Lesson 1a:

Philosophical Thoughts on
Education

Joel M. Durban, Ph.D.

 Pragmatism and Education

• Pragmatism is a Greek word meaning “work.”

• Pragmatism is a philosophy that encourages us to seek out
the processes and do the things that work best to help us
achieve desirable ends.
• The antecedents of the philosophy of pragmatism are many
and varied, but some basic elements are vitally important.
These are induction, the importance of human experience,
and the relationship between science and culture.
Francis Bacon
(1561 – 1626)
• Bacon has been called the Father
of Empiricism, which is the idea
that knowledge comes from the
senses. Francis Bacon's theory was
that scientific knowledge must
come from the careful observation
of nature filtered through inductive
reasoning.
 Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)

• Bacon’s ideas put a premium on human experience of

and within the world of everyday life.
• Suggested that the inductive method has served as the
basis of scientific method, which in turn has been of
fundamental importance to pragmatism.
 John Locke

The Empiricist
Educator
(1632 – 1704)
 John Locke (1632 – 1704)

• The individual’s mind at birth is blank, a tabula rasa.

• Ideas are not innate, rather they come from experiences,
these experiences are impressed on their minds; thus, a
baby soon understands the idea of milk acquired through
the sense of taste, perfume through the sense of smell,
velvet through the sense of touch, and green through the
sense of sight.
• Locke believed that as people have more experiences, they have
more ideas imprinted on the mind and more with which to relate.
• Although a person’s experience comes from the environment, a
person also can learn, in time, by reflecting on his or her own
thinking and beliefs.
• Locke also acknowledged that there are some innate emotions and
some innate differences among individuals.
• Locke believed that the environment’s influence is so
powerful in the child’s early years because this is when
the child’s mind is most pliable. When the child’s mind
can be molded.
• Self – control – is the main goal of education.
• “It seem plain to me that the principle of all virtue
and excellency lies in a power of denying ourselves
the satisfaction of our won desires, where reason does
not authorize them.”
• To instill self – discipline, we should tend to the child’s
physical health. When the body is weak, one has little
ability to control its demands.
• Locke advised parents to give children plenty of
exercise so their bodies will become strong.
• If children are to acquire discipline, parents must be
firm with them from the start.
• Physical punishment should never be used.
• The use of physical punishment establishes undesirable
associations.
• If a child is beaten or chastised for letting her mind
wander during reading lessons, she will not only
associate pain with mind wandering, but with the sight
of books as well.
• Locke is opposed to the use of money or sweets
as rewards because their use undermines the
main goal of education: to curb desires and to
submit to reason. When we reward with food or
money, we only encourage children to find
happiness in these things.
• The best reward is praise and flattery, and the
best punishment is disapproval.
 Gentle Degrees

• Children are initially attracted to animals; but when

one bites a child’s finger, she associates the sight of
the animal with pain and fears it.
• Locke said we can eliminate the fear by bringing the
child into proximity with the animals by “gentle
degrees.”
• First, we should let someone else sit beside the animal at
some distance from the child, until the child can watch it
without fear. Then we should slowly and gradually bring
the child closer to it, making sure the child can observe it
without anxiety.
• Finally, we let the child touch it while it is held by
another, until the child herself can handle it comfortably.
• Children have difficulty comprehending and remembering rules in
the abstract, and they, naturally resent getting punished for failing
to comply with a role that they could barely keep in mind.
• Alternative to command, Locke suggested two procedures:
1. Children learn more from example than precepts, we ca teach
them by exposing them to good models.
2. Instead of issuing commands, we have children practice the
desired behavior.
For Locke, children have special characteristics:
1. Children have their own cognitive capacities that set
limit on what we can teach.
2. Children also have temperaments peculiar to their age,
so it would be foolish to try to change their natural
disposition.
Locke pointed out that instruction is most effective when
children enjoy it.
• He suggested that children could learn many
things, such as reading letters and words through
games.
• Locke recommended that instruction be arranged
in steps, so children could thoroughly master one
topic before going on to the next.
• A teacher can’t do much with a fearful child.
• Take advantage of the child’s natural curiosity.
For John Locke:
Acquire knowledge about the world through the senses-
learning by doing and by interacting with the
environment.
Simple ideas become more complex through comparison,
reflection, and generalization- inductive method.

