TEACHING PROFESSION
PED 11
Name: Jomer M. Josol Group No: 1
PHILOSOPHIES OF EDUCATION
1. Enumerate and define the seven ( 7) Philosophies of Education.
Ans:
ESSENTIALISM- Is an educational philosophy that strives to ensure that students acquire a common
core of knowledge in a systematic, disciplined way.
PROGRESSIVISM- Is a theory of education that concerned with" learning by doing" and purports that
children learned best when pursuing their own interests and satisfying their own needs.
Progressivism focuses on real-world problem solving and individual development.
PERENNIALISM- is a teacher-centered educational philosophy that focuses on everlasting ideas and
universal truths. This educational philosophy aims to prepare students for life by developing
their intellectual and moral qualities through emphasizing knowledge and the meaning of
knowledge, servings to enhance student’s critical thinking skills in their search for individual
freedoms, human rights and responsibilities through nature.
EXISTENTIALISM- is a teaching and learning philosophy that focuses on the student's freedom and agency to
choose their future.
BEHAVIORISM- is a branch of psychology that, when applied to a classroom setting, focuses on conditioning student
behavior with various types of behavior reinforcements and consequences called operant conditioning.
LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY- Linguistic philosophy is the view that many or all philosophical problems can be solved (or dissolved) by
paying closer attention to language, either by reforming language or by understanding the everyday language that we presently use
better.
CONSTRUCTIVISM - is a theory in education that recognizes learners construct new understandings and knowledge, integrating with
what they already know.
2. Elaborate how each philosophy:
ESSENTIALISM
a. "Why teach"- To transmit the traditional moral values and intellectual knowledge that students need to
become model citizens.”
b. "What to teach" - The emphasis is on academic content for students to learn the basic skills or the
fundamental R’s-reading, writing, arithmetic, right conduct- as these are essential to the acquisition of higher
or more complex skills needed in preparation for adult life.
c. "How to teach" - Essentialist teachers emphasize mastery of subject matter. They were expected to be
intellectual and moral models of their students. They are seen as “fountain” of information and as paragon of
virtue, if ever there is such a person. To gain mastery of basic skills, teachers have to observe “core
requirements, longer school day, a longer academic year.
PROGRESSIVISM
a. "Why teach" - to develop learners into becoming enlightened and intelligent citizens of a democratic
society. This group of teachers teaches learners so they may live life fully now not to prepare them for
adult life.
b. "What to teach" - teaching of skills or processes in gathering and evaluating information and in
problem-solving.
c. "How to teach" - Progressivist teachers employ experiential methods. They believe that one learns by
doing. One experiential teaching method that progressivist teachers heavily rely on is the problem-
solving method. This makes use of the scientific method. Other hands-on-minds-on-hearts-on teaching
methods used are field trips during which students interact with nature or society. Teachers also
stimulate students through thought-provoking games and puzzles.
PERRENNIALISM
a. "Why teach" - We are all rational animals. Schools should therefore, develop the students’ rational
and moral powers. According to Aristotle, if we neglect the students’ reasoning skills, we deprive them
of the ability to use their higher faculties to control their passions and appetites.
b. "What to teach" - The goal of a perennialist educator is to teach students to think rationally and
develop minds that can think critically. A perennialist classroom aims to be a closely organized and well-
disciplined environment, which develops in students a lifelong quest for the truth.
c. "How to teach" - The teacher applies whatever creative techniques and others tried and true
methods which are believed to be most conducive to disciplining the students’ minds. Students engaged
in Socratic dialogues or mutual inquiry sessions to develop an understanding of history’s most timeless
concepts.”
EXISTENTIALISM
a. "Why teach" - Teach to help students define their own essence by exposing them to various paths
they take in life and by creating an environment in which they freely choose their own preferred way.
b. "What to teach" - Teach the actions of historical individuals, each of whom provides possible models
for the students’ own behavior. 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.
c. "How to teach"- To help students know themselves and their place in society,teachers employ values
clarification strategy. In the use of such strategy, teachers remain non-judgmental and take care not to
impose their values on their students since values are personal.
