Should education aim at the transmission of existing knowledge or, rather, at fostering the abilities and dispositions conducive to inquiry and the achievement of autonomy? In addition, the pursuit of fundamental questions in more or less all the core areas of philosophy often leads naturally to and is sometimes enhanced by sustained attention to questions about education e. For these reasons, and perhaps others, it is not surprising that the philosophical tradition has generally regarded education as a worthy and important target of philosophical reflection.
It is therefore unfortunate that the pursuit of philosophy of education as an area of philosophical investigation has been largely abandoned by general philosophers in the last decades of the twentieth century, especially in the United States. Hamlyn, R. Hare, Alasdaire MacIntyre, A. The reasons for this loss are complex and are mainly contingent historical ones that I will not explore here.
It remains, nevertheless, that this state of affairs is unfortunate for the health of philosophy of education as an area of philosophical endeavor, and for general philosophy as well. One purpose of this volume is to rectify this situation. The essays that follow are divided in a way that reflects my own, no doubt somewhat idiosyncratic understanding of the contours of the field; other groupings would be equally sensible.
In the first section, concerning the aims of education , Emily p. The next concerns a variety of issues involving thinking, reasoning, teaching, and learning. Richard Feldman discusses epistemological aspects of thinking and reasoning as they are manifested in the educational context. Jonathan Adler offers an account, informed by recent work in cognitive science as well as epistemology, of the nature of fallibility and its educational significance. Eamonn Callan and Dylan Arena offer an account of indoctrination, while Stefaan Cuypers does the same for authenticity.
David Moshman provides a psychological account of the development of rationality, while Gareth Matthews raises doubts concerning the contributions developmental psychology might make to the philosophical understanding of the various cognitive dimensions of education.
The third section focuses on moral, value, and character education. Elijah Millgram focuses on moral skepticism and possible attendant limits of moral education. Graham Oddie offers a metaphysical account of value as part of a general approach to values education. The next section treats issues arising at the intersection of knowledge, curriculum, and educational research. David Carr addresses general questions concerning the extent to which, and the ways in which, the curriculum is and ought to be driven by our views of knowledge.
Robert Audi and Richard Grandy both address questions concerning science education—the first focusing on the ways in which religious toleration and liberal neutrality might constrain science education, and the second on contemporary cognitive scientific investigations of teaching and learning in the science classroom.
Denis Phillips assesses extant philosophical critiques of educational research and discusses the scientific status, current state, and future promise of such research. The fifth section addresses social and political issues concerning education.
Amy Gutmann and Meira Levinson both address contentious questions concerning education in the contemporary circumstances of multiculturalism, while Lawrence Blum treats the problematic character and effects of prejudice and the prospects for overcoming them.
Rob Reich investigates the moral and legal legitimacy of some varieties of educational authority, emphasizing the important but often overlooked interests of children. The final section includes three papers that discuss particular approaches to philosophy of education: Randall Curren considers pragmatic approaches to the subject, Nel Noddings feminist approaches, and Nicholas Burbules postmodern approaches.
All three provide useful overviews of and also critically address the promise of and problems facing the target approaches. All of these chapters exhibit both the deep and genuinely philosophical character of philosophical questions concerning education, and the benefits to be gained by sustained attention, by students and philosophers alike, to those questions.
Most of them are written by distinguished general philosophers; they reflect both a sophisticated mastery of the core areas of philosophy to which these authors have made independent important contributions and a deep grasp of the significance of philosophical questions concerning education. All of them exemplify the benefits to be derived from a fruitful interaction between philosophy of education and the parent discipline.
The time is right for philosophy of education to regain its rightful place in the world of general philosophy. And it is for this reason that I am especially pleased to have been involved in the present project.
Happily, there have been some positive developments on this score in recent years, as well as some honorable exceptions to the general neglect of philosophy of education in recent decades by the community of general philosophers. Archambault, Reginald D. Philosophical Analysis and Education. Find this resource:. Curren, Randall a. Craig pp. London: Routledge. Doyle, James F.
Educational Judgments: Papers in the Philosophy of Education. Frankena, William K. Hamlyn, D. Experience and the Growth of Understanding. A teacher should know how to include all students in learning at their own level, and a teacher should be able to inspire the students to push themselves to the next level. Having access to knowledge resources is as important to a child's education as the actual curriculum content.
Relevant and current information must be at the teachers' and students' fingertips to provide answers when the questions are still fresh. Information "on demand" is more valuable than information "just in case. Students should know how their taxon and locale memory systems work. Students should have skills and strategies to be able to work effectively in the different levels of the cognitive domain as defined by Benjamin Bloom.
Students should be aware of their own learning preferences, and teachers should assist with creating a plan to develop other learning skills. Educational tools are a means to an end. For example, technology used appropriately can greatly magnify the students' capacity to learn and the teachers' capacity to teach, inspire, and motivate. Please share your philosophy in the comment section below. Also, if you wish to analyze mine and give me feedback, I would appreciate that, too.
Students need to learn. How will you use student evaluations to improve your teaching? How might you learn new skills? How do you know when you've taught effectively? Now that you've written down your values, attitudes, and beliefs about teaching and learning, it's time to organize those thoughts into a coherent form.
Perhaps the easiest way of organizing this material would be to write a paragraph covering each of the seven prompts you answered in the previous tab. These would then become the seven major sections of your teaching philosophy. Another way of knitting your reflections together—and one that is more personal—is to read through your notes and underscore ideas or observations that come up more than once.
Think of these as "themes" that might point you toward an organizational structure for the essay. For example, you read through your notes and realize that you spend a good deal of time writing about your interest in mentoring students.
This might become one of the three or four major foci of your teaching philosophy. You should then discuss what it says about your attitudes toward teaching, learning, and what's important in your discipline. No matter which style you choose, make sure to keep your writing succinct.
Aim for two double-spaced pages. And don't forget to start with a "hook. Hook your readers by beginning with a question, a statement, or even an event from your past. Remember to provide concrete examples from your teaching practice to illustrate the general claims you make in your teaching philosophy. The following general statements about teaching are intended as prompts to help you come up with examples to illustrate your claims about teaching. For each statement, how would you describe what happens in your classroom?
Is your description specific enough to bring the scene to life in a teaching philosophy? I am an expert, and my role is to model for them complex ways of thinking so that they can develop the same habits of mind as professionals in the medical field.
I always make an effort to engage and motivate my students when I lecture. An important part of my job as a professor of geology is to provide these opportunities. By learning the scientific method, they develop critical thinking skills they can apply to other areas of their lives.
Small group work is a crucial tool for teaching the scientific method. By reading and commenting on other students' work in small cooperative groups, my students learn to find their voice, to understand the important connection between writer and audience, and to hone their editing skills.
Small group work is indispensible in the writing classroom. As you start drafting, make sure to note the specific approaches, methods, or products you use to realize those goals.
According to a survey of search committee chairs by the University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, there are five elements that are shared by strong teaching philosophy statements:. You might find it useful to compare your draft to other teaching philosophies in your discipline.
It can also be useful to have a colleague review your draft and offer recommendations for revision. These exercises will give you the critical distance necessary to see your teaching philosophy objectively and revise it accordingly.
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