Educational Philosophies

What is the effect of education on social life? Should education strive for changing society? Or should it try to maintain our social and cultural norms? In other words, is education a force of change? Or a force of maintaining the good old days? Reference your preference and why?

Introduction

Education is one of the most important means to improve personal endowments, build capabilities, overcome constraints and in the process, enlarge available set of opportunities and choices for a sustained improvement in well-being. The process of education and attainments thereof has an impact on all aspects of life. It is a critical invasive instrument for bringing about social, economic and political inclusion of people (NHDR, 2001). In this context, we will try to make an attempt to assess the contribution of education to one of such several dimensions of life of individuals and their social development.

Social development first attracted widespread attention in all civilizations which conceive social development as a process of planned social change designed to promote the well-being of the population as a whole in conjunction with a dynamic process of economic development. But this meaning is the modern one of social development. In past, social development was introduced with many meanings according to the differences in philosophies and authorities between societies especially between the East and the West. In addition to that, it was very obvious that inside each of the eastern and western philosophies there were many differences in the field of education but, in this context we will try to show the general differences between those two societies.

To show the difference between the Eastern and Western philosophies about the view to education, we will talk about the pragmatism from the west which is the most popular and practical nowadays in the West, and the eastern philosophies in general, where they relatively resemble each other.

Western Philosophy:

John Dewey, greatest of the pragmatists and generally recognized as the most outstanding philosopher his country has yet produced, made significant contributions to virtually every field of philosophy as well as to such other areas of inquiry as education and psychology. According to Dewey the aim of education is the development of child’s powers and abilities. It is impossible to lay down any definite principle for a particular kind of development, because this development will differ from one child to the next, with respect to the unique abilities of the individual. The educator should guide the child according to the abilities and powers he observes in it. It is better, in Dewey’s opinion, to leave the question of educational objectives unanswered. In general, the aim of education is to create an atmosphere in which the child gets an opportunity to be active in and contribute to the social awakening of the human race. From the pragmatic standpoint, education aims at creating social efficiency in the child. Man is a social being who must develop at all. For this reason, education must aim at creating social efficiency and skill.

Pragmatic education aims also at instilling democratic values and ideals in the individual. Every individual must be given the freedom to develop his own desires and achieve his ambitions. Every individual must be equal to every other member of society. Such a society can be created only when there is no fundamental difference between the individual and collective interest. Education should create cooperation and harmony among individuals, instilling democratic values in school between children. In fact, the school itself is a miniature form of democratic society in which the child undergoes various forms of development, of which moral education and development is the most important. Morality can be developed through active participation, because such participation in the activities of the school trains the child in shouldering responsibility. Pragmatic education is basically practical in as much as it aims at preparing the individual for future life in such a manner that he can fulfill his requirements and achieve contentment. Dewey was critical of the contemporary modes of education because they tend to drive the child away from democratic life by giving advantages to a small section of society. It also lays more stress on book or formal teaching than is really desirable.

Hence Dewey laid the foundations of a progressive education in the form of a Progressive School, which aimed at establishing democratic values and developing the child’s personality. Dewey also emphasized the importance of the social aspect of the education where he said that all education has its beginnings in the individual’s participation in the social consciousness of the race. Hence it is necessary to create an atmosphere in the school, which will allow the child to take an active part in the social awakening of his group. This improves his conduct and develops his personality and abilities. He also talked about the methodology of this process that includes the following steps: learning by doing, integration of life and subjects, catering in child's interest and participation in collective activities. In the western society Dewey affected education where nowadays, it is an important aim of education to teach according his thoughts, where he insisted on developing social qualities in the child.

So, in modern schools these aims of education have been accepted as valid. The greatest impact of Dewey’s ideas is seen in the methods of education in more recent times. Dewey suggested that education should be based on the child’s own experience, and also that the method of teaching should vary according to the interests and inclinations of each individual child. These ideas influenced modern teaching techniques and led to active teaching in schools. One such school is the Activity School. The project method is also a result of Dewey’s ideas. Even in the other schools, attention is paid to the principles of child psychology, which guide the educator in creating an atmosphere suitable for developing social consciousness in the educated.

The impact of Dewey’s ideas on the subject of curriculum was significant also where he led to the introduction of manual skill subjects into modern curricula. Special importance is now being attached to various kinds of games, objects, the use of certain tools and implements, etc. In selecting the subject to be taught, attention is now paid to the individual interests and abilities of the child.