Questioned the long traditional view that knowledge came

exclusively from literary sources, particularly the Greek
and Latin classics.
• Opposed the “divine right of kings” theory
which held that the monarch had the right to be
an unquestioned and absolute ruler over his
subjects.
• Political order should be based upon a contract
between the people and the government.
• Aristocrats are not destined by birth to be rulers.
People were to establish their own government and
select their own political leaders from among
themselves; civic education is necessary.
• People should be educated to govern themselves
intelligently and responsibly.
Jean – Jacques
Rousseau
(1712 – 1778)
 Jean – Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778)

• Rousseau wrote Emile, an educational novel that

is referred to as charter on childhood. This novel is
said to contain Rousseau’s educational ideas.
• Rousseau believed that men are naturally good,
but the influences of a corrupt and wicked society
make them evil.
• He postulated that life per se is education; education is
not just a preparation for life but rather is acquired from
direct experience through the senses. Moral training
should be by example.
• Whereas before, education was subject – centered, it
became child – centered. The teacher, as the central
figure in the educative process was replaced by the child.
• Works: On the Social Contract and Emile.
• Rousseau’s attention to the nature of child
development and his belief in the inherent goodness of
people set the stage for child – centered education.
August Comte (1798 – 1857)
 August Comte (1798 – 1857)

• Comte was one of the founders of modern sociology.

• Comte influenced the early development of pragmatism
by helping thinkers become sensitive to the possibilities
of using science to help solve social problems.
• Comte ‘s dream was to reform society by the application
of science.
Charles Darwin

(1809 – 1882)
 Charles Darwin
(1809 – 1882)
• Work: On the Origin of Species
by Means of Natural Selection
(1859), rocked the intellectual
and religious communities of the
Western world.
• Darwin’s views on natural selection and an evolving
universe meant that reality is open ended in process,
with no fixed end.
• These views of an open – ended process further
encouraged the view in pragmatism that a person’s
education is tied directly to biological and social
development.
 American
Pragmatists
Charles Sanders
Peirce

(1839 – 1914)
 Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1914)

• Work: How to Make Our Ideas Clear (1878)

• He analyzed the dualism of the mind and matter, or the
subjective and the objective.
• He accepted the proposition that mind is different from
material reality, but he also maintained that what is
known about objective reality resides in the idea one has
of any given object.
People always should remain extremely sensitive to the
consequences of how they conceive of ideas.

Maintained that the concept of practical effects

makes up the whole of our concept of an object.
“Our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible
effects.”
• Ideas or concepts cannot be separated from
human conduct, for to have an idea is to be
aware of its effects and consequences (or their
probability) in the arena of human affairs.
William James (1842-1910)
 William James

• Theory of Truth: truth is not absolute and

immutable, but is made in actual, real – life events.
• Truth does not belong to an idea as some property
adhering to it, for it is found in acting on ideas – in
the consequences of ideas.
John Dewey (1859-1952)
 John Dewey
William James popularized pragmatism, and John Dewey
“systematized’ it and carried its leading ideas to far –
reaching development.

Like James, Dewey believed that no immutable

absolutes or universals exist, and his primary datum
was experience; like Peirce, he sought to clarify ideas
in terms of their consequences in human experience.
 John Dewey

According to pragmatists, the aim of education is

the total development of the child either
through experience, self – activity, or learning
by doing.
Curriculum must offer subjects that will provide
opportunities for various projects and activities that
are relevant to the needs, abilities, and interests of
the learners.
• The learner must be made the center of all
educative process – a concept based on John
Dewey’s tenet that Education is Life, Education
is Growth, Education is a Social Process, and
Education is the Construction of Human
Experience.
 Aims of Education

• Pragmatists believed that education is a necessity of life.

• Education is a process by which culture is transmitted across
generations by the communication of habits, activities, thoughts,
and feelings from adults to the young. Without this, social life
cannot survive; therefore, education should not be viewed merely
as schooling in academic subject matter, but as a part of life itself.
• The school should be a place where the other
environments that the child encounters – family, work,
and others – are coordinated in meaningful ways for the
child to study.
• Education should not be mere preparation for life, but an
important part of life that children themselves live.
• Children’s lives are as important to them as the lives of
adults are to adults. Thus, educators should be aware of
the interests and motivations of children, as well as the
environment from which they come.
• For Dewey (“My Pedagogic Creed”), education has
two fundamental sides: the psychological and the
sociological.
• One should not be subordinate to the other because
the child’s own instincts and powers provide the
material and starting point of all education, and the
educators’ knowledge for social conditions is
necessary to interpret the child’s powers.
• Dewey believed that individuals should be educated
as social beings, capable of participating in and
directing their own social affairs.
• This means a freer interaction among social groups, as
well as attention given to developing all the
potentialities an individual has for future growth.
• He looked on education to free the individuals to
engage in continuous growth directed toward
appropriate individual and social aims.
According to Dewey, the aims:
1. Should grow out of existing conditions.
2. Should be tentative, at least in the beginnings, and
maintaining flexibility; and perhaps most
importantly of all
3. Must always be directed toward a freeing of
activities, a “end in view.”
• For Dewey (“Democracy and Education”), the aim
of education is Growth: “since growth is the
characteristic of life, education is all one with
growing; it has no end beyond itself.”
• Schools should foster habits of thought, invention,
and initiative that will assist people in growing in
the right direction – that is, toward democratic
living.
 Methods of Education
• Prefer flexible education methods that can be used in
various ways.
• They also prefer functional schools, with such things as
movable, child – sized desks, large print in books for
small children.
• Various methods are needed because there is no single
way to educate.
• Educators should be aware of many approaches,
including the use of sources in the wider community.
• Pragmatist advocate cross – disciplinary approach to
teaching to the curriculum so that students can
understand how things are related.

