06 October 2010

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION: What it all concerns with?

From the Greek word 'Philos' which means love and 'sophia'refers to wisdom. Philosophy of education is concerned with inquiry into the most comprehensive principles of reality in general.
It is the love of wisdom and search for it by logical reasoning for understanding of the basic truths and principles of the universal life ,thus morals and human perception on understanding the needs of life.
Philosophy has branches which are:
♦Epistemology which is the branch of seeking truth and fountain of knowledge. It closely linked to teaching and learning ,with sources of information from revealed scared religious documents ,for example,bible,qur'ãn,upanishards,dreams ,vedas,etc. Rational from general reasoning,Intuitive thus beneath the thresh hold of conscience. Authorative of great books,encyclopedia, And empirical that scientific researches which then proved as real facts.
♦Metaphysics deals with issues of reality and abstract principles. Meta means after beyond and physics concerned with spiritual issues.
♦Axiology deals with values and standards ethics ,moral values and standards. Aesthetics concerns with values in beauty and art.
Logic is the tool used in philosophy with the reasonableness in an argument. There are two types of logic: Inductive thus particular instance moving towads generalisation and deductive which is general pprinciples to a particular application.
Semantics is meaning of symbols or sounds produced by people in their communication language. The teacher ensures that the messege gets across. What is about to be delived is clear that the language is being used is appropriate to the audience.
Plato says education means training which gives suitable habits to the first instincts of virtues(goodnes) in children,so that pleasure and pain are rightly planted in non-rational(unreasonable).
Please note Plato like all other traditionalists has strong negative view of the child. He sees children like unreasonable people. He sticks a lot to the emphasis of giving them training because skills and knowledge are not inborn. Education also teaches moral values.
Schefield (1972:31)asserts, ''Education is that which fits a man to perform just skilfully ,thoroughly and magnanimously in all offices both in peace and in war.''
Freire(1972:45)gives a very short but precise and controversial definition when says ,''Education is suffering from narration sickness''. He views education as a diseases which makes learners to retell what they have been taught without any input of their own.
Children are seen as empty headed and the teacher is regarded as a jug full of knowledge into the 'Tarbula-rasa' empty sheet of paper .
The banking method of education according to traditionalists ,the child 's mind is seen as an empty bank account in which the teacher deposits knowledge.
The teacher talks about reality as if it is where motionless static and predicatable. The task is to fill up the child's mind with contents of his/her narration.
Pupils memorise and repeat what they had learnt from their teacher even without understanding it, and this is what referred by Paulo Freire as the 'pedagogy of teaching of the oppressed people. To remove this 'evil' he advocates for education for liberation.

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