Assignment No. 1
Assignment No. 1
Assignment No. 1
Introspection, intuition, insight, and whole-part logic are used to bring to consciousness the
forms or concepts which are latent in the mind. Character is developed through imitating
examples and heroes. The purpose of education is to contribute to the development of the mind
and self of the learner. The education-imparting institute should emphasize intellectual
activities, moral judgments, aesthetic judgments, self-realization, individual freedom, individual
responsibility, and self-control in order to achieve this development. In an idealistic education
system emphasis should be placed on developing the mind, personal discipline, and character
development. A person should be literate and of good moral character. The aim of education is
to brings the child as close to Absolute Truth as possible.
All of the aims of the idealist as educator find their ground in the conception of Ultimate Reality
and the students' relation to this Reality. In idealism, the aim of education is to discover and
develop each individual's abilities and full moral excellence in order to better serve society.
More specifically, the school can take a leading role in defining and refining our knowledge of
Truth and the Absolute. The school has a responsibility to find and to train future leaders. As
will be seen, much of the curriculum for the idealist is based on the study of earlier leaders.
Certainly the distinguishing between and the development of leaders smacks of education for
followership (or subservience to the state) is found in the Gentile reforms instituted in Italy in
the 1920's.
The school, as one of the social institutions concerned with the Absolute must make judgments
as to what is right and what is wrong; thus, one of the aim of education would be to develop
morality. Another aim of education is the maintenance and transmission of the established
values of the past. Once we have established that something is good, or true, or beautiful, it is a
responsibility of the school to pass it one to succeeding generations. Along with history and
biography, the idealist curriculum emphasizes the study of the humanities. Underlying the
selection of materials is the concern for selection of subject matter that deals with ideal man and
ideal society. Thus, we find the idealists strong in their belief that the proper study of mankind is
man" and interpreting this to mean the history of the human race.
Books are the source of this subject matter, the subject matter of ideas. To understand society
and life we must study history. To understand man we must study literature and the humanities.
The idealist wants to see the entire and absolute pattern of life and, in order to do this, history
and the humanities are the most important subjects. The curriculum is based upon the idea or
assumption of the spiritual nature of man. This idea in turn leads to an idea of the nature of the
larger units of family, community, state, earth; the universe, and infinity. In preserving the
subject matter content, which is essential for the development of the individual mind, the
curriculum must include those subjects essential for the realization of mental and moral
development. These subjects provide one with culture, and they should be mandated for all
pupils. Moreover, the subject matter should be kept constant for all. The idealist tradition of
subject matter is basically literary and places its primary emphasis on the subject matter of
books, especially hose literary pieces considered the masterworks of information about ideas.
Because of the idealist's reliance on the world of the mind, their curriculum calls for little
contact with the experiential universe. The idealist educator has little place in his curriculum for
field trips and empirical or sensory data.
Idealism has been influential in education for a considerable amount of time. It is considered
conservative philosophy because of its emphasis in preserving cultural traditions. The strengths
of idealism include encouraging thinking and cognition, promoting cultural learning, and
providing for character development of students. Teachers are considered valuable parts of the
educational process who should strive to provide a comprehensive, systematic, and holistic
approach to learning that stresses self-realization. Science today has challenged idealism and
brought about challenges to idealistic principles. Science is based on hypothesis and
tentativeness, but idealism promotes a finished and absolute universe waiting to be discovered.
Idealism has often been linked with traditional religion. The weakening of religion has led to the
weakening of idealism as a philosophy. Through Plato's ruler kings, and Augustine's emphasis
on the monastic life, it has been said that idealism leads to intellectual elitism. In the past,
education was considered important for the upper classes of society, marking education as a
luxury.
Vocational and technical studies were considered good enough for the general public. Idealistic
education was considered bookish and lacking relevance. It is argued that the character
development aspect of the philosophy involved conformity and subservience on the part of the
learner. This type of character development was considered to stifle creativity and self-direction,
making students gullible and ready to accept ideas without serious examination. The emphasis
on the importance of knowledge and ideas in the idealist philosophy originally led me to believe
that much of my philosophy of education included idealistic tendencies. James Madison's quote
that knowledge is power, which sits front and center on my class webpage, seems to agree with
this premise. Because I believe strongly in project-based education as a way to have students
discover and learn new information, I also began to view the idealism in my thinking.