As a result, now the students are entrusted with much of the work done in the school. In this manner the students are trained for self-control and democratic citizenship. Apart this, once the student have to face responsibility, he is compelled to think scientifically and reason out things for himself.

Dewey’s thinking and ideal also affected the universal and compulsory education. Education aims at the development of personality. Hence every individual must be given the opportunity to develop his personality through education. The current stress on the scientific and social tendency owed much to Dewey’s influence. He pointed that education was a social necessity, in that it was not merely a preparation for life itself. It aimed at the development of both the individual as well as society. This leads to the comprehensive development of the individual.

Eastern Philosophy

With respect to the eastern education, we will discuss the thoughts of the Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo, where he defined educational objectives by saying: “It must be an education that for the individual will make its one central object the growth of the soul and its powers and possibilities, for the nation will keep first in view the preservation, strengthening and enrichment of the nation-soul and its dharma (Eternal law), and raise both into powers of the life and ascending mind and soul of humanity". Aurobindo presented a national system of education which may be adopted for the educational reconstruction in India and at the same time develop the Indians as world citizens and the fore-runners of the advent of the only gives and important place to individual and nation. In the words of Sri Aurobindo, the true national education is that, which helps to bring out to full advantage, makes ready for the full purpose and scope of human life all that is in the individual man and which at the same time, helps him to enter into right relation with the life, mind and soul humanity of which he himself is a unit and his people or nation a living, a separate and yet inseparable member.

In order to achieve these purposes, Aurobindo gave three issues that the curriculum should include:

1. To teach students how to observe and know rightly the facts on which they have to

    form a judgment.

2. To train them to think fruitfully and soundly.

3. To fit them to use their knowledge and their thought effectively for their own and

    for the common good.

Thus, as it is shown that the eastern philosophy shown in this paper is different from that of the western. It is obvious that the Eastern educational system tries to accomplish the individual knowledge for the Eastern, but spontaneously it is trying to conserve the traditions, eternals and humanity more than the Westerns. Beside their academic process they believe in the need for reaching the full purpose and scope of human life, which came from their religions and their parents in the past. This means that they are trying to conserve it besides their academic progress. The Easterns are willing to conserve the ancient educational ideals along with methods and techniques of their own and other western originated that are useful for them.

Easterns nowadays, define education not only as spiritual, but also rational,

vital and physical. In other words, it is an integral education. This integral education has been explained by Sri Aurobindo’s closest collaborator the Mother, in these words, “Edcuation to be complete must have five principal aspects relating to the five principal activities of the human being: the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual". Sri Aurobindo’s scheme of education is integral in two senses. Firstly, it is integral in the sense of including all the aspects of the individual being, physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual. Secondly, it is integral in the sense of being an education not only for the evolution of the humanity. The ultimate aim of education is the evolution of total humanity, which includes the evolution of the nation, which in its turn depends upon the evolution of the individual.

Conclusion

From these two philosophies proposed, one can obviously notice how Eastern people are related more to their traditions and beliefs. They all believe that education should be man’s adjustment to his nature, to his fellows and to the ultimate nature of the cosmos. Even the relations between them are affected by the traditions and beliefs more than the education, whether the relations between people with each other or, between the people and their governments. It is also obvious in many Eastern countries that the laws are still related to the traditions and beliefs. Thus we can show according to that that education, although changed significantly the society but it still did not reach the level of influence that traditions did in these societies.Even in some of these countries, the level of scientific achievements are very high and the ranking of their educational systems shows that they are from the best in the world in education, like in Japan, the effect of traditions and beliefs is the major with respect to education.

However, on the other hand, the Western education affected significantly the society, traditions and beliefs. These effects are so clear for those who observe it, where the Western traditions are not respected as those for the Easterns because they are not pragmatic enough for the purpose of achievements and social progress. The Western society changed a lot and quickly during the last century, which could be the main reason for getting far away from the traditions, to walk with these changes, and this can be obvious also with respect to eternal beliefs that are not well adopted by the Western citizens as in the Easterns, although they adopt democracy in a very well manner. 

