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Chapter 6: PHILOSOPHY ROOTS OF EDUCATION
Lecturers : Soeung Sopha
Presented by : Pha Rakim
: Yous Ponleu
: Sam Sreypech

2.  Contents
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1. Philosophies and Theories
2. Special Terminology
3. Idealism
4. Realism
5. Pragmatism
6. Existentialism
7. Postmodernism
8. Educational Theories
9. Essentialism
10. Perennialism
11. Progressivism
12. Critical Theory

3. 1- Philosophies and Theories
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Philosophies:
 is a general worldview that includes
education.
Theories:
 often derived from philosophies or arising
from practice focus more specifically on
education, school, curriculum, and teaching
and learning.

4.  Differences between “ Philosophies and Theories
” of education.
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Philosophies
 Wide-ranging, systematic
complete, global
 Components related to
metaphysics, axiology, episte
mology, and logic.
 Insights derived from the
general philosophical system
Theories
 Focus on education; no
complete philosophical
system offered
 Components related to
specifics of education, such
as curriculum, teaching and
learning
 Insights derived from more
general philosophies or from
school contexts

5. 2. Special Terminology
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As its special terminology, the philosophy of education
uses the basic terms
metaphysics, epistemology, axiology, and logic.
Metaphysics examines the nature of ultimate reality.
Epistemology which deal with knowledge and knowing,
influence methods , of teaching and learning.

6. 2. Special Terminology
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 Axiology which prescribes values- what
we should or should not do- as subdivided
into ethic and aesthetic.
 Ethic examines moral values and
prescribes the standards of
ethical behavior.
 Aesthetics addresses values in beauty and
art.

7. 2. Special Terminology
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 Logic
 Logic are subdivided in to two parts:
 Deductive logic move from general
statements to particular instances and
applications.
 Inductive logic moves from the particular
instance to tentative generalizations that are
subject to further verification and possible
revision.

8.  Philosophy’s Relationships to Education
SUBDIVISION OF PHILOSOPHY RELATED EDUCATIONAL CONCERNS
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 Metaphysics:
 What is real?
 Knowledge of most worth:
The curriculum
 Epistemology:
 What is knowledge based on?
 How we teach and learn:
Method of instruction
 Axiology:
 What is moral and right?(ethics)
 What is beautiful and
good?(aesthetics)
 Behavior, character,
civility, and appreciation
and expression
 Logic:
 How can we reason ?
 How we organize and structure
course, lessons and units

9. 3. Idealism
 Key Concepts
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 Metaphysics
Metaphysics idealists, believe that the
spiritual, nonmaterial world is ultimately real
 Macrocosm and microcosm
 Macrocosm refer to the universal mind, the first
cause, creator, or God.
 Microcosm refer to the personal mind or spirit.

10.  Key Concepts
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 Epistemology
The idealist believe that the
idea that make up reality have
always existed in the mind of
the Absolute, or God.

11.  Key Concepts
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 Axiology
The ideal believe that truth, goodness, and
beauty exist in a universal and eternal order.
idealists prescribe value that are unchanging
and applicable to all people everywhere.
 Logic
The ideal base on the whole-to-part
relationship between the absolute and
individual minds.

12.  The Basic Questions
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The Basic
Questions
Knowledge of
universal
ideas
Schooling: an
intellectual
pursuit of
truth
High
standars

13.  Implications for Today’s Classroom Teacher
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 Intellectual development, not vocational
training
 Internet use

14. 4. Realism
 Key Concepts
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 Knowing as sensation, then abstraction
Metaphysics and Epistemology Realists believe
in a material world that is independent of and external
to the knower’s mind.
 Curriculum of organized subjects
Believe that a curriculum of organized, separate
subject provide the most accurate and efficient way to
learn about reality

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 Axiology
Axiology For realist, certain
rules should govern intelligent
rational behavior.
 Deductive and inductive logic
Realist teachers may use logic
both deductively and inductively.

16.  The basic Questions
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The Basic Question
Knowledge concerns
objects
Education via subject-
matter

17.  Implications for Today’s Classroom Teacher
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 Classrooms for learning not therapy
 Teachers as subject-matter experts
 Example of a realist approach

18. 5. Pragmatism
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 Key Concepts
 Experience
Metaphysics and Epistemology Unlike the
idealist and realist philosophies that assert a
metaphysical foundation of universal and unchanging
reality, pragmatism dismisses metaphysics as
empirically unverifiable speculation.
Experience, defined as the interaction of the
person with the environment, is a key pragmatist
concept.

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 Reconstruction of person and environment
The environment are constantly changing, a
curriculum based on supposedly permanent realities or
universal truth is untenable.
 Relativity of values
Axiology and Logic Pragmatic axiology is highly
situational and culturally relative.
 Inductive logic
Following the scientific method, experimentalist
logic is inductive rather than deduced from first principles
as in idealism and realism.