However, as much as I value these things and continue to believe in the importance of
continually gaining knowledge, the fact that I view science and technology as a valued part of
all education, sets me apart from the philosophy. While the idealist considered science and
technical studies good enough for the general public, I consider them an integral part of any
education. However, I do believe in the importance of teaching children to think, for not doing
so results in children with book learning and no common sense. Critics of the idealist philosophy
of education have been vocal and consistent, and there is, indeed, no lack of arguments opposing
the position both philosophically and educationally. Here then is sex of the most common
criticisms of this philosophical school.
1. Sets Unobtainable Goals
For the educator who is concerned with having the child reach out and grasp the Ideal there
are two significant problems. First, if perfection is unreachable there is very little desire on
the part of most to become perfect. For the idealist student the goals are often too far away.
Second, the idealists have set up a final goal: to know the Ideal and become part of it. This
implies a finite tend and as such means that we have a final end in view. It argues strongly
against those who take the point of view that man is infinitely perfectible.
2. Ignores the Physical Self
The body cannot be ignored. If we try to ignore the body it soon intrudes itself upon us. We
do, whether we like the idea or not, react to and fake into our mind an deal with, on the
intellectual level, such question as whether or not we are hot, cold, hungry, tired, happy, or
sad. We will often give our greatest thought to changing or modifying our physical realm,
particularly where we are trying to avoid discomfort. In the classroom the teacher who
would forget that the student has a body as well as a mind will soon be faced with discipline
problem as youthful spirits react to bodily demands. Thus, to try to separate mental activity
from the physical and to try to place Ideas in a realm unrelated to the existent world
becomes nothing more than an exercise in futility.
3. Deemphasizes Experience Many ideas cannot have meaning apart from experience. The
ideas of heat and cold are not simply logical constructs, but ways of describing certain
sensations found only in experience. This is not meant to imply that all things must be
rooted in experience. If this were true, we would have great difficulty in dealing with the
study of sub-atomic particles, and the whole field of mathematics might well be called into
question. But, most ideas do find their roots in experience, and to deny the validity of this
experience is to make the universe sterile.
4. Leads to Totalitarianism Some of the critiques of idealism is that is discourages the
progress of science and our modern discovery. It also serves as somewhat of an elitist view
in that although the classics have merit for use in the classroom, they are not necessarily the
choice for all students. To only concentrate on the classic writings is to waste a vast amount
of wonderful knowledge that has been gained through contemporary writings and art.
Furthermore; creating a society in which students are taught to be docile and accept without
challenging those areas held to be absolute could essentially be creating an environment in
which students are subservient and quick to confirm.
It may become the very antithesis of Democracy since it argues that the best equipped for
leadership are those who are closest to the Ideal. Plato, in the Republic, sets up a perfect society
in which the leaders are the Philosopher-Kings, of the Ideal. Gentile, in twentieth century Italy,
provides another example of the dangers of what can happen when the social theory inherent in
the idealistic philosophy is put into practice in the ruling of nations.
5. Emphasizes Humanities
The idealist philosopher demands that all must conform to the laws which are the immutable
working of the Ideal. There is, in idealism, the assumption of a universal morality which will
lead to the perfect moral and ethical order. Since much, if not all, of this has an optimistic,
humanities oriented outlook, it may lead to a rejection of the whole concept of a technological
society which is mechanistic and scientifically oriented.
6. Overlooks possibility of Error Perhaps the greatest failing of any philosophical system is
that it fails to take into account the possibility that it may be in error. This is especially true of
idealism since its truth is immutable and unchanging. Pragmatism in education involves
practical lessons that have value to the lives of learners Key pragmatist theorists include John
Dewey and Charles S. Pierce A pragmatic classroom involves project-based learning play-based
learning, experimentation, and experiential learning The opposite of pragmatic education would
be what we call idealist education'. Idealist educators teach abstract ideas that aren't useful in
real life. If you only like to learn things that are relevant to your life, you might be a pragmatist.