But this cannot be taken as a reason for what is going on in the West with respect to traditions where they are approaching education in its narrow sense, as a formal conservative process mainly confined to school campus. On the other hand, education in its wider sense becomes a vague and informal process aiming at nothing but allowing the child uncontrolled freedom for arbitrary activities as in some Eastern societies, where through such a process it is not possible to inculcate social, moral and spiritual values in children. Thus, both the processes are one-sided and emphasize two extremes. The real concept of education is a synthesis of these two processes. This synthesis will develop the child to the full according to his inherent tendencies with emphasis on concurrent development of society, of which he is an integral part. Such an education will develop both the child and the society to higher and higher positions of glory and cultural eminence, besides the conservation of traditions and beliefs.

References

Beissenova, A. et al. (2013). Influence of Education on Social Structure of Society (on Materials of Focus Group Research and in-Depth Interviews). Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. Vol 82: 813-817. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.06.354.pdf .

Khasawneh, O. (2014). Implementing Pragmatism And John Dewey’s Educational Philosophy In Jordanian Public Schools. Journal of International Education Research. Vol 10. Doi: https://www.cluteinstitute.com/ojs/index.php/JIER/article/download/8465/8476 .

Kumar, S. & Ahmad, S. (2017). Meaning, Aims and Process of Education. Semantic Scholar.

Doi: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1146/1167f80224e937ae5d5231320f729a29681a.pdf  .

Veugelers, W. et al. (2017). Higher Education, Educational Policy and Citizenship Development. Ingenta connect. Vol 35, issue 16: 27-42. Doi: https://doi.org/10.7459/es/35.1.03.

Cognitive Theory

Cognitive teaching methods aim to assist students in assimilating new information to existing knowledge, and enabling them to make the appropriate modifications to their existing intellectual framework to accommodate that information. Thus, while cognitive teaching allow for the use of exercises in the memorization of facts, formulae, and lists, they place greater importance on strategies that help students to actively assimilate and accommodate new material.

Till that end, and to check out how teachers are trying to induce the self learning of students through cognitive theory, and if they are applying it the right way with their students an observation was done in biology class of grade 10 at the sixth hour in an official high school in Bekaa Valley.

The class room was different from other classes, where it was at the first floor, larger, has only chairs with no desks, in addition to the LCD projector. The teacher was free to choose whether to explain the lesson on board in regular class rooms or using the LCD class. The lesson was about photosynthesis and the class was designed to solve exercises to develop the students understanding. But, the exercises were not from the book. The teacher decided to take the figures and documents from the book and put his own questions that were divided into parts in a way similar to that is asked in the exams.

At the beginning, the teacher waited the students to finish their routines and get ready to pay attention to him. He talked then about what they are going to do in this class and the way they will do, where they will be supposed to discuss the question and the answers with him then he will give them time to write the answers on their note books.

They then started where he chose a student to read the exercise and claimed that they should solve using the scientific method and asked them to start proposing hypothesis based on the observation of figures only, then he asked for the explanation that leaded them to each hypothesis and at last to prove their answers based on the results of the figures and their acquired knowledge to get the best answer. Students were sharing their answers vey actively and the teacher was trying to bring them closer to the desired one by verbalizing their answers and using certain body language and various tones while explaining. Then he gave the students time to write the answers while he was walking between desks and checking their note books.

During that time, some male students were bullying and making noise by their side talks while writing the answers. They were saying bad words in their jokes, but the teacher did not let them continue their talk, separated them to the sides of the class and gave them advises that they should not talk like that because the ladies later on do not prefer men that are not respectful and gentle.

After that he chose a student and asked him to read the next exercise. When the student finished the teacher explained the exercise and asked them to predict the consequence of the experiment mentioned in the exercise. But, a student asked the teacher about how he should predict and that there is no prediction in education, which made the teacher explain for the students what he meant by prediction and the ways that they could be asked to predict. After that the teacher asked about the student answers, verbalized them for each part and emphasized the main point s reached by solving these exercises.

The teacher then wanted to check the students if they are concentrating well on the figures that he was showing them. Thus, when they finished writing he asked them to draw a figure and label it with the wards that he wrote on the board. The students denied that, but the teacher insisted and told them that it will not be directly graded, it will be part of the class work grade. In addition he should invest the five minutes left of the class. The students then tried their best and challenged their selves to remember as much as they can, dropped their papers at the teacher's desk after the bell rang and they went out of the class.