• Thus, reading, writing, and spelling can be

combined as language arts. History, geography,
government, economics, and multicultural studies
can be put under social studies.
• Pragmatists adhere to action – oriented education;
therefore, they would suggest an activity - oriented
approach so students would learn not only that they
can relate various kinds of knowledge and use them
to attack a problem but also that they can act on
them.
• Pragmatists are concerned with teaching children
how to solve problems; they believe that real – life
situations encourage problem – solving ability in a
practical setting.
• Materials used in the classroom must be age –
appropriate and the teacher must provide direction to
keep the activities within reasonable limits.
• The motivation is in students’ interest, and the teacher
serves as a resource person concerned with helping
students get the maximum educational advantages out
of the situation.
Herbert Spencer

(1820-1903)
 Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

• Utilitarian Education
• Spencer’s concept of “survival of the fittest” means
that human development had gone through an
evolutionary series of stages from the simple to the
complex and from the uniform to the more
specialized kind of activity.
• Social development had taken place according to an
evolutionary process by which simple homogeneous
societies had evolved to more complex societal systems
characterized with humanistic and classical education.

• Industrialized society require vocational and professional

education based on scientific and practical (utilitarian)
objectives rather than on the very general educational goals
associated with humanistic and classical education.
• Curriculum should emphasize the practical, utilitarian
and scientific subjects that helped humankind master
the environment.
• Was not inclined to rote learning; schooling must be
related to life and to the activities needed to earn a
living.
• Curriculum must be arranged according to their
contribution to human survival and progress.
• Science and other subjects that sustained human
life and prosperity should have curricular priority
since it aids in the performance of life activities.
• Individual competition leads to social progress.
He who is the fittest survives.
 Specialized Education of Spencer vs. General
Education

• To survive in a complex society, Spencer favors

specialized education over that of general education.
We need social engineers who can combine
harmoniously the findings of specialized knowledge.
This is particularly true in the field of medicine.
 Specialized Education of Spencer vs. General
Education

• The expert who concentrates on a limited field is

useful, but if he loses sight of the interdependence of
things he becomes a man who knows more and more
about less and less. We must be warned of the deadly
peril of over specialism. Of course we do not prefer
the other extreme, the superficial person who knows
less and less about more and more.
 Spencer’s Survival of the Fittest
• He who is the fittest survives. Individual competition
leads to social progress.
• The competition is what advocates of the whole-child
approach and Social-emotional Learning (SEL)
atmosphere negate.
 Spencer’s Survival of the Fittest

• The whole child approach a powerful tool for SLEF-

focused schools has a tenets – “each student learns in an
environment that is physically and emotionally safe for
students and adults” and each student has access to
personalized learning and is supported by qualified and
caring adults.
• The highlighted words point to no competition for
competition works against an emotionally safe
environment.
George Counts

(1889-1974)
• George S. Counts challenged teachers and teacher
educators to use school as a means for critiquing and
transforming the social order.
• His controversial pamphlet Dare the School Build a New
Social Order? (1932), advanced the social study of
education and emphasized teaching as a moral and political
enterprise.
• His work on schooling and society continue to have
relevance to contemporary dilemmas in education.
• Education is not based on eternal truths but is relative
to a particular society living at a given time and place
• By allying themselves with groups that want to change
society, schools should cope with social change that
arises from technology.
• There is a cultural lag between material progress and
social institutions and ethical values.
• Instruction should incorporate a content of a socially
useful nature and a problem-solving methodology.
Students are encouraged to work on problems that
have social significance.
• Schools become instrument for social improvement
rather than an agency for preserving the status quo.
• Teachers should lead society rather than follow it.
Teachers are agents of change.
• Teachers are called on to make important choices
in the controversial areas of economics, politics
and morality because if they failed to do so, others
would make the decisions for them.
• Schools ought to provide an education that afford
equal learning opportunities to all students.
 Schools and Teachers as Agents of Change
• Schools and teachers should be agents of change. Schools
are considered instruments for social improvement rather
than as agencies for preserving the status quo. Whatever
change we work for should always be change for the better
not just for the sake of change.
• Teachers are called to make decisions on controversial
issues Not to decide is to deciding.
• Like Dewey, problem solving should be the dominant
method for instruction.
 Lag Between Material Progress and Ethical Values

