EDFD201 Reaction Paper: Psycho-Philosophical Foundations of Education Final Paper

EDFD201: Psycho-Philosophical Foundations of Education Final Paper By Maria Ediliza Edel Margarita C. Ramilo ( Sem1. 2010-2011)

THE PLACE OF ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION IN THE EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF SCHOOL TEACHERS SUMMARY (All quotations were taken from the article.) Evelina Orteza, the author of the article, attempted to present the importance of analytic philosophy of education in the education and training of school teachers by first commenting on Philosophy of Education as it was practiced by philosophers of education. She defined Philosophy of Education and labeled it as Traditional Philosophy of Education and presented its limitations in the practice of education. Secondly, she tried to clarify the meaning of her articles title and proceeded to argue for the place of analytic philosophy of education in teacher preparation programs. The author defined Philosophy of Education as ones comprehensive comprehensive view of the world and all all that is in it. From ones Philosophy of Education, it was said that one could draw implications for education, teaching, learning, curriculum, and other significant matters of education. The author, however, found some limitations in the use of the Traditional Philosophy of Education. Some of the limitations mentioned in the article were that it raises questions that are difficult to answer, that only speculative statements can be said about it, and that they are only indirectly connected with educational problems. problems. It was said that the Traditional Philosophy of Education does not make any recommendation as to what ought to be done or should be done in educational practice as it does not clarify or tease out the logical features of concepts central to the educational enterprisesuch that valid rules about their correct use on corresponding objects or states of affairs can be developed and argued for. It was further mentioned that philosophizing in the traditional manner may enhance ones understanding of the basic categories of philosophy, such as the nature of reality, but not necessarily concepts central to the educational enterprise On the other hand, with the use of the Analytic Philosophy of Education, it was said that recent analyses on teaching, learning, caring, and on many other terms, which are concepts central to the educational enterprise, have rendered their central uses/meanings

Page 1 of 13

Trusted by over 1 million members

Try Scribd FREE for 30 days to access over 125 million titles without ads or interruptions! Start Free Trial Cancel Anytime.








clear without appealing to assumptions of a philosophy of education for validation. The author started her discussion on the Analytic Philosophy of Education by first defining the word place as used in the title of the article. The word place was defined as the role or part that it plays and of function, how it operates when dealing with certain problems. The manner of questioning the author used in arriving at the definition of the word place showed how the meaning/use of terms is a central philosophic concern, particularly in Analytic Philosophy, as it concentrates on meaning of words or expressions, hence, it is also known as conceptual or linguistic analysis and characterized as a second-order activity. It is called a second-order activity because it is parasitic on the actual activity that is conducted by someone. Further, Analytic Philosophy is said to be motivated by such questions as: What do you mean? How do you know? and What may we presuppose? The question What do you mean? is said to require a development or establishment of a set of conditions or rules which could be argued to be necessary conditions that are discovered or developed to govern a valid employment of a given term. Observance of these rules demarcates the range of clearly acceptable uses of a term, its unacceptable uses, and doubtful uses. As an example, the author distinguished the concept of teaching from the concepts of training and conditioning. The author exemplified clarity and precision of talk in defining what teaching is. The author further argues that to allow teaching to be used in any way one wants to use it is to say that there is nothing nothing distinctive about about teaching. teaching. With this, the author showed how important it is to apply conceptual or linguistic analysis with concepts related to the educational enterprise. The author then discussed the next question used in Analytic Philosophy after having established rules for valid employment of terms. She then explains the grounds of knowledge and conduct by raising the question: How do we know? It was said that one is obligated to show  ones grounds for claiming that one knows that something is true, that one knows that something exists and that there are external criteria that may be employed to verify ones








In addition, the author advices that a distinction between someone knows that something is true (or right) and that something is true (or right) be made. The phrase one who knows or the state of knowing was also defined as a desirable case in teaching, when a claim is that that something is true is verified verified to be true and it is true that the learner making the claim also knows that it is true. However, the author recognizes that not all problems in life can be comprehended and solved by empirical warrants alone. The examples given by the author where empiricism may not be applicable are moral judgments and religious claims but the author said that as matters of belief figure centrally in our language is reason enough to inquire into its logic, meaning, and relationship with other domains. Recognizing that problems are unique, the author said that depending upon the kind of problem one is faced with, one engages in appropriate ways of reasoning about them and providing facts relevant to them, observing logical distinctions and differentiations in the different kinds of talk. As an example, the author said that the language of science is not superior over the other and that each language has its distinct d istinct domain and function. To further describe the role of Analytic Philosophy of Education, the author said that analytic philosophy of education concentrates on the language or medium in w hich a teaching activity is conducted and that it is not what is taught that is its concern but the language employed by a teacher w hen he or she teaches. The author clarified that the role of philosophy of education is not to make school teachers philosophers but to enable them to become good teachers by making them capable of engaging in analytical and conceptual activities and at the same time capable of arriving at conclusions which they judge are logically and morally sound judgments on which they can act because they are true to educational aims. As an example, the author used analytical philosophy in checking the validity or soundness of the statement to teach is to cause someone to learn where she argued that it is conceptually false and that since teaching is a try verb, sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail even when all intentions to succeed are evident. She further argued that to expect