• The origins of the term pragmatism are the Greek phrases" practice" and "action".
1. Principle of Utility Everything that students learn should have 'utility. This means that
everything should be useful to the student. A student doesn't care for learning abstract
theoretical ideas that they will never apply to their lives outside of school. Instead, a student
wants to learn things that are relevant to their lives. By making things relevant and useful,
students will be more engaged and eager to learn.
2. Principle of Interest Curriculum content should also include the students' interests. Dewey (a
key pragmatist theorist) argues that students have four interests: conversation, investigation,
construction and creative expression. Therefore, teachers should focus on creating lessons that
involve talking with one another, investigating things through experimentation, making things,
and being creative.
3. Principle of Experience Pragmatists value experience over all else. Students can learn
abstract things all day, but unless they experience those things, they may never truly learn.
Teachers should therefore create a lot of project based, experimental and experiential lessons
that help children 'learn by doing'.
4. Principle of Integration Curriculum content is not separate. Mathematics, science and
creative arts are not three different lessons. Instead, the pragmatic teacher links the curriculum
content together through a process we call 'integration'. The teacher will show students how
concepts from different subjects are related to each other and encourage a holistic understanding
of the topics they are learning. EXISTENTIALISM in as much as pragmatism is mainly an
American philosophy that evolved before the turn of the 20th century, existentialism was mainly
a European philosophy that became popular after World War II. Some of the proponents of
existentialism in American Education include Maxine Greene, George Kneller, and Van Cleve
Morris who stressed that individualism and personal self-fulfillment (Orstein &Hankins, (1988).
According to existentialists, individuals have to make their choices and decisions. Whatever we
choose varies from other individuals. They prefer to free learners to choose what to study and to
determine what is true. Furthermore, they stated that the most important kind of knowledge is
about the human condition and the choices each person has to make, and that education is a
process of developing consciousness about the freedom to choose and the meaning of
responsibility to one's choices.
Q4. Explain the natural knowledge and revealed knowledge. Epistemic
Awareness:
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy defined as the study of human knowledge." Like
epistemology TOK involves questioning our sources and the nature and accuracy of our
knowledge in the hope that we will develop a more informed understanding of what we know
and don't know That is, enabling us to become more epistemically aware. It is important because
accurate knowledge of our two worlds - the real world and the inner world - correctly informs us
of the conditions we must cope with. To know facts is to survive, not to know, or to assess one's
environment wrongly, is to lose the fight for survival. We face two serious epistemological
problems.
How can we determine which facts are true?
As human beings living in the 21st Century we are surrounded by a wealth of information but
not all of it is trustworthy, so we must find a way to double check fact-claims. We must learn
somehow to screen out the fictions but let in the facts. On what criteria can we decide w hat are
facts and what are false claims?
Intuition:
Although the word intuition has connotations of the mystical or unscientific, when carefully
defined it can be considered a source of knowledge. Intuition refers to insights or bits of
knowledge which suddenly 'pop' into consciousness as our deeper subconscious chugs away
working on data that we have collected earlier. We have all probably had the experience where
the answer to a question we were previously thinking about but have currently forgotten has
suddenly popped into our minds for no reason. This is intuition and, as such, like reason, it too is
dependent on our senses to provide the raw material on which the subconscious works.
Sometimes intuition seems to be a 'feeling. We often say something like "I have the feeling he's
not telling the truth," without being sure of why. The psychologist Jung suggested that actually
this is actually a form of unconscious reasoning where your subconscious picks up on the tell-
tale signs of lying (sweating, nervous movements, etc) that are too subtle for your conscious
mind to notice and processes them resulting in the 'feeling that this person is untrustworthy. The
problem with intuition however, is that most of our intuitions are wrong and they need careful
double checking before they are trusted.
Other Sources:
• Faith often accompanied by supernatural
revelation; Instinct;
Racial Memory / the Collective Unconscious - another idea of Jung's, that we have
cultural memories that we can all inherit and share without actually experiencing the
thing that caused the memory in the first place; Extrasensory Perception; Anamnesis
("recollection") or the remembrance of things from a past life; Spiritualism and the
Occult, such as Ouija boards, tarot cards, etc.