the need to challenge and resist existing boundaries of knowledge and create new ones. Thus, it is imperative to create classroom conditions that facilitate students' ability to speak, write, and listen in a "multiperspectival language."

Although many of the advocates of critical pedagogy may be viewed as too radical for classroom practices, the basis of critical pedagogy -- helping students understand the nature of power and oppression, recognizing the existence of inequities in our society, and helping them develop a sensibility where they feel that change is both possible and desirable -- speaks to many teachers' classroom aims.