subject matter and in the position of authority and related these concepts to issues in education. These served as examples of how useful Analytic Philosophy can be for teacher training and education. Another basic role of analytic philosophy of education in the education and training of school teachers is the resolution of practical problems. First, the author compares practical problems with theoretical theoretical problems. problems. Theoretical problems were said said to be matters of knowing why something is the case, if it is a case or why it came about. Practical problems, on the other hand, were said to be gaps, discrepancies, hindrances that prevent one from doing what one knows one ought to do. Practical problems ask what ought to be done in order to reconcile what is, or will be, with what ought to be? The author gave an example on how analytic philosophy of education helps teachers in solving practical problems by discussing the issue of punishment where she advised not to ask whether or not to punish a child but to locate punishment in its appropriate discourse. She further advised that practical problems are not solved by common sense but by breaking them down into their logically distinct components and providing them with suggested solutions or recommendations for actions which are formed by types of knowledge which have a logical bearing on them.

COMMENTS In the authors attempt to prove the statement to teach is to cause something to learn to be false, she said that both teaching and learning are try verbs. By saying this, it is suggested that the act of learning (from the students end) is not automatic when one is teaching. According to her, sometimes the teacher is successful in her attempt but there are times when the teacher fails, even if the teacher puts all her best in the act of teaching. A lot of educators may agree with the author in this but I find her claim very risky. For one, by saying that teaching is a try verb, the act of teaching becomes prone to abuse, as teachers might use it to justify their inability to cause their students to learn. It can make teachers think that since








makes goal/objective setting less valuable because to expect teaching goals/objectives to be met would be too much to ask for, as teaching success cannot be expected all the time, even when given the best of ones efforts. It was also mentioned in the article that teachings end is the development of the learners autonomy. I should agree with this statement as I also believe that the teachers goal is to develop a student who is able to think for oneself. Some even say that the ultimate test of knowing how well a teacher taught his student is when the student can survive even without the presence/guidance of the teacher. However, before the student reaches that point of being self-sufficient or independent, it can be possible that even a good teacher will have to use forcing or conditioning to make his student learn. With this, I disagree with the author when she said that teachers who use forcing or conditioning could be judged as immoral and ignorant. For example, when a pre-school says that he/she does not want to brush his/her teeth, should the teacher refrain himself/herself from forcing the child to do so? I do not think so. Another example is when a teacher is improving class participation. Should the teacher refrain himself/herself from giving star points as positive reinforcement to keep his/her students motivated to participate in class? I do not think so. I cannot even say that by doing either one of those things the teacher can be labeled immoral or ignorant. Another claim mentioned in the article was that in teaching and educating, some learn, some dont, some learn much later, and some never learn at all. I believe that this statement can be really faulty and can even be insulting to us humans. Well, yes, we can say that some learn right away, while some learn much later, but to say that some never learn at all is way over board. Are they saying that the learning rats and parrots are even better than those humans who never get to learn at all? I do not think it is at all possible that a regular human being would not learn at all, in its most extreme sense. Even special children get to learn and do amazing things such as read books, play music, and do house chores. Why put the blame on the ability of the student to learn when we can, as teachers, adapt to our students learning style to maximize their learning experience? Could there be a possibility that those teachers are








from the time of the teaching activity? At that instance, can the student still be labeled as someone who never learns at all? Not likely. With regards to the responsibility of educators, I again agree with the author when she said that before an educator accepts a body of philosophic knowledge about education, grounds must be shown for judging certain claims to be worthy of the names knowledge and education. This I believe is the ideal case, if the teacher recognizes the weight of her responsibility in educating the young. I came to realize this when I got enrolled in the course named Foundations in Teaching in the Early Grades where I got introduced with the various philosophies of education around the world when it comes to educating the young. Being a non-education major major back back in my undergraduate years, I was not aware of all the effects of the different philosophies on the actual teaching and learning activities in the classroom, until I learned them in class. I then realized how irresponsible it is if I would let other people push me to set-up my preschool right away, even without the right information to help me make informed decisions. I could have just said yes to all the suggestions of other people that feel good to be included in my preschool, making my preschool mediocre. For example, should I believe my adviser if he tells me that it is better to make English as my preschools first language so that our preschool would be labeled classy? Should I agree with my adviser if he tells me that one teacher can handle a group of 20 preschool children? Should I say yes to my adviser if he asks me to do away with the playground as it might be a waste of space and instead build another room in the same spot? Again, I do not think so, but I never knew these suggestions were wrong until I took the effort of making myself aware of what education really is about, especially for those in the early grades. Because of this, I further agree with the author when she said that The place of philosophy of education is not to make school teachers philosophers but to enable them to become good school teachers capable of engaging in analytical and conceptual activities and at the same time capable of arriving at conclusions which they judge are logically and morally sound judgments on which they can act because they are true to educational terms. Philosophy of education enables teachers to go about their tasks