BEHAVIORISM
a. "Why teach"- To shape students’ behavior by providing a favorable environment, since they believe
that they are a product of their environment. They are after students who exhibit desirable behavior in
society.
b. "What to teach"- Because behaviorists look at “ people and other animals as complex combinations
of matter that act only in response to internally or externally generated physical stimuli, behaviorist
teachers teach students to respond favorably to various stimuli in the environment.
c. "How to teach"- Behaviorist teachers ought to arrange environmental conditions so that students can
make the responses to stimuli. Teachers ought to make the stimuli clear and interesting to capture and
hold the learners’ attentions. They ought to provide appropriate incentives to reinforce positive
responses and weaken or eliminate negative ones.
LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY
a. "Why teach"- Teachers teach to develop the learner's communication skills the skill to" send
messages clearly and receive messages correctly".
b. "What to teach"- Learners should be taught to communicate clearly.
c. "How to teach" -
CONSTRUCTIVISM
a. "Why teach" - To develop intrinsically motivated and independent learners adequately equipped with
learning skills for them to be able to construct knowledge and make meaning of them.
b. "What to teach" - They are taught learning processes and skills such as searching, critiquing and
evaluating information, relating these pieces of information, reflecting on the same, making meaning
out of them, drawing insights, posing questions, researching and constructing new knowledge out of
these bits of information learned.
c. "How to teach" - In the constructivist classroom, the teacher provides students with data or
experiences that allow them to hypothesize, predict, manipulate objects, pose questions,research,
investigate, imagine and invent.
3. Research further on the following:
a. John Dewy and progressivism
John Dewey (1859-1952)
As a philosopher, social reformer and educator, he changed fundamental approaches to teaching and
learning. His ideas about education sprang from a philosophy of pragmatism and were central to the
Progressive Movement in schooling.
Dewey (1938) described progressive education as “a product of discontent with traditional education”
which imposes adult standards, subject matter, and methodologies (no page number). He believed that
traditional education as just described, was beyond the scope of young learners.
b. John Watson and behaviorism
- was a pioneering psychologist who played an important role in developing behaviorism. Watson
believed that psychology should primarily be scientific observable behavior. He is remembered for his
research on the conditioning process.
-Behaviorism, according to Watson, was the science of observable behavior. Only behavior that could be
observed, recorded and measured was of any real value for the study of humans or animals.
c. William Bagley and essentialism
William C. Bagley (1874–1946) was one of the most influential advocates of essentialism.
- During the 1930s, Bagley joined with numerous others to found Essentialism, an educational
philosophy that sought to retain the valuable aspects of Progressive education while at the same time
emphasizing a unique philosophy of professional education.
d. Jean Paul Sartre and existentialism
Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, novelist, and playwright, best known as the leading exponent of
existentialism in the 20th century.
- The philosophical career of Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) focuses, in its first phase, upon the construction of
a philosophy of existence known as existentialism.
e. Robert Hutchins, Hans Georg Gadamer and linguistic philosophy
Robert Maynard Hutchins (January 17, 1899 – May 14, 1977) was an American educational philosopher.
He was president (1929–1945) and chancellor (1945–1951) of the University of Chicago, and earlier
dean of Yale Law School (1927–1929).
-Hutchins believed in order to educate students for freedom, that they must be educated in the liberal
arts. Robert Hutchins played a great role in philosophy of education. His educational reform helped to
define perennialism. For it was Hutchins, the ultimate perennialist and idealist, who said, �Education
implies teaching. Robert Hutchins gave hundreds of educational speeches a year, consequently leading
the way to a controversial and dramatic reform. His educational philosophies were accessible to the
people through his many books and publications.
-Hans-Georg Gadamer, a student of Martin Heidegger, was a German philosopher of hermeneutics well
known for his highly influential Truth and Method (1960).
-Gadamer’s most important work, Wahrheit und Methode (1960; Truth and Method), is considered by
some to be the major 20th-century philosophical statement on hermeneutical theory. His other works
include Kleine Schriften, 4 vol. (1967–77; Philosophical Hermeneutics, selected essays from vol. 1–3);
Dialogue and Dialectic (1980), comprising eight essays on Plato; and Reason in the Age of Science (1982),
a translation of essays drawn from several German editions.