These strategies that the teacher used seemed efficient in cognitive learning where the teacher was trying to teach his students by the active learning and by making them responsible of what they are learning and deducting the information instead of giving it to them. The teacher was trying to help them to conclude the results by showing them many figures and give them hints and verbalizing their answers to insure that all understand, in addition to giving them appropriate time to think.

This way of teaching keeps the students active and in the mood of learning that include responsibility in the way of gaining knowledge and aim to assist students in assimilating new information to old one, and enabling them to make the appropriate modifications to their existing intellectual framework to relate that information.

Types of Knowledge

Over the centuries many attempts have been made to classify knowledge, and different fields have focused on different dimensions. This has resulted in numerous classifications and distinctions based on different factors. Nowadays, types of knowledge are classified to four wide categories in order to result in professional teachers with the best knowledge. Teachers must have the knowledge of content, pedagogical knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, and the knowledge of learners and learning.

Till that end, and to study the application of these types by teachers in schools, an observation was done in a biology class of garde eleven science section in an official high school in Bekaa Valey.

From the beginning of the class which was the first of that day, teacher entered actively, handling his coffee cup, asked the students if they are ready for him and started to check the home works quickly. The home work that he previously asked for it was to prepare the lesson that he was going to explain in that class in addition to draw two figures that he chose before. For that purpose he checked the note book of each student, he found different ways of solving and even different ways of drawing. Some students had a neat and complete home work. Others have done their home works in a way that he did not like it, and others did not make any of what he asked for. He ordered those students to stand up and go ahead to the board, and he finished he went to his desk and started to blame them for their work without asking them for reasons or discussing their faults, while one of them was trying to tell him that she was very sick and the other was trying to say that he did not know how to solve the lesson's exercises. Then, he was done from talking and asked them to go back to their seats after threatening them of not making the home work again as it should be and subtracting two  marks from their average, knowing that he gave them no standards before for his home works and each student is applying the way he knows from previous years.

After that he started to ask questions and students were answering and participating in a very good manner, where the questions were related to the lesson they already prepared and open ended. He used praise very well for students that answered and involved most of the students in the discussion. Even some of them were answering relatively far answers from the main point but he started relating them to the general topic he asked for and wrote these answers on the side of the board. That way made students able to participate in the discussion even if they were not sure about their answers, and made the teacher able to show them his wide knowledge in the field where he was able to relate the student answers to the points of the lesson. Then he continued to explain beside writing and drawing on the board with various colors to make it more easy for the students to understand.

When half of the time passed away the explanation was almost done. He asked the students to stay calm until he bring a model of DNA that he was explaining about and came back with a built model and a bag full of small pieces that when built properly will be similar to the built one he brought. So, he gave each two students on a desk some of these pieces, and asked them to collect them properly in order to reach the right model and started to help each two of them till they got the model built in the right way.

At last, he asked each student to read loudly an exercise from the book to start solving it after listening for the students answers where they were able to solve it alone but, he was verbalizing the proper wards for them to write on their books and memorize at home. That’s why solving problems did not take much time; he had time to emphasize the main points of the lesson and ask them to prepare the next one.

The observations that were done in this class were very efficient in studying the types of knowledge, where the teacher reached some of them in a good way. It was obvious that he know very well about the content that he is teaching from the way he was relating the students answers to the points of the lesson. He also showed a good pedagogical knowledge were he used drawings, writing main points and showed models to insure that students understand. Also, he showed a little general pedagogical knowledge, where he was not able to communicate well with students that did not make their home works, and students that did not participate in giving answers. In addition to that, he showed a little knowledge about knowledge of learners and learnings by not giving his students the instructions that he wants to solve the home work in the appropriate way, forgetting about the different abilities to draw and solve and ignoring the different English levels that was obvious in his class.

At the end of these observations, the importance of the types of knowledge should become clear for teachers by training them to apply them and be aware of their mistakes, in order to be more careful for their students and career also.

EDUC560

The course EDUC560 is one of the most interesting courses that are given for Teaching Diploma students at Lebanese International University. Although, it still looks not practical enough with respect to most of schools in Lebanon, but it will be very helpful at schools out of the country where the educational system is more professional than here, hoping that it will be used efficiently later in our official and private schools all over the country.