they are doing. As a future preschool owner, I ought to have the right answer as to why I am choosing to do things this way and not that way. Before I put-up my preschool, I would need to deal with the practical problems problems I have mentioned above. above. According to the author, One must do something, act on them [practical problems], and remove them so ones activities can go on. It is the teachers responsibility to make sure that the classroom situation is what it ought to be. Yes, that would be too easy to say, perhaps, but where do I actually begin if I really intend to do away with these practical problems? The author suggests that I should first understand concepts central to the educational discourse and their uses. This would then require me to understand the concepts cultural identity, ideal teacher-student ratio, and gross motor development to solve the practical problems I mentioned above. It was said that ones understanding of the concepts central to the educational discourse could also lead to ones knowing what to do in some activities or with some problems and which actions are legitimate to them. To say that ones understanding of the concepts could also lead to knowing what to do suggests that it does not lead to getting practical problems solved all the time. Similarly, the existence of teachers who, despite of their understanding of the many concepts central to the educational discourse, still do not exhibit competence in solving practical problems proves that understanding concepts may not be enough. Yes, analytic philosophy can help teachers understand, but their understanding does not guarantee that they would act the way one should. But then again, the use of analytic philosophy still could lead to the resolution of practical problems and the failures may not even be attributed to analytic philosophy, specifically in my example, but to the person








observing logical distinctions and differentiations in the different kinds of talk. This then suggests that educators should be appreciative of the many different bodies of knowledge that exists and not consider a single body of knowledge as superior to all else. Let us take the case of religion, for example. The country is torn in the issue of the use of contraception as our President supports it while the Catholic Church abhors it. Given this issue, should all Catholic teachers pronounce allegiance to their church leaders? Should they explain to their students how wrong the Presidents decision is? Should they ask their students to rally with them and protest against contraception? Or if they were asked to rally against contraception, should the teachers follow? Considering only a body of knowledge, religion for example, one may easily answer the question above with Yes, why not? but if we consider the Philippine Constitution where the separation of church and state was made clear, there would be a possibility that one would think twice. According to the author, Solutions to practical problems, which have an interdisciplinary character, are integrated or unified by teachers common concerns into a talk or discourse which is relevant to classroom context and experience, experience, hence, understandable to school teachers. With that, I agree that using an interdisciplinary approach is best in solving practical problems as it would increase the possibility of arriving at comprehensive solutions. It is then up to the teacher to figure out which of the different disciplines/bodies of knowledge have a logical bearing on them [practical problems]. Just a disclaimer, I do not wish w ish to demean the Catholic Church in any way by giving this as an example. In fact, I am a Catholic too. Another statement I would like to comment on is: A language of teaching renders teaching distinct from other activities. I believe that this statement is indeed true; in the same way that a








as a tool to clarify and demarcate which word means what. To say that I understand creativity, I would have to state the criteria that make something fall under the category of creativity. I would have to explain the levels of creativity, if levels of creativity exist. I would have to identify which is creative and which is not. According to the author, Philosophy of education studies terms employed by school teachers/educators in their actual teaching and to figure out whether or not their conception of them is clear; that is, they have a clear idea of what it is that they are talking about. However, this may not always be the case in real life, but definitely, it would still be of great help to teachers if they are able to maximize the benefits of analytic philosophy such as clarity and understanding. The author believes that teachers concerns are reduced if they know conceptual and empirical truths about terms central to teaching and if they can discern some of their logical characteristics. I would also have to agree with the author in this statement, as it would be impossible for me to put-up and manage a progressive preschool if I am not even aware of what progressivism is all about: ideals, activities, and language. It would be entirely difficult to even be a teacher, if I do not know what makes one a teacher and when a teacher is called as such. The last statement that I wish to comment on is if philosophy of education is a theoretical activity, then by itself it cannot or does not make any recommendation as to what ought to be done or should be done in educational practice. Well, it may be true that the ability of the philosophy of education to provide specific answers for practical problems may be limited but we cannot discount its importance in giving direction towards which one may move to answer ones practical problems. problems. For example, if I were to put up a school bearing bearing Maria Montessoris philosophy of education, everything that I do has








Compare and contrast the articles PSYCHOLOGY IS ALIVE AND WELL and THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND THE TEACHER (All quotations were taken from the two articles.)

