ED102

• The Seven Philosophies of Education

  • Essentialism
  • Progressivism
  • Perennialism
  • Existentialism
  • Behaviorism
  • Linguistic Philosophy
  • Constructivism
• Essentialism


  • Teachers teach learners to acquire basic knowledge, skills, and values
  • Teachers teach not to radically reshape society but rather to transmit the traditional moral values and intellectual knowledge students need to become model citizens
  • Programs are academically rigorous
  • Emphasis is on academic content for students to learn the basic skills or the fundamental r's since they are essential to the acquisition of higher or more complex skills needed in preparation for adult life
  • It includes the traditional disciplines such as math, natural sciences, history, foreign language, and literature
  • Teachers and administrators decide what is most important for the students to learn
  • Teachers emphasize mastery of subject matter
  • Teachers are expected to be intellectual and moral models of their students
  • Teachers rely on the use of prescribed textbooks, drills, lectures, and other methods. Stress is on memorization and discipline
• Progressivism


  • Teachers teach to develop learners into becoming enlightened and intelligent citizens of a democratic society
  • The curriculum is need-based and relevant. It responds to students' needs and relates to their personal lives and experiences
  • Progressivists accept the impermanence of life and the inevitability of change
  • Teachers are more concerned with teaching the learners skills to cope with change
  • Teachers focus on the teaching of skills or processes in gathering and evaluating information and in problem-solving
  • Emphasis is on the natural and social sciences
  • Teachers expose students to new scientific, technological, and social developments; reflecting the progressivist notion that progress and change are fundamental
  • Students solve problems in the classroom similar to those they will encounter outside the school
  • Teachers employ experiential methods (learning by doing)
  • John Dewey – book learning is no substitute for experience
  • Hands-on-minds-on teaching methodologies are used in progressivism such as problem-solving, field trips, thought-provoking games, and puzzles
• Perennialism


  • It develops students' rational and moral powers
  • 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
  • All human beings possess the same essential nature
  • It is heavy on humanities, a general curriculum
  • There is less emphasis on vocational and technical education
  • Mortimer Adler – the Great Books of ancient & medieval as well as modern times are a repository of knowledge & wisdom, a tradition of culture which must initiate each generation
  • Teachers teach what is lifted from the Great Books
  • Perennialist classrooms are centered around teachers
  • Teachers apply whatever creative techniques & other tried & true methods which are more 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


  • Helps students understand and appreciate themselves as unique individuals who accept complete responsibility for their thoughts, feelings, and actions
  • The teacher's role is to help students define their own essence by exposing them to various paths they take in life & by creating an environment in which they freely choose their own preferred way
  • It demands the education of the whole person, not just the mind
  • Students are given a wide variety of options from which to choose. Humanities, however, are given tremendous emphasis to provide students with vicarious experiences that will help unleash their own creativity and self-expression
  • Vocational education is regarded more as a means of teaching students about themselves and their potential
  • Existentialism encourages individual creativity and imagination more than copying and imitating established models. Learning is self-paced and self-directed
  • Teachers employ a values clarification strategy where teachers remain non-judgmental and take care not to impose their values on their students since values are personal
  • It involves a great deal of individual contact with the teacher who relates to students openly and honestly
• Behaviorism


  • This school of thought is concerned with the modification and shaping of students' behavior by providing for a favorable environment
  • Behaviorists look at people and other animals as complex combinations of matter that act only in response to internally or externally generated physical stimuli
  • Teachers teach students to respond favorably to various stimuli in the environment
  • Teachers ought to arrange environmental conditions so that students can make the responses to stimuli. Teachers make the stimuli clear and interesting to capture and hold the learners' attention. They provide appropriate incentives to reinforce positive responses and weaken or eliminate negative ones
• Linguistic Philosophy


  • To develop the communication skills of the learner because the ability to articulate, to voice out the meaning and values of things that one obtains from the experience of life and the world is the very essence of man
  • Teachers teach to develop in the learner the skill to send messages clearly and receive messages correctly
  • Learners should be taught to communicate clearly. Communication takes place in three ways: verbal (the content of the message, the choice, and arrangement of words; this can be oral or written), non-verbal (the message we send through our body language), and paraverbal (how we say what we say – the tone, pacing and volume of voices)
  • There is a need to caution the learners of the verbal and non-verbal communication
  • Teach the learners to use language that is correct, precise, grammatical, coherent, and accurate in order to communicate clearly and precisely their thoughts and feelings
  • Help students expand their vocabularies to enhance their communication skills. Teach them to speak as many languages as they can. A multilingual has an edge over a monolingual or Bilingual
  • The most effective way to teach language and communication is the experiential way. Make them experience sending and receiving messages in verbal, non-verbal, and para-verbal manner
  • Make the classroom a place for the interplay of minds and hearts. The teacher facilitates dialogue among learners and between him/her and the students because in the exchange of words, there is also an exchange of ideas
• Constructivism