• Counts asserts that “there is a cultural lag

between material progress and social
institutions and ethical values.”
• Material progress of humankind is very
evident but moral and ethical development
seem to have lagged.
• As one man wrote: “The Egyptians had their horses.
Modern has his jets but today it is still the same moral
problems that plague humankind..”
• As science and technology, we have become very
powerful and yet powerless. We have conquered
several diseases and even postponed death for many,
we have conquered aging, the planets, the seas but we
have not conquered ourselves.
Theodore Brameld

(1904 – 1987)
• Founded Social Reconstructionism as a response to the
horrors of WWII. He believed that education had the
responsibility to mold human beings into a cohesive
and compassionate society.
• Social reconstructionism is a philosophy that
emphasizes the reformation of society.
The social reconstructionist contend that:
• …humankind has moved from an agricultural and rural
society to an urban and technological society…there is a
serious lag in cultural adaptation to the realities of a
technological society. Humankind has yet to reconstruct
its values in order to catch up with the changes in the
technological order, and organized education has a major
role to play in reducing the gap between values of the
culture and technology.
Social reconstructionist asserts that school should:

• Critically examine present culture and resolve

inconsistencies, controversies and conflicts to build a
new society not just change society…do more than
reform the social and educational status quo. It should
seek to create a new society…Humankind is in a state
of profound cultural crisis.
• If schools reflect the dominant social values…then
organized education will merely transmit the social ills
that are symptoms of the pervasive problems and
afflictions that beset humankind… The only legitimate
goal of a truly human education is to create a world
order in which people are in control of their own
destiny. In an era of nuclear weapons, the social
reconstructionists see an urgent need for society to
reconstruct itself before it destroys itself.
Paulo Friere (1921-1997)
 Aims of Education
• The aim of education is to break the culture of
silence among the oppressed and making
conscientization among them to make them
fully human.
• Freire believed that the goal of education should
be freedom to speak, think and act in an
authentic way.
 Aims of Education
• His educational thoughts were based on
developing a dialectical perception of reality.
His contribution analyses how to be with the
people so that they can develop the way of
thinking.
 Following are the important constructs of Freire’s
educational views
1.Freire wanted to transform the world, especially world
of oppressed people through education.
2. Freire wanted to develop awareness in the people.
3. Freire wanted to education helps to understand people
themselves and the world around them.
4.Freire wanted to achieve personal freedom and social
justice through education.
 Following are the important constructs of Freire’s
educational views
5. Freire wanted to develop critical literacy through
education.
6. Freire wanted to de-socialization through education.
7. Freire wanted to create dialogues.
8. Freire wanted to humanize individual.
9. Freire wanted to critical valuation.
Critical Pedagogy and Dialogue vs. the
Banking Model of Education
• Paulo Freire, a critical theorist, like social
reconstructionist believed that systems must be changed to
overcome oppression and improve human conditions.
• Education and literacy are the vehicle for social change.
In his view, humans must learn to resist oppression and
not become its victims, nor oppress others. To do so
requires dialogue and critical consciousness, the
development of awareness to overcome domination and
oppression.
• Rather than “teaching as banking,” in which the educator
deposits information into students’ heads, Freire saw
teaching and learning as a process of inquiry in which the
child must invent and reinvent the world.
• Teachers must not see themselves as the sole possessors
of knowledge and their students as empty receptacles. He
calls this pedagogical approach the “banking method” of
education.
• A democratic relationship between the teacher and her
students is necessary in order for the conscientization
process to take place.
• A democratic relationship between the teacher and her
students is necessary in order for the conscientization
process to take place.
• Freire’s critical pedagogy is problem-posing education.
• A central element of Friere’s pedagogy is dialogue. It is
love and respect that allow us to engage people in
dialogue and to discover ourselves in the process and
learn from one another. By its nature, dialogue is not
something that can be imposed. Instead, genuine dialogue
is characterized by respect of the parties involved toward
one another. We develop a tolerant sensibility during the
dialogue process, and it is only when we come to tolerate
the points of view and ways of being of others that we
might be able to learn from them and about ourselves in
the process.
• Dialogue means the presence of equality, mutual
recognition, affirmation of people, a sense of solidarity
with people, and remaining open to questions.
• Dialogue is the basis for critical and problem-posting
pedagogy, as opposed to banking education, where there
is no discussion, only the imposition of the teacher’s ideas
on the students.
Thank You !!!