In the article Psychology is Alive and Well, Sigmund Freud, the psychologist, was viewed in a negative light, specifically, as his methodologies in conducting psychological research, which are case studies and introspection, were said to be completely unrepresentative of how modern psychologists conduct their inquiries. Stanovitch even quoted Howard Gardner saying that Freuds style of work is a significant impediment to the development of the discipline since Freuds work does not make use of controlled experimentation which is said to be the most potent weapon in the modern psychologists arsenal of methods. Contrastingly, in the article The Psychologist and The Teacher, R.S. Peters was explaining how genius Freuds work was, as it provided a subsidiary theory for a number of phenomena such as hysteria, dreams, visions, and fantasy that others then had not been able to explain. The author shows great appreciation of Freuds w ork that he even said that Freud provides a paradigm for the progress of psychology. Given this, could it be possible that R.S. Peters would have a problem with Stanovitchs statement that one of the criteria for ones work to be considered scientific is public verifiability? And if psychology were a branch of science, then Freuds work would then be in question for he used a lot of introspection in his studies. This then reflects how Stanovitchs thoughts on psychology as a








said that ten years ago, if one suggested in certain places that psychology might after all be about the mind of man rather than about his bodily movements, there should be a muttering that one needed ones brain tested. This shows how differently people thought about psychology before. Similarly, in the article Psychology is Alive and Well, the author mentioned that not too long ago, people refused to look into Galileos telescope as people used to believe that the way to know about the world was through pure thought and argument or appeal to authority. Furthermore, both articles talked about points in history when resistance happens upon introduction of new ways of thinking. In the article Psychology is Alive and Well, it was mentioned that understanding of human anatomy progressed only haltingly because of lay and ecclesiastical prohibitions against the dissection of human cadavers. Believing that it would defile humanity, they refused to let scientists study human cadavers. Fortunately, through time, it was proven how beneficial it is to know more about the details of the human body. Similarly, in the article The Psychologist and The Teacher, it was mentioned that the belief men are subject to impulse, incontinence and fits of brutishness was faced with resistance by people who believe that man is a rational creature who had free-will and whose behavior was not subject to laws at all. This shows how peoples perception of things change as new knowledge is unearthed through time. This then is another call to educators to be open to possible changes in the current set of beliefs held by the society as these beliefs may eventually have to be changed as new knowledge is discovered. Having opposing views on the issues may be natural as it is human nature to defend ones belief when tested, but ones openness to future changes and advancement of knowledge is inevitable as it also improves or upgrades what we teach our students.










subjects, for humans are way too different from animals like rats which do not have language, history, and institutions that would affect ones behavior. An example given in the article regarding this is the difference between blinking and winking, which are both eye movements. Blinking and winking may both be eye movements but their meanings differ depending on the social context they were done. This social context and its effects in human behavior are what psychologists will be missing out in the st udy of nonhuman behavior. Therefore, the author argues that the results of studies made on nonhuman behavior behavior may not be applicable to men at all. In addition, Peters says that psychology is necessary to supplement the social sciences  to explain the deviations from, breakdowns in, and individual differences in adaptation to the particular rules and terms in the social world. He argues that one of the most obvious explanations of human differences in adaptation, and of breakdowns and deviations in performance is that the conditions under which the rules are passed on are different. The statement above deliberately points to the need for education to be studied by psychologists as its effect is tremendous in shaping human behavior. This is what R.S. Peters was advocating in his article. He is arguing that there is so much to be learned from the








interdisciplinary interdisciplinary approach in solving problems in education as it can lead to comprehensive solutions. Lastly, another similarity found in both articles was the argument on issues of common sense. In the article Psychology is Alive and Well, there was a considerable list of folk wisdom that were believed to be true but after having g one scientific testing were proven to be false. In the same light, in the article The Psychologist and the Teacher, it was mentioned that some people think that most educational psychology is systematic common sense and that there is little in psychology that good teachers do not already know but in reality this may turn out to be false as R.S. Peters explains that teachers have a lot of hunches but if asked to produce good evidence for them, they would be rather at a loss. Both articles showed that matters of knowledge tagged as common sense issues can still benefit from the scientific investigation. In the same light, Stanovitch mentions a study made by the psychologist Baruch Fischoff called the hindsight effect. Fischoff found out that people do not realize how much of their ability to explain the behavior of others is due to hindsight; namely, their knowledge that the behavior has already happened. We fail to realize that we could not have been able to predict behavior in advance. Given this situation, R.S. Peters

EDFD201 Reaction Paper: Psycho-Philosophical Foundations of Education Final Paper

Recommend Documents