  • It develops intrinsically motivated and independent learners adequately equipped with learning skills for them to be able to construct knowledge and make meaning of them
  • Learners are taught how to learn. They are being taught learning processes and skills
  • Principles of constructivism: It takes time to learn, learning is an active learning process in which learners use sensory input and construct meaning out of it, People learn to learn as they learn, The crucial action of constructing meaning is mental
  • The teacher provides students with data or experiences that allow them to hypothesize, predict, manipulate objects, pose questions, research, investigate, imagine, and invent
  • It promotes a dialogical exchange of ideas among learners and between teachers and students. The teacher's role is to facilitate this process
  • Knowledge is constructed by learners through an active, mental process of development; learners are the builders and creators of meaning and knowledge
• Your philosophy of education is your "window" to the world and "compass" in life. Your philosophy of education is reflected in your dealings with students, colleagues, parents, and administrators
• Your philosophy of education includes your concept about the human person, the learner in particular and the educated person; what is true and good and therefore must be taught; and how a learner must be taught in order to come close to the truth
• Your philosophy is your own thought and formulation, never formulated for you by others. That is why, you are advised to begin stating it with the phrase "I believe"
• Teachers are perceived to be very important in a community, respected in a community, and help in the community to some extent
• Community Perception on Beliefs and Attitudes about Teachers and Teaching

  • The most intelligent child should be encouraged to enter the teaching profession
  • Teacher sets moral standards in the community
  • Teachers make good parents
  • Men should be encouraged to enter the teaching profession
  • The teaching profession is lowest paid
  • Teachers should be paragons of virtue
  • Children obey and respect their teachers
  • play an active role in disciplining children
  • Praising boosts a child's self-confidence
  • A teacher is a child's model
  • Child's interest in studies upon teachers
  • Parents entrust children's welfare to teachers
• Even on your worst day on the job, you are still some children's best hope
• A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops
• Morality


  Refers to the quality of human acts by which we call them right or wrong, good or evil
• Human action is right when it conforms with the norm, rule or law of morality
• A man's action, habit or character is good when it is not lacking of what is natural to man, i.e. when it is in accordance with man's nature
• Intellect makes man capable of thinking, judging and reasoning. His free will gives him the ability to choose
• Foundational moral principle


  The universal norm upon which all other principles on the rightness or wrongness of an action are based. It is the source of morality
• Natural law


  The law "written in the hearts of men" (Romans 2:15). For theists, it is "man's share in the Eternal Law of God..."
• The fundamental or foundational moral principle is "Do good and avoid evil"
• This principle is ingrained in man's nature. It is built into the design of human nature and woven into the fabric of the normal human mind
• All peoples on earth, no matter how savage and illiterate, have recognized a supreme law of morality
• Natural law


  The law "written in the hearts of men" (Romans 2:15)
• Natural law (for theists)


  Man's share in the Eternal Law of God
• Natural law (St. Thomas Aquinas)

  The light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil... an imprint on us of the divine light
• The natural law that says "do good and avoid evil" is ingrained in man's nature
• All peoples on earth, no matter how savage and illiterate, have recognized a supreme law of divine origin commanding good and forbidding evil
• Versions of the natural law that says "do good and avoid evil"

  • Kung-fu-tsu: "Do not do to others what you do not like others to do to you"
  • Christianity's Golden Rule: "Do to others what you like others do to you"
  • Immanuel Kant: "Act in such a way that your maxim can be the maxim for all"
• For Christians, the natural law is made more explicit through

  • The Ten Commandments
  • The Eight Beatitudes
• The two great commandments for Christians

  • Love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength
  • Love your neighbor as you love yourself
• The Buddhists state the natural law through


  • The eightfold path: 1. Strive to know the truth 2. Resolve to resist evil 3. Say nothing to hurt others 4. Respect life, morality, and property 5. Engage in a job that does not injure others 6. Strive to free their mind of evil 7. Control their feelings and practice proper forms of concentration
• Buddha taught that "hatred does not cease by hatred; hatred ceases only by love"
• The Islamic Koran forbids lying, stealing, adultery, and murder, and teaches honor for parents, kindness to slaves, protection for the orphaned and widowed, and charity to the poor
• The Five Pillars of Islam

  • Prayer
  • Self-purification by fasting
  • Fasting
  • Almsgiving
  • Pilgrimage to Mecca for those who can afford
• Good moral character for a teacher


  1. Being fully human - realizing your potential as a human person 2. Being a loving person - caring in an unselfish and mature manner 3. Being a virtuous person - acquiring good habits and attitudes and practicing them consistently 4. Being a morally mature person - reaching a level of emotional, social, mental, and spiritual development appropriate to your stage
• Our act is moral when it is in accordance with our human nature, and immoral when it is contrary to our human nature
• Values formation


  The cultivation of affectivity, leading the education through exposure to the experience of value
• Perspectives on values


  • Idealist Group: There are unchanging and universal values that remain unchanged amidst changing times
  • Relativists: There are no universal and unchanging values, values are dependent on time and place