Philosophies of

Education

Philosophical positions and

statements of purpose
Tools of Philosophers (1
0f 3)

 Axiology is the study of values;

it asks the question of “What is
good?” From axiology, we
arrive at an understanding of
“What is good?”
 We get ethics from the study of
axiology
 Tools of Philosophers
(2 of 3)

 Epistemology—”How do we
know what is true?”
 This is a live question today—Do
we listen to standardized test
results to determine how much
students know, or read their
portfolios?
 Tools of Philosophy
(3 of 3)
 Metaphysics is somewhat
related to epistemology and
asks the question “What is
real?”
 Are the things that are real only
the things that can be touched
and measured?
 Behaviorists vs. existentialists
 Purposes for Education

 Hilda Taba,
1962--
 Transmit the
cultural heritage
 Transform the
culture
 Maximize human
potential
 The Seven Cardinal
Principles (1 of 2)
The Seven Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education

Commission on Re-organization of Secondary Education (1918).

1. Health

2. Command of fundamental processes

3. Worthy home membership

4. Vocational competence
 The Seven Cardinal
Principles (2 of 2)
The Seven Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education

Commission on Re-organization of Secondary Education (1918).

5. Citizenship

6. Worthy use of leisure time

7. Ethical character
 But what do these
mean?
 Meaning comes
from at least six
philosophical
positions that
“filter” or
influence how
people perceive
educational
events.
 Essentialism

 Almost an entire generation in

America has grown up under
essentialism.
 Essentialism is a conservative
view of curriculum that holds
schools responsible for only the
most immediately needed
instruction.
 Essentialism (2)

 Essentialism
avoids some of
the waste
inherent with
experimentalism
 But it can
become so
conservative
that it fails to
truly educate
 Emphasis on a traditional
education
 Development of the mind
 Core curriculum
 Reality is based in the
physical world
 Teacher-directed learning
 Reading, spelling,
language arts
 Mathematics, U. S.
& World History
 No vocational
education!
 Standardized
tests
 Criterion
referenced tests
 Notas likely to
require portfolios
 Using only text books
 Seated row by row

 Teacher lecture, students

listen
 Punishment--attempted
behaviorism but without
expertise
 Teach the basic
civilized skills of
reading, spelling and
measuring.
 Limit education’s
responsibility--let
industry teach
vocational subjects
 Writing test
 Multiple choices
 True/False
 Binary-Choice
 Matching
 All students will
remember the
basic information.
 All students will
learn how to pass
the test.
 Experimentalism

 Experimentalism is associated
with a very broad but shallow
curriculum. Many electives, few
required subjects.
 Experimentalism is friendly to
educational research, and many
new ideas come from it.
Experimentalism (2)

 But
experimentalism
can be wasteful
of resources
 It can also fail
to follow
through
 Accommodates
fads too easily
 Experimentalism

 Experimentalist
teachers like to
tinker or
experiment
 They don’t like
to leave things
the same all the
time.
Classroom Management
for Experimentalists
 Don’t like bmod
or assertive
discipline
 Prefer more
constructivistic
approaches
such as
Discipline with
Dignity
What experimentalists
would teach
 Everything--
anything that
had any relation
to students’
possible futures
 Has been
accused of
trying to do the
home’s job
Where experimentalism
shines
 When essentialism or perennialism
have been in power for so long,
school programs have become
stagnant
 When school has become all work
and no play
 When traditional methods have
become ineffective
 Perennialism

 Perennialism was prevalent in

the early seventies in U. S.
 Perennialism reveres the
experience of teachers who
have been there.
 Heavy orientation to the past 20
years--almost nil attention to
the future
 Perennialism

 Perennialists
like to teach
time-honored
curricula,
including the
classics such as
Plato an
Aristotle
 They don’t like
change.
 Perennialism

 They would
include • Algebra
subjects such • Trigonometry
as: • Ancient
• Geometry Geography
• English • World history
literature • U.S. History
• World • Bookkeeping
Geography
 Perennialist Evaluation
Methodology

 Teacher-made tests
 Standardized test
 Memory work (“mind is a
muscle”)
 Spelling bees
Classroom Management

 Assign seats in rows.

 Be strict, but not

necessarily expert, with
punishment and reward.

 Set up classroom rules.

 Orientation Expected

 Self-contained knowledge--
teacher is supposed to know
all the answers
 Teacher is the “fountain of
all knowledge.”
 Students are passive
listeners
Reality Testing for
Perennialists

 Paper-pencil
test
 Recitation
 Standardized
test
 Future Orientation for
Perennialists

 Expect future to continue in the

same vein as the present
 Belief that knowing the classics
of the past will equip students
for the future
 Where Perennialism
Shines

 Perennialism does help to

dampen the uncertain effects of
the fads that come to education
 Not every new idea is a good
one, or one that will even be
effective.
 Perennialism plays well to
traditional communities
 Behaviorism
 Behaviorism believes in a
science of behavior that would
shape the world into a better
place to live
 Behaviorists to some degree
rightfully claim that behaviorism
naturally occurs in the world
whether people acknowledge it
or not
 What behaviorists
believe
 Behaviorists
believe in a
science of
behavior\
 They rely
heavily on
scientific
studies of
behavior and
how behavior is
What behaviorists would
teach

 Behaviorists are at least as

concerned about how people
behave as what they know
 They do not tend to be big
innovators in curriculum
 They will however give a fair
trial to any new curricula that
someone else might write
 Where Behaviorism
shines
 Special ed
situations,
where students
do not pick up
on subtle cues
about learning
or behavior
 Alternative and
problem schools
 Where behaviorism will
come short

 Situations where behavior is not

so much the need as the
learning of academic content
 Situations where students have
internalized appropriate
behavior and behavior does not
need to be emphasized at the
expense of scholarship.
 Reconstructionism
 Reconstructionists point to a
time in the past when they
believe that things were better
 They would re-create education
to be like things were back
during that time
 They cite research, particularly
historical, to show that things
are not going well now.
What reconstructionists
believe
 Reconstruction-
ists point to a
time in the past
when they
believe that
things were
better
 They would re-
create
education to be
like things were
What reconstructionists
would teach
 Reconstructionists would teach
the subjects that were taught
during that “golden age.”
 The subjects would be those
that were taught during that
time.
 If the 1960s, for instance, they
would teach usage of the slide
rule.
 One example of
Reconstructionism
 1946—right after
the Second
World War
 GIs wanted
schools and
society to return
to what they
were before
Pearl Harbor
 Reconstructionists and
technology
 Their orientation
is very much to
the past
 They and
perennialists do
not react
immediately and
positively to
new technology
 Existentialism

 Existentialists celebrate the

human existence
 Very subjective
 Emphasis on meaning within
each individual
 May doubt external reality
 Emphasis on present
 What existentialists
believe
 Existentialists
believe in the
consciousness
of the self
 They are very
concerned with
whether
students find
school to be a
satisfying
 What existentialists
would teach
 Not the same  They would
subjects to include topics
everyone, since such as values
not everyone clarification and
would enjoy the ....
same things
 They would
emphasize self-
esteem and a
feeling of self-
An example of
existentialism
 1960—
Summerhill
School in
England
 1970s in some
parts of
America—self
esteem, values
clarification
 A healthy balance

 Each of the six

philosophies has
something to
offer
 The only hazard
happens when
one philosophy
rules for a long
period of time