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The Basic
Question
Knowledge is
tentative
An experiment
process
Cultural
diversity, but
shared learning
processes
School as
microcosm of
society
Transmitting
cultural
heritage
Interdisciplinary
approach

21.  Application for Today’s Classroom Teacher
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 Subject matter as instrumental
 Applying the scientific method
 Classroom as community
 Teacher as risk takers

22. 6. Existentialism
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 Existentialism is more a
process of philosophizing
than it is systematic
philosophy (like idealism
and realism).

23.  Key concepts
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 Personal reflection
-The existentialist author Jean-Paul
Sartre stated that “Existence precedes.”
 Creating one’s essence through choices
-That we did not choose to be in and that
we did not make.

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 Existential angst
- This conception of a human being as the
creator of his or her own essence differs
substantially from the idealist and realist, who
see the person as an already-defined category
in a universal system.
 Choosing self-determination
- We must also cope with the constant
threat that other person, institution, and
agencies pose to our choose making freedom.

25.  The Basic Questions
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 Creating personal values
 Awakening consciousness of human
condition
 Some opportunities for all
 Question and dialogue
 Self-expression need

26.  Implications for Today’s Classroom Teacher
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 Teacher encourages awareness
 External standards depersonalize
education

27. 7. Postmodernism
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 Postmodernism
- Contends that the modern period of
history has ended and that we now live on
postmodern era.
 Constructivism
- A psychology and a method of
education.

28.  Key Concepts
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 Derrida and Foucault
- The French philosopher Michel
Foucault, Jacques, and Nietzsche, rejected the postmodern
idealist and realist claims that there are universal and
unchanging truths.
 Deconstruction
- Claiming that knowledge as a human construction
is expressed by language, Derrida developed
deconstruction as a method to trace the origin and the
meaning of texts or canons.

29.  The Basic Questions
 School reproduce status quo
 Struggle over curriculum
 Teaching as representation
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30.  Implications for Today’s Classroom
Teacher
 Teacher empowerment
 Site-based philosophy
 Postmodernists deconstruct
standards
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31. 8. Educational Theories
 Educational Theories examine the role
and the functions of
school, curriculum, teaching, and
learning.
 In following sections, we examine four
educational theories:
essentialism, perennaislism, progressivis31

32. 9. Essentialism
 Essentialism
- The achievements of human
civilization by transmitting them to
students as skills and subjects in a
carefully organized curriculum.
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33.  The Basic Questions
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 Role of school to teach basic
- Essentialist argue that schools and teachers must
be committed to their primary academic mission and not
be diverted into nonacademic areas.
 Subject-matter boundaries
- Essentialist favor a subject-matter curriculum
that differentiates and organize subjects according to
their internal logical or chronological principle.

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 Suspicious of innovations
- Essentialists the students construct
their own knowledge in a collaborative
fashion, and of authentic assessment in
which students evaluate their own
progress.

35.  Implications for Today’s Classroom Teacher
 Transmitting essential skills
 An essentialist lesson
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36. 10. Perennialism
 Perennialism : Shares many common features
with essentialism, such as using subject matter
to transmit the cultural heritage across
generations.
 School cultivate
 Perennia curiculum
 Education develop the mind
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37.  The Paideia Proposal
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 An Educations Manifesto is
revival of perennialism.
Paideia a Greek word, refer to
a person complete education
and cultural formation

38.  The basic questions
 A general education
- Perennialists assert that in a democratic
society all students have the right to the same
high-quality intellectual education.
 Against cultural relativism
-
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 The school primary role is to develop
students reasoning power.
 Progressivism : originated as a general
reform movement in American society
and political.
 prolonging childhood.

40. 11. Progressivism
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 Progressivism
- Originated as a general reform
movement in American society and
political life in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries

41.  Key concepts
 Practices opposed by progressives
1. Authoritarian teachers
2. Exclusively book-based instruction
3. Passive memorization of factual
information
4. The isolation of schools from society
5. Using physical or pyschological
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42.  Practices favored by progressives
1. The child should be free to develop naturally
2. Interest, motivated by direct experience
3. The teacher should facilitate learning
4. Close cooperation needs to be encouraged between
the school and the home
5. The progressive school should be a laboratory for
experimentation.
 Progressive reforms in schools
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43.  The basic questions
 Readiness, interests, and needs
 Constructing reality
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44.  Example of a progressive strategy
 Pre-project preparation
 Student initiative
 On-site learning
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45. 12. Critical theory
 Critical Theory is a
highly influential
contemporary theory
education.
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46.  Key concepts
 Neo-Marxist influence
 Powerful groups dominate
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47.  The basic questions
 A new public philosophy
 Social control
 Teacher empowerment
 Official curriculum
 “Hidden” curriculum
 Student life story
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48.  Implications for today classroom teacher
 Teachers must empower themselves
1. Find out who their real friends are in struggle for
control of school.
2. Learn who their students are by helping them
explore their own self-identities.
3. Collaborate with local people for school and
community improvement.
4. Join with like-minded teachers in teacher-
controlled professional organizations that work for
genuine education reform
5. Participate in critical dialogues about
political, economic, and educational issues that
confront American society. 48

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Thank you for your pay attention!